Blogs Are Interactive
Part 4 of What Is A Blog?
(Creative Commons)
In the previous article, The Blog Timeline, I mentioned the blog coments section. That brings me on to the next distinguishing feature of blogs: interactivity.
In many ways blogs could be seen as one of the first examples of what we now call Web 2.0, web democratisation and ‘the read-write web”. Ordinary users were no longer restricted to being passive content consumers, they could easily publish their own thoughts. Not only that, they could even interact with site authors!
Given the abundance of sophisticated Social Networks Sites (SNS) today it’s easy to forget what a breakthrough this was. For the first time people could easily engage with a web page and have their say. They could interact, not just with the blog author but with other commenters. They could agree, disagree, question, expand or simply let off steam.
They still do. Comments remain an integral part of what I consider to be true blogs and a good blog will actively encourage them (I do!). Even news and company blogs usually allow some form of commenting, albeit with strict moderation. The blog fills a niche that is less fixed than a simple web page and less ephemeral than something like Twitter.
Blogs aren’t speeches, they’re discussions.
Next: The Voice of a Blog
