Is MetaFilter really a weblog? I know that Matt calls it a community weblog and Wikipedia lists it as a collaborative weblog. However, I've always seen a weblog as a single entity's (person, organization, or corporation) views and comments on something. If anyone who registers can initiate threads, how is it different than a bulletin board or web forum (other than simpler style and somewhat different formatting)?
posted by tuxster on Sep 21, 2005 - 37 comments

When the Audience is the Producer: The Art of the Collaborative Weblog (pdf), a presentation at the 5th International Symposium on Online Journalism by UT journalism grad student Lou Rutigliano has things to say about Metafilter. [more inside]
posted by thatwhichfalls on May 13, 2004 - 118 comments

MoveableType is cool, but this post is just three generic links and a press release. Just because it's cool software that some of us use doesn't make this a good post. (And from the Post a Thread to MetaTalk page, "if posting about general weblog-related items, please post to Blogroots.com instead.")
posted by kirkaracha on Apr 24, 2003 - 15 comments

Is metafilter no longer pinging weblogs.com a few times a day? looks like the last time was june 16.
posted by anitar on Jul 20, 2002 - 4 comments

(NYT) A New Book Scratches At A Weblog Wound
Should Bookblog, a project to collect 9/11-related blog entries (e.g. opinion on WoT events, not day-of reactions), exclude those veteran webloggers. Jason Kottke and others say no. I suppose I could have read a response on the Op-Ed page, but Ariel Sharon sent one in that week too. More here
posted by rschram on Jun 9, 2002 - 5 comments

what's up with blogspot? many of my favorite blogspot-hosted weblogs are down (as is the homepage), but some blogs just won't go away. there's no mention of an outage or server crash on the blogger website or on evan's weblog. anybody know anything?
posted by mlang on May 21, 2002 - 20 comments

A picture of weblogs shows a cool gridded pattern of many weblogs and the incoming, outgoing, and shared links. Not all blogs listed (but you can add yours, or request that it be taken off). A cool representation of the blogging community. (via daypop top40)
posted by Ufez Jones on May 8, 2002 - 13 comments

Maybe you will even be mocked in a medium that people actually read. Ouch! I wonder if it would be possible/feasible to share stats among web logs. I'd bet that the combined readership a few blogs would beat the readership figures of mid-size newspapers like the Boston Globe.
posted by dchase on Apr 2, 2002 - 84 comments

The Google Time Bomb- how weblogs are increasingly influencing the algorithms of Google's search engine. It looks like fun could be had with this. (From Microcontent news)
posted by RobertLoch on Mar 4, 2002 - 28 comments

I just noticed that Hotmail has started pinging weblogs.com, just like it's a blog that's been updated. To me, it's a sign of things to come -- corporate creeps in weblogs clothing. Should we care?
posted by blackholebrain on Mar 2, 2002 - 8 comments

NYTimes: Is Weblog Technology Here to Stay or Just Another Fad? You have to wonder how many times they can write the same damn article.
posted by owillis on Feb 25, 2002 - 31 comments

Is Weblog Nation still the best selective web site to keep track of interesting blogs? Was it ever? It seems a bit staid and badly classified. The last category, for instance. is a mess. Yet, for rookies like me, it delivers.

So does anyone know of a better, more critical and more up-to-date one-step guide or portal, that cuts out the dross and concentrates on what's good?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jan 15, 2002 - 15 comments

Free weblog services? Opinions please.

I've had a pitas.com page for close to two years.

Unfortunately, pitas seems to be collapsing under it's own weight. Outages and "page not found" errors have become rampant. It's become too damn frustrating to use anymore. My requests for an explanation as to exactly what the problem is have been met with a deafening silence.

I'm not going to sit here and complain. It's a free service and you get what you pay for. Are there any weblog services out there that are reliable and relatively simple to use for those of us who are somewhat HTML impaired?

Thanks in advance!
posted by zeb vance on Dec 2, 2001 - 38 comments

MetaFilter now conforms with the new Weblogs.com xml-rpc interface. I used this xml-rpc client/server for Coldfusion to wrap a simple request/response sent to weblogs.com whenever a new thread is made at MetaFilter.com.
posted by mathowie on Nov 4, 2001 - 6 comments

weblogs.com is no longer useful (since I can't set favorites and have to scroll through a list of X hundred weblogs to see if the ones I am interested in have updated). Question: what else is there?
posted by sylloge on Oct 23, 2001 - 18 comments

The utter failure of weblogs as journalism.
posted by owillis on Oct 16, 2001 - 25 comments

Library weblogs are in the news this month in both the major librarian print publications: Library Journal [linked] and American Libraries [print only]. I have nothing special to say about this, but it's one more notch on the keyboard for webloggers.

[reg required, user: melvildewey@hotmail.com pass: librariansrule]
posted by jessamyn on Oct 2, 2001 - 1 comment

It occurred to me today that I could take a simple web discussion board script, modify the interface a little bit, and turn it into a blogging tool. I guess archiving would be a drag, but otherwise it would probably work. Anyone try anything like this?
posted by mecran01 on Jun 25, 2001 - 1 comment

Ev declares "war" on Livejournal. Yeah, they're pricks - but it may also smack of crass self promotion. Whaddya think?
posted by owillis on Jun 20, 2001 - 11 comments

Can anyone figure out what Dave's saying today at Scripting?
posted by mathowie on Jun 15, 2001 - 20 comments

Does anybody know of any French Web logs? Not Metafiltre--there's only one!
posted by ParisParamus on May 25, 2001 - 4 comments

Is it just me, or is weblogs.com down?
posted by Neale on Apr 4, 2001 - 2 comments

Will the future of weblogs be due to the issues people have with the current ones, or will it take an entirely new breed?

One problem always given is that there are too many. Too many what? Thoughts? Opinions? Are people supposed to read a certain select set of weblogs and agree to disagree because they don't have more options? Or is it just a popularity issue? Maybe it is just the people involved are concerned because since it is spread so thin, there is a lesser chance of someone reading their weblog. Maybe it is just an issue of categorizing them. If I want a weblog where the author posts often about horror movies, how do I know how to find it? Right now, I don't have the facility to find it, except for word of mouth. Right now all I have are weblog directories that either have a one sentence marketing blurb, or have generalized posting categories. Bleh.

One problem brought up recently is infinite recursive linking. Is everyone in the world truly linking to the same things, or is it just the circle of weblogs you happen read? Maybe it's time to explore new places. Personally, I think it is that weblogs are too generalized. When 10 people start their own weblog and have the same interests, they are bound to find and like the same kind of content many many times in the future. When 10 of those weblogs' readers then make their own weblog on the same topic, they may have a new perspective on the same links, but not actually different links. Don't complain about the person who just posted the same link you saw elsewhere and didn't comment on it. Don't read their log. Read and celebrate and discuss and argue with the people that have actually written a perspective on that same link.

Unless the issues people have with the current state of weblogs are rectified by some magical app or system or person or computer, &c., it will take a new breed. I think the future of weblogs will lead towards specialization. I hope it will be with lengthier, better writing. It will be hiking weblogs, cooking weblogs, c++ weblogs, rocket from the crypt weblogs, &c. Two of my current favorite weblogs are xblog and goodexperience.com. Why? Because I know exactly what kind of topics will be covered, and I won't have to wait a week for a topic I like to finally crop up.

Oh, and they won't be called weblogs.

posted by magnetbox on Jun 22, 2000 - 1 comment