Weblog research challenges

This is a note to myself (because I woke up thinking :); to be expanded later.

Weblog research challenges:

• Moving target
• Sociotecnical system (technology and practices of using it evolving together)
• Heterogenity: technology, practices
• Subcultures without clear borders (lots of “fussy logic” :)
• Population is unknown –> sampling
• “Teasing data” – lots of out there in public, but getting it is a challenge (distributed, heterogenious formats)
• Interpreting data – underlying practices are often unclear (invisible that matters!)
• Bloggers as researchers –> metablogging that changes practices
• Weblog researchers who blog –> changing the system
• Ethics: informed consent (unknown population :), involvement, public vs. personal…
• Complexity :)

This post also appears on channel weblog research

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/10/31.html#a1406; comments are here.

• How blogging makes my life difficult
• Weblog conversations are flows in a river delta
• Weblog and paper blind review

Tagged as: blog research