What makes a weblog a weblog?
Fri, May 23, 2003; by Dave Winer.
At Berkman we're studying weblogs, how they're used, and what they are. Rather than saying "I
know it when I see it" I wanted to list all the known features of weblog software, but more
important, get to the heart of what a weblog is, and how a weblog is different from a Wiki, or a
news site managed with software like Vignette or Interwoven. I draw from my experience
developing and using weblog software (Manila, Radio UserLand) and using competitive products
such as Blogger and Movable Type. This piece is being published along with my keynotes at OSCOM and the
Jupiter weblogs conference.
And a disclaimer: This is a work in progress. There may be subsequent versions as the art and
market for weblog software develops. Dave Winer, June 2003, Cambridge MA.
The unedited voice of a person 
During the war in Iraq I came across a page
on the BBC website that claimed to be a weblog. Have a look, give it some thought, and then
come back.
It's missing most of the technical features common to weblogs. I can't point to an individual bit of
writing because it doesn't have permalinks. It doesn't have a calendar, and there's no link to a bio
page for each of the authors. There's another problem -- it's not for one person, it's a group
weblog; and they're pros, not amateurs.
On the other hand, they are writing about their own experience. And if there's editing it hasn't
interfered with the style of the writing. The personalities of the writers come through. That is the
essential element of weblog writing, and almost all the other elements can be missing, and the rules
can be violated, imho, as long as the voice of a person comes through, it's a weblog.
So, I think the BBC page is a weblog.
Vignette and Wikis 
There's been a lot of discussion about the similarities between Wikis and weblogs, but no
definitions to allow us to compare them. Assuming a Wiki is a weblog-like system that allows anyone
to edit anything (I know some don't) then a Wiki represents an interesting amalgam of many voices,
not the unedited voice of a single person.
Similarly, a high-end system like Vignette is designed toward the same end, to make sure the voice
of a greater entity, often a corporation or a publication, comes through. The workflow of the high
end systems makes sure that individual voices serve the needs of encompassing entity.
Key point: On my weblog no one can change what I wrote. In contrast, having written for professional
publications, pros have to prepare for their writing being interfered with. Sometimes you submit
right at the copy-edit deadline. Or you write exactly the required number of words so nothing can be
cut. But in the end, the words that appear are an amalgam of what your organization thought should
be said on the subject you're addressing.
Weblogs are unique in that only a weblog gives you a publication where your ideas can stand alone
without interference. It gives the public writer a kind of relaxation not available in other forms.
That might mean that in some sense the "quality" of the writing is different, but I would not say
lower, assuming the purpose of writing is to inform, not to impress. I would choose a few spelling
or grammatical errors over factual errors. Like the child's game
of telephone, stories that are passed from department to department in a professional
organization can morph into something that bears no resemblance to the facts, or to the original
author's point of view. The same is probably true, in some situations, with Wikis.
Technically, what is a weblog? 
Now on to the technical features and a definition only a mathematician could love. 
A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can
be viewed in an HTML browser.
There's a little more to say. The center of the hierarchy, in some sense, is a sequence of weblog
"posts" -- explained below -- that forms the index of the weblog, that link to all the content in
sequence.
What is a weblog post? 
A weblog post has three basic attributes: title, link and description. All are optional. Some
weblogs only have descriptions. Others always have all three. On my own weblog, Scripting News,
all items have descriptions, a few have titles, and most have links, some have several links.
Generally, a title cannot contain markup, but the description can.
Most weblog tools require titles. Manila is fairly unique in not requiring them. The tradeoff
is simplicity vs flexibility. It's simpler from a user interface standpoint to require the presence
of all three basic attributes, but writers can find this limiting.
If one of the basic attributes is optional it's the link. In that case the title of the post is
often linked to a permalink for the item (see below).
Most weblog posts are short, a paragraph or two. Some weblog tools provide for longer articles or
stories, often by including a place for a summary in the form for a weblog post. If available, there
should also be an option for only including the summary in the RSS feed for the weblog.
Archives and permalinks. The home page of the weblog displays the current items, as
configured by the editor. The posts scroll through the home page. Some weblogs show you the last 15
posts or the last 7 days; no matter what, eventually the item will scroll off the home page, but it
will be permanently stored on an archive page. When people point to a specific post, they link to
the archived version, the permanent one, using a permalink. The permalink is often displayed as a
pound sign (#); sometimes it's the link from the time of a post. It tells others how to point to the
item. It's a good idea to include a permalink if you want others to be able to point to your posts.
Archive page URLs. The Web addresses for archive pages, if properly constructed, can form a
user interface for the weblog. For example, if the addresses are in this form: YYYY/MM/DD, one can
easily type in a URL for a specific day without navigating. For example, here's a link
to an archive page on this site.
Comments. A post might link to a popup window containing reader comments and responses from
the author. Three bits of information are generally requested from each commenter, and are
optionally retained in a cookie sent back to the reader but not generally retained by the weblog
software: name, email address, and website url (usually a weblog).
Calendar. The home page and each archive page of the weblog usually displays a calendar, in
the familiar format, that allows the reader to easily locate the archive pages by time. All dates
but the one currently being viewed are linked; the current page is displayed in bold, or a different
color, basically with some visual attribute that makes it stand out. Movable Type has a way of
displaying a calendar in full-screen mode where you can see the titles of the individual posts on
each day.
Categories. A post can be categorized or placed in a department. There's a way to view all
the posts in a given category, and the RSS rendering indicates what categories a post is in using
the category element.
Edit This Page button. When you're looking at a bit of text that needs to be changed,
assuming you have editorial permission to edit it, how many steps do you have to take to edit it,
and how much memorization is required? Some weblog software makes this trivially simple, every bit
of editable text has a button nearby that allows the author to modify it in three steps, click the
button, make the changes, save the changes.
