Elmine Wijnia has published her BlogTalk paper "Understanding Weblogs, a Communicative Perspective" (pdf). Although I have been a eye-witness of how her work took shape in the past months, with her master thesis and this article as outcome, now that there is something like a finished product it speaks more clearly to me.

In my view Elmines work does something very important, which is to firmly place weblogs in communications, and not put the fact that it's technology-based first. This is a notion that I and others attempted to do in the past in anecdotal form, but she does this academically.

That is why her definition of weblogs resonates with me:
The weblog, or blog, is a webpage on which the author publishes pieces with the intention to
start conversation. Or in more detail, a weblog disseminates ideas, to generate conversation.

It catches the part of blogs where publishing/broadcasting has a role, and when the more intense forms of 1 on 1 communication kick in. It describes what we actually do, in stead of which tools we use to do it.

12:17:20 AM