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The Past, Present and Future of Weblogs

The Past, Present and Future of Weblogs. Susan C. Herring School of Library and Information Science Indiana University, Bloomington. Definition. Weblog — a frequently modified web page in which dated entries are listed in reverse chronological sequence. Related phenomena.

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The Past, Present and Future of Weblogs

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  1. The Past, Present and Future of Weblogs Susan C. Herring School of Library and Information Science Indiana University, Bloomington

  2. Definition • Weblog — a frequently modified web page in which dated entries are listed in reverse chronological sequence

  3. Related phenomena • Online journal host sites (e.g., LiveJournal.com, DiaryLand.com) • “Community weblogs” (e.g., Slashdot.com, Metafilter.com)

  4. Size • 1,454,524 weblogs indexed by the NITLE Weblog Census as of 10/31/03 • 959,985 (66%) estimated active • Including online journal sites brings the estimated total to 4.12 million (Perseus, October 2003), of which 34% are active

  5. Exponential growth of blogs

  6. The “Standard View” • Weblogs are value-added filters of external (typically, Web) content; radically new; intellectually and socially transformative • Mass media (e.g., Glaser 2002; Lasica 2001) • Blog authors (e.g., D. Winer, R. Blood) • Reproduced in assumptions of scholarly studies (e.g., Krishnamurty 2002; Park 2003)

  7. Standard history • Earliest precursor - “what’s new” pages by Tim Berners-Lee (1993) • 1st modern weblog - Dave Winer’s Scripting News (1996) • Jorn Barger coins the term ‘weblog’ (1997) • Peter Merholz re-analyzes it as ‘we-blog’ (1998); later shortened to ‘blog’ • Blogger software (1999) makes blogging accessible • Blogs attract media attention after 9/11

  8. Present-day situation • Pre-filtered Web content • E.g., Robot Wisdom • Political commentary • E.g., InstaPundit • Knowledge management • E.g., Dave Winer at Harvard’s Berkman Center • Engaging “voices” • E.g., Megnut • Interlinked community (the “Blogosphere”)

  9. Future projections • Democratizing/socially transformative (Gillmore - “every employee should have a public weblog”) • Politically influential (Rosen - “information flows from the public to the press”) • Knowledge creating (Burg – “emergent intelligence”)

  10. Problems with the Standard View • Ahistorical: Shallow time depth • Partial: Excludes many contemporary blog phenomena • Misleading: Misrepresents the nature of weblogs, with implications for future trajectory

  11. Specifically… • Limits consideration of historical antecedents to the Web • Overlooks personal journal blogs; privileges blogs created by an educated, adult, male elite • Uncritically represents blogging as intellectual, influential in the public sphere

  12. Research study • Blog Research on Genre project (BROG) • Sabrina Bonus, Susan Herring, Lois Scheidt, Elijah Wright • Goal: to characterize empirically the “average blog” • A snapshot of the present as a benchmark for future comparison

  13. Data sample • “Core” blogs (excl. LiveJournal, DiaryLand) • Minimum 2 entries • Random sampling from blo.gs site • Tracking 866,394 blogs as of 10/31/03 • Sources: antville.org, blogger.com, pitas.com,weblogs.com • Excluded non-English blogs; blogs with no text in first entry; blog software used for non-blog purpose; blog not updated within two weeks • 203 blogs collected and coded March-May 2003

  14. Methodology • Web content analysis (Bates & Lu, 1997; cf. Bauer, 2000) • Genre characteristics (Chandler, 1998; Dillon & Gushrowski, 2000; cf. Yates & Orlikowsky, 1992) • Producer • Purpose • Structure • Coded 44 features in each blog; quantified results

  15. Hypotheses • Blog content tends to be external to the author (news; strange-but-true phenomena; technical/scholarly information, etc.) • Blog authors are typically well-educated adult males • Blogs are interactive, attracting multiple comments from readers • Blogs are heavily interlinked

  16. Findings: Blog content

  17. Blog entry (Lazy Gnome) Friday, 13th June 2003 3.08pm - trigger happy hippy with a Canon AE-1 If I go away, I take my camera. Standard practice. So, for your viewing displeasure, there are 4 new gallerys to view: watery times my 1st b+w shoot Swanage area + 1 sea and air First two are from my latest trip to Edinburgh to see my little sweetie. The second two were taken from my 4 day trip to the south coast with my parents in their campervan (I had a 4 man tent all to myself!). Seeing as the last 'family holiday' I can remember was about 8 years ago, it was a real treat for me. Comment ?