Rendering 
Templates. The posts are rendered through a set of templates where the designer (often the
same person as the writer) decides how the standard item elements are to be rendered on the page.
There may be a post-level template, a day-level template, an overall template for the page, a
template for the home page, or other templates. The rendering features, the separation of content
from presentation, are the core of what makes a weblog system a content management system.
Static rendering. This is an area of great variability among the different tools. Most tools
only do static rendering, e.g. Movable Type and Blogger. Radio does static rendering by default, but
if you run the Radio app on a server it can be a fully dynamically rendered (a little-known
feature). Manila is fully dynamic, by default, but it supports static rendering (Scripting News is a
statically rendered Manila site).
Infrastructure 
Syndication. An RSS feed is available for the weblog, so people who use news aggregators can
subscribe to the weblog. If the weblog has categories or departments each has its own RSS
feed.
Pings. When the weblog updates, the weblog system automatically pings Weblogs.Com,
subject to a preference. Some weblog software can be configured to ping other change-aggregators
such as blo.gs.
Trackback. When a post links to a post on another weblog that supports Trackback it can ping
the other weblog to notify it that it has been referred to. In this way each post can serve as a
collection point for posts on a given topic.
Notification via email or IM. Some weblog software can automatically notify editors or
community members if new posts, pictures, media objects, articles, or comments have been posted. To
date no software can do this over instant messaging, although it would be relatively easy to
implement.
Plug-in architecture. Some weblog tools define a way for developers to add plug-ins. Movable
Type allows plug-ins written in Perl, Manila allows plug-ins written in UserTalk; Radio allows
"tools" written in UserTalk.
API Support. Many weblog tools implement some kind of programming interface, making it
possible for external tools written in any programming or scripting language to automate repetitive
operations, or to integrate the weblog tool with other software, or to provide rich editing tools
for creating and editing weblog posts. Most of these APIs are available
in XML-RPC, some
are also available in SOAP 1.1.
Mailto. It's possible to send an email message to to the author of a post without knowing the
email address of the user.
Bulletins. Manila has a feature that allows editors to send bulletins via email to members
who have chosen to receive them. Bulletins can be previewed before sending, and the list of members
who will receive the bulletin can be browsed before-hand. This flow should also be available through
IM.
Referrer tracking. Some weblog software automatically tracks the client browser's referer
attribute so that authors can easily see where the hits are coming from.
Rankings. Communities of weblogs love to see who's getting the most traffic and who's
pointing to whom. Various rankings are available in some weblog tools to provide this
information.
Content types 
Stories. Consider a weblog that includes longer articles (like this one) linked into the home
page. There are two ways to accomplish this, by adding a summary field to the weblog post (Movable
Type), or with a story list, manually linked to from a post (UserLand). The next release of Manila
will have the same ability to summarize a post as MT.
Pictures. The Web can display text and pictures, so good weblog software not only can store
and display pictures for you but has convenient facilities for combining them into sequences and to
display them for readers of the site.
Media objects include various Microsoft file formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Macromedia
and Apple movies, PDF, downloadable applications -- basically any type of data that might be
included with a weblog post, or as an RSS enclosure.
Shortcuts. A shortcut is a quick way to link to a page without having to use HTML, a highly
valued feature for non-technical users. In UserLand weblog tools a shortcut is invoked by embedding
the name in "double quotes". If something is unintentially hotted-up because of this, the author can
override shortcut replacement with a backslash.
Editorial system 
Membership. More sophisticated weblog tools have the concept of site membership, to allow
editorial roles as below. A user registers with the site, provides a configurable set of information
that may be customized by the editors of the site, and receives back a cookie that identifies her as
a member of the site. Members can decide if they want to receive bulletins, and if the bulletins
should be formatted in HTML or plain text.
Editorial roles determine which members have permission to create new posts, write stories,
edit the navigation structure of the site, or edit the templates. In Manila there are five levels in
increasing priviledge: non-member, member, contributing editor, content editor, managing
editor.
Author information page. Each member can have a page where information gathered about the
user is displayed. The editors of the site can decide which information is displayed.
Discussion group. Some weblog software comes with a complete threaded discussion group. All
posts have a dual existence, in the form that's viewed by readers of the site, and as a DG for the
editorial team.
Group aggregator. RSS-based aggregators can be part of a weblog. Manila recently was updated
to include a simple version of the aggregator in Radio UserLand.
Outlines 
Blogroll. Weblogs often have a blogroll, linking to sites that the author thinks are
interesting, informative, or useful. The blogroll is where you can see the political relationships
between this weblog and other elements of the weblog community. Blogrolls are often stored and
shared in OPML, and edited with an outliner.
Hierarchy browser. Using OPML as the format for describing hierarchies, Manila and compatible
tools make it possible to author Yahoo-like directories with a compatible outliner.
Slide shows. Similar to the Hierarchy browser feature, but for displaying PowerPoint-like
presentations.
Comments and suggestions 
Here's a place
to note errors, omissions, or kudos on this piece. Please remember this is a work in progress. Your
help is appreciated.
Bibliography 
The
Good, The Bad, and the Blogly, Glenn Reynolds, Tech Central Station, June 18, 2003.
Business
is Toying With a Web Tool, Amy Cortese, New York Times, May 19, 2003.
What
We're Doing When We Blog, Meg Hourihan, O'Reilly Network, June 13, 2002.
What
Is A Weblog?, Russ Lipton, June 11, 2002.
What
Are Weblogs, Dave Winer, Weblogs.Com, 2001.
Integrity
in Web-writing, Dave Winer, June 18, 2001.
The
History of Weblogs, Dave Winer, Weblogs.Com, 1999.
What is
Wiki, Ward Cunningham et al, ???.
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