Dave Winer revisits the question what is a blog. It gets asked more and more as different people join the blogosphere. He talks about his description of a blog back in 2003 where he concluded that it is not the form but the voice. I agree. The form is important in as much as it gave rise to a better way of articulating that voice (blogging software) and a better way of distributing that voice (network of other blogs). Things like comments, trackbacks, RSS and other features do not make or break a blog – they are there to improve on the communciation and distribution that is already happening. It is the quality of the voice, ideas and most importantly, the freedom and independence that is blog gives to individuals. Dave’s anecdote confirms that:
I sat next to Steven Levy the other night at dinner in NY. He volunteered that in his whole career he had never written a word that wasn’t approved of by someone else, until he started a blog. I applaud him for crossing the line. I give him a lot of credit for writing without a safety net. It really is different. Comments wouldn’t make the difference, what makes the difference is standing alone, with your ideas out there, with no one else to fault for those ideas. They are your responsibility, and yours alone.
For me, the big rush came when I started publishing DaveNet essays in late 1994. I would revise and edit, for an hour maybe more, before hitting the Send button. Once I did that, there was no turning back. The idea was out there, with my name on it. All the disclaimers (I called the essays "Amusing rants from Dave Winer’s desktop") wouldn’t help, if the ideas were bad, they were mine. But if they were good, they were mine too. That’s what makes something blog-like, imho.
The only thing I would emphasise over the individual voice is the connection between many individual voices and the variety of communication that the network of blogs makes possible.
