The Blogosphere

"The Blogosphere" Communications of the ACM 47(12) (special issue) (December 2004)

(Via Current Cites)

The idea of a systematic analysis of the blogosphere sounds like an exercise in futility - OK, we've got that manifestation isolated, wait, there are new eruptions over here and here and here - but this special issue of Communications of the ACM has several articles which do pin down aspects of blogging by measurement, experiment and anecdotal evidence. Patterns in interpersonal relationships and activity emerge over time. What is expressed in blogs, and what bloggers get out of it, is revealed by survey. An author who began blogging way back in 1999 describes the phases of change in the blogosphere wrought by the development of easy to use blogging software. How semantic metadata could add a knowledge management layer to blogs is explored through the creation of a prototype semantic blogging demonstrator. And old concerns about the effect of filtering one's information intake are reawakened in the light of new functions used in blogspace - could it be that RSS abuse could make you really simple? The issue is an essential addition to the literature about this revolutionary phenomenon.

Posted by Tom on March 01, 2005