One phrase caught me in this paper: “knowledge brokers.” Of all things, I had never thought of blog users as people who brought to the table unique clusters of interests. I never really thought of blogs as much of a knowledge center either; most of the blogs I have experienced are opinion-based, and often not very well researched opinion.
The blogging realm has never appealed to me in an academic sense; trying to find sources and the ethos of blogging is much more work than the information’s worth, many times. I appreciate and admire the authors of this paper and their well-thought-out explanations on their new technical terms for blogging and information sharing on the internet, but they seem to be missing a completely different medium that fits the middle road between the blog and the mailing list: the message board.
If you really want to get something understood quickly within a specific topic, it is much easier to use a message board than a blog. On a message board, you’re bound to be heard at some point by someone with the same interests, and by signing onto the board itself, you already surround yourself with people at least interested with the topic at hand, if not particularly on your side of opinions. They are well-organized and allow the same types of postings and commenting, only usually more specific in range. But if I read the paper correctly, that’s what the authors wished, some little points of categorization which could easily be facilitated by different threads in a message board.
For collaboration purposes, I believe the message board will be more useful than the blog. Blogs in and of themselves are individual in nature, whereas a message board must be collaborative to exist. I do not know why the authors of the paper disregarded this particular internet form, but they have their reasons, I am sure.
–Katelyn Foley
