Mercurial

Let’s play with this.

A blog is a participatory exercise in public opinion, a discussion that occurs on asynchronous time, a permanently updated and current critical assessment of the world we live in, both in a personal and a political level.
A blog is much more than a journal, or a me-page. It includes, and reflects, the opinions of thousands of others, bloggers as well, that with each post shape the perception of what is current and important in the noosphere at any given moment. Such is their weight in current affairs, politicians are starting to notice blogs as an important tool to woo voters and gauge reactions to possible stances on issues.

Let’s play with this, again.

A blog is emergent, distributed, networked and dynamic.
Emergent: The blog phenomenon can be understood when taking into account that, unless its counterparts, the web journals and the me-pages, the blog is making extensive use of the search functionalities, such as google, popularity indicators, like technorati and ecosystem, and breaking news indicators, such as blogdex and daypop. Unlike other prior attempts, the blog has taken advantage of the ease of use of the posting software, something inexistent three years ago (Winer notwithstanding), and the acceptance with which the concept has been received: This time, it is not for geeks and nerds, but every person with the widest variety of likes and dislikes, opinions and orientations.
The software available, such as Movable Type, Userland Radio and Blogger, to cite only three major players, has eased into the public awareness through the extensive use of such concepts as usability and friendly design, making emphasis on the content and on allowing the user to post their entries with ease, allowing as well the connection between other blogs as well.
And therein lies its power. The blog is not defined by any individual, but precisely by the very nature of the multitude of amateur writers that pour sentiment and criticism over every possible bit of news. The community that arises is aware of the births diseases and deaths of its integrants. They vote, inform and decide, and using the aggregator sites shown above, extract meaning out of the formless and discordant aggregation of conflicting information and non-truths that make up our news.
Example: When the NYT was reporting about the marches against the war in Iraq, the blogs were fundamental to show the true numbers, showing the pictures that demonstrators from all over the world had taken with their own cameras.

Distributed: The blog does not belong to anybody. Although you see A-listers all the time, and according to simple power laws only a few have a significantly bigger readership than the rest of the blogosphere, the opinions are, in any case, what are formed within the blogosphere in general, not just those of any particular group. A blog is the best example of a democratic regime: chaotic, vague and self-regulating.
For a history of the blog, nobody better than Rebecca Blood. One of the wonders about the blog is the rapid emergence of the idea amid mainstream consciousness, the speed with which this solidifies and coalesces around the expression of the individual, and the importance of the blog as defines by links and the informal networks that form around the most read.

Dynamic, because the links that make it, and the opinions that influence the make up of the blogosphere, change constantly. There is neither such thing as a fixed theory of the blog, nor a dogmatic quality about it. More the opposite of that, the blog responds to the generalized input of everybody, both those that express their opinions through blogs and comments, as well as of those that remain silent: both groups have an influence on what is finally perceived. The waxing and waning interest in various themes and ideas that ripple through the blogosphere are a very good indicator of this quality. The blog authors are, by and large, human beings (there are some pets around) with an incredible amount of tastes, activities and interests. Not one thing can hold us pinned to the board for very long, although we all have one passion or another.

Networked: A blog exists around a space that reads it and interacts with it. A gaggle of bloggers get together, on their own time, and aesthetically search and prod for that which makes them resonate. We identify with ideas and concepts, and we love the recognition, but be careful! This is neither an exercise in hedonism nor a narcissistic idea: We are, first and foremost, communicative animals, and the blog allows us to expand, search and develop a group within which we can expose, bounce and pass ideas. In this I have to disagree with Marysia, when she identifies the author as being the most important part of the blog. The author is just part of the conversation, and the blog exists because of the many links that point to it.

What is a blog!

We keep on asking ourselves "What is a blog", as if the question or the answer had any relevance. Joi Ito, when considering the technical difference between a blog and a newspaper, implicitly says that they are the same, in the context of a search engine. More, I say! They are exactly the same: content, organized by people that are intent on expressing who they are and communicating it, people interested in their view of the world, the modern agora taking shape.
And a blog is much more than a journal, or that dry "log format: A blog is much more than that.
It is useful to note that, in Spanish, one of the words for newspaper is the equivalent of journal, diario. A blog, a weblog if you will, is more than the links or the opinions, but the community to which they answer and that, they, in the process, help build. A blog proceeds, as said above, dynamically, and as such it expands, grows and changes with the audience, the readers, and also with the themes it touches.

A blog is also self-regulated, and as a most interesting example of an emergent characteristic, blogs by and large abide by a quite stringent code of ethics: You can post anything you want, but then you are also responsible for it, thus devolving power into the person. Dave Winer started deleting his posts, and that enraged the blogging community, specially Mark Pilgrim. Generally, it is a bad idea to be Bushy about your pronouncements: blogs have caches and long memories.

In Conclusion

Blogs are tools for communication that empower the author by giving them direct responsibility for what they write; act as an information filter, focusing on the info that is most pertinent to one group and/or ideology; serve as repository and group memory, with all its links and comments about events and sites; move across the virtual space as an aggregator, bringing together ideas and concepts that are our Zeitgeist, and help draw the lines of communication between diverse individuals, lines which will ultimately characterize the social group that gathers around these letters.