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  Online journal host sites (e.g., LiveJournal.com, DiaryLand.com)  ―Community weblogs‖ (e.g., Slashdot.com, Metafilter.com) 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 Exponential growth of blogs 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) 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 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‖) 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‖) 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 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 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 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 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 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 Findings: Blog content Type Frequency Percentage Personal journal Filter K-log Mixed Other 140 25 6 19 9 199 70.4 12.6 3.0 9.5 4.5 100 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 ? Findings: Blog authors Characteristic One author Male Adult (20 years or older) Student Located in USA Frequency Percentage 196 110 115 73 104 90.8 54.2 59.6 57.5 69.8 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‘ 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 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 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 Caveat  Possible sampling bias  Small sample size  English only Problem for historical account  The typical modern blog is unlikely to have evolved from lists of links on the Web 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 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 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) Entry in Samuel Pepys‘ diary, Oct. 30, 1660 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.‖ Problem for future predictions  The typical weblog is unlikely to be intellectually and socially transformative 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 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 computermediated communication (CMC) Binary feature comparison of blogs with written and computer-mediated genres Genre Series of msgs + + + + (–) Subjective view + + – +? – External content – + + + +/– Public aud. – + – +/– (–) Single theme – + + (–) –? Readers comm‘nt – + (in n‘paper) – – +? (in same medium) + (in same medium) – (not usually) + +/+ + Multimedia – – (-) + – CMC # of + features 2 5 3 5? 2? Hand-written diary Newspaper editorial Project journal Travelogue Post-it notes – – – – – Personal letter +/– + – – – (-) – 3 Personal home page Usenet newsgroup Journal blog Filter blog K-log – + + + + + + + + (-) – +/– – + + + + + + +/-– – (+) – +/– (+) + – + + + + + + + + 4 7 6 8 7 Weblogs on a continuum between standard Web pages and CMC Standard Web Pages Weblogs Online Journals Community Blogs Asynchronous CMC rarely updated asymmetrical broadcast multimedia frequently updated asymmetrical exchange limited multimedia constantly updated symmetrical exchange text-based 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 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) The End The BROG blog http://www.blogninja.com