There is a misconception that the blog is just another format for discussion like the mailing list, discussion forums, message boards, newsgroups, or USENET. This is not true. None of these messaging tools have achieved much success with crossover, which is to say, none of these tools jumped from the Internet to broadcast news, newspapers, and politics, for example. Blogs have.
Blogs are not about conversation or commentary; blogs are about the effortless transmission and conveyance of information.
Blogs are viral by nature.
Blogs are applications that are built to interconnect and influence. Blogs speak loudly, using pings, XML and hyperlinks as its Morse code and ping servers as its repeaters. Blogging applications like Movable Type and Word Press let the blogosphere know when something new has been posted while also making sure that every other blog that is mentioned and linked-to is also informed, resulting is what is called a trackback.
A trackback shows up under each article mentioned, and this is in the form of an excerpt of the article and a link back.
Comments and commentary on a blog article is important, but what is more important is the opportunity for every commenting blogger on every commented site to have their name, their email, and their own blog’s URL, mentioned in association with each comment.
And then there is the blogroll.
A blogroll is an intentional list of links to friend, family, and favorite blogs. Blogrolling is in important method for expanding each blog and blogger’s reach and social network. Finally, the real ace-in-the-hole is syndication in the form of RSS, RSS2, and ATOM.
These acronyms are essentially XML schema representations of the blog that are intended only for other blogs and blog-readers, for programs and applications.
A syndicated feed is what turns a simple web site into an international wire service not unlike the AP, UPI, or AFP. For one thing, it is so easy to keep up with over 200 blogs using a dedicated reader such as SharpReader.
Reading that many blogs without one is impossible. Also, since an RSS, RSS2, or ATOM newsfeed is expressly intended to be read and interpreted by computers, programs, and applications, providing a newsfeed to the world guarantees the widest and most powerful potential readership possible.
And finally, as if that weren’t enough, search engines favor RSS feed supported sites.
