Microsoft’s Robert Scoble generated some interesting discussion about what a blog is.

Essentially, according to Scoble, for a blog to be a blog, it must contain:

1) Ease of publishing.
2) Discoverability. (Pings weblogs.com or technorati or another ping server).
3) Conversationality. (Trackbacks or as-they-happen referer logs, or now being part of Technorati and other blog search engines).
4) Linkability. (All posts should have permalinks).
5) Syndicatability. (All content should be available in RSS feeds).

If you don’t have those five, you shouldn’t call your stuff a blog. Especially if I can’t link to it from here.

In #3, I would add the ability to comment.

Scoble’s point pique my interested because of a comment or two by Chris Houchens/ShotgunConcepts.

In brief, Houchens said:

A blog is a fully open two-way communication tool. It doesn’t need credentials to read. It promotes open discussion. And a blog would NEVER do this…–Vines’ commentary on “Big Oil” has since been removed from the blog because, according to Garsten, “it made its point.”–

I disagree that, just because a blog is not fully open and has some restrictions, it still is a blog if it allows for give-and-take. And, granted, I don’t think DCX was right in removing the commentary by Jason Vines. However, if nothing else, a blog is personal or at least your own (or your company’s) private property. You allow others in, and can do what you want. No one really asks you to visit (though we do want you to).

Last fall, I raised the same question as I do here, asking if a blog defintion is really needed.

Let’s take take apart the term Web log or Weblog. A log is simply: “A record, as of the performance of a machine or the progress of an undertaking: a computer log; a trip log.” (The 4th definition.)

Now, Web stands for World Wide Web, right?: “a computer network consisting of a collection of internet sites that offer text and graphics and sound and animation resources through the hypertext transfer protocol.”

Even if you look up Weblog, you get: “a personal Web site that provides updated headlines and news articles of other sites that are of interest to the user, also may include journal entries, commentaries and recommendations compiled by the user.”

Nowhere do we read about conversationality or ease of publishing, etc. Those aspects — legit, I’d say — have evolved.

And, I say blogging or what a blog is or can be is also evolving. The blog development is still very much in its infancy. Yes, I think we can pretty much agree on at least some of the basics, but still there are and will be different types of blogs.

– Mike

Technorati tags: blogs, blogging, blog definition