A colleague of mine ended a recent communication with the phrase “So, let us talk, but let it be with no predetermined outcome.” A lovely phrase, a tenet for good conversation, but seemingly nothing to do with blogging. After all, as another friend said to me, “By posting your articles, you set the subject of conversation. If I want I can respond, but not really change the subject (or can I?). If I set up my own blog, as you suggested, we could have a conversation on my topics of choice, but it's a bit two-times-removed, if you see what I mean.” Indeed, she's right: I do set the subject of conversation. I have complete control over my blog. My friend can't change the subject unless I let her. I can say anything I want, but she can't because I can delete her responses if I don't like them. On that basis it seems blogging is a conversation where the outcome is very much predetermined!
Or is it? In my blog I am indeed master of my domain. But I am not master of the whole Internet. There are millions of bloggers out there just like me. This is why I think that blogging really is a form of conversation. Let me explain.
Blogs, unlike most normal web pages, explicitly address the problem of time. My blog entry will always tell you when it was posted. I don't have to say “Today (March 9th, 2002) I washed the dog”. It's obvious when I washed the dog from the posting date. Also, if I am discussing a topic I have read about in someone else's blog then I will refer you to it by linking to its URI. I don't have to quote it, I can refer you directly to the original. These two elements alone make blogging a conversation: a linked exchange of views over time. David Sifry's touches on this topic in his post tracking the growth of blogs (look at those numbers!) when he says “Blogs are reviving the lost art of civilized civic dialogue—of argument, of well reasoned thought and response.”
Now things get really interesting. It's not just people who are reading blogs. There are automated tools out there crawling blogs, in the same way that search engines crawl websites. These tools are analysing people's blog entries. How many people are talking about which topics? Whose blog is being read the most? What were people talking about this time last week, last month, or last year? My nephew/niece will be able to find out what people were talking about on the day he or she was born. To see what I mean, visit blogdex, daypop or memeorandum. Try technocrati to find out the most popular weblogs, the most talked about news stories, or the most talked about books. As always, I invite your comments!
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It's hard to argue that blogging isn't conversation if, in fact, right now I am responding to your assertion with he expectation that I will receive a 'linked'' response as it were. I am my own hangman. But yet I still feel compelled to nail you to your cross and have you further your explanation before I become a disciple of the all-embracing Blogspeak. Yes, I agree, converastion has a far greater reach than simply an "informal talk between people" (Oxford Dictionary) as this is far away removed from our own experiences of what it is to 'engage in conversation' with other people. Long before email, texting and the like; and even before the phone, letters were a much used form of conversation. Unlike today in London for instance, postal deliveries occurred up to seven or more times a day. And we've all enjoyed reading somewhere in our lives, some form of dialogue by letter between such gliminaries as Einstein, Bohr, Bertrand Russell, Twain et al. So my argument isn't with the written word. In fact, I do believe Blogs can be used for conversation. My problem is, is that so can the back of a beer coaster, or two (or more) people's answerphone. What definitions don't always do, is to reflect the 'real world' movement of something's true meaning or purpose. A defintion is only interested in being concise and, unlike the cat of conversation, does not change continually over time. They are updated a certain points when the social norm presses so hard against it's stand that it finally has to fold and accept change. Hence, an Oxford dictionary's definition of a word like "evolution" in 1910 would, I suspect, be quite different in it's text than now. At least I hope so as to think all things and all words, once bound by defintion, cannot be exhanged or updated brings out the Winston Smith in me.
So that brings me onto Blogs. My suspicions at this stage clearly make me feel uneasy about seeing the world og Blogging as conversational. I guess my gut instinct drives me here:, that of: If I were to remove all the 'comments' and 'linking' devices from the world of blogs along with dates and usernames... stripping back the peripherals to finally expose the text. The thought. The rant. The rave. The idea. I would believe I would still have a blog, and in a cluster: blogging. But if I were to administer a blog site and censure anyone who is not engaged in a dialogue that expanded from the interaction of two or more parties, ie. no monologues!, then I deeply feel like the 'essence' of Blogging would no longer exist. I would, in effect, have an email center.
Now, one could argue that you don't need a lot of instances of conversation-like interaction for blogging to hold a healthy and respectable enough approximation to the act of informal talking to warrant the defintion you would like to see offered. But there are other (also informal) idioms intrinsically linked to conversation that I feel need attention. If I were to enagage you in conversation and somewhere along the way disengaged without warning or apology than I might be accused of being 'rude', or 'ill-mannered' or 'a shit!'. Even worse, you could start saying something and within a moment I could decide not to pay any attention at all. And worse still, in a group of three or more, I could reply to say something you said but have to stand idly and watch and listen as you then continue your conversation with the other party (parties) without paying me the courtesy of an acknowledgement. You see where I'm going here. I accept that maybe these days with the growth of emailing and texts, that we all have to accept that we wont always get a reply or even a reply directed at us (in favour of someone else)... but that isn't now and I can't see it becoming okay for a while yet (if ever).
For now, I'm happy to see blogging as a form of communication that may lead to a conversation or it may not. But, in essence, it isn't bothered.
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oh by the way... "giminaries" should read "luminaries". But i think i prefer the original word!
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and 'cat of conversation" should read "art of conversation. That bleedin' talking cat.