  18. Findings: Blog authors

  19. Blog authors (cont.) • Blog content varies according to gender of blog author • Personal journals & other: 60% Female, 40% Male • Filters, k-logs & mixed: 15% Female, 85% Male • Blog content varies according to age of blog author • Personal journals & other: 60% Teen, 40% Adult • Filters, k-logs & mixed: 5% Teen, 95% Adult • Many adult blog authors appear to be in their early 20’s • The second most frequent occupation is ‘unemployed’

  20. Findings: Comments • Percent of blogs allowing comments: 43% • Related to default settings in blogging software • Number of comments per newest entry: mean .3 mode 0 range 0-6 • Number of comments per oldest entry: mean .3 mode 0 range 0-7

  21. Findings: Links • Percent of blogs containing external links (excluding badges): 69.5 • Number of links per newest entry: mean .65 mode 0 range 0-11 • Percent of newest entries that link to a news source: 8.2 • Percent of newest entries that link to another blog: 6.7

  22. Summary of findings • Blog content is mostly personal (and often intimate) • Blog authors are roughly equally split between male and female, adult and teen • Adult males create more filters and k-logs • Females and teens create more personal journals • Most blog entries receive no comments • Most blog entries contain no links

  23. Caveat • Possible sampling bias • Small sample size • English only

  24. Problem for historical account • The typical modern blog is unlikely to have evolved from lists of links on the Web

  25. Alternative historical account • Blogs developed out of previous Web genres (e.g., online journal, personal home page, hotlist) • Blog genres have antecedents in previous offline genres (e.g., diaries, newsletters, editorials) • The blog can be seen as part of a continuous evolution of the journal format since the 17th century

  26. Online journals • Since 1995 • Co-exist with blogs • Like personal journal blogs: • More females than males • Personal content • Updated daily or nearly daily • Reverse chronological sequence • Some links • Switch to blog software

  27. Hand-written diaries • Since 14th c. in England • ‘Diary’ > Latin dies ‘days’ • Multiple uses “We have our state diurnals, relating to national affairs. Tradesmen keep their shop books. Merchants their account books. Lawyers have their books of pre[c]edents. Physitians have their experiments. Some wary husbands have kept a diary of daily disbursements. Travellers a Journall of all that they have seen and hath befallen them in their way.” (John Beadle) • Growth in popularity in 17th c. • Samuel Pepys’ diary (1659-1669)

  28. Entry in Samuel Pepys’ diary, Oct. 30, 1660

  29. Subsequent evolution • Blog uses expand • Journal type overtakes filter type • Shift from link to personal focus • Justin Hall, one of the pioneers of the online journal: “When I first discovered the web I was very excited by the tremendous amounts of information. I surfed the web far and wide in them early days, and I kept a log, of sorts. … Then, I started posting stories about my life; context for the rest of the content. That part of my site grew to be the most involving and perhaps engaging.”

  30. Problem for future predictions • The typical weblog is unlikely to be intellectually and socially transformative

  31. Alternative future perspective • Increasing mundane use • AOL (35.6 million subscribers) • Increasing contentiousness • The “blogs of war” (Cavanaugh, 2002) • Increasing commercialization • Ads on free software • Fewer features on free sites • Paid blog hosting services • Business blogs • Astro-turfing and spamming • Increasing non-blog use of blog software

  32. The blog as hybrid • Multiple functional antecedents • Mixed content within a single blog • Shares features of online and offline genres • Intermediate between standard Web documents and interactive computer-mediated communication (CMC)

  33. Binary feature comparison of blogs with written and computer-mediated genres

  34. Weblogs on a continuum between standard Web pages and CMC

  35. Conclusion • Blogs featured in contemporary public discourses about blogging are the exception, rather than the rule • Important to look at “average” blogs as well as interesting/unusual ones • Socio-political, social-psychological, and technical implications • Socio-historical analysis constitutes a useful antidote to the ahistoricity of discourse about blogs and the Internet in general

  36. Conclusion (cont.) • Blogs may ultimately prove transformative, but not in favoring a specific content, audience, or quality • Rather, they create new affordances that will be open to a variety of uses (cf. email)

  37. The End

  38. The BROG blog http://www.blogninja.com

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