Communal Blogging - Who Wish Win?

My recent quest to understand and implement trackback on my web log has left me with more questions than answers. It seems that in an attempt to bring relevant web log entries together, there are (surprise, surprise) competitive technologies.

First there is the issue of delivery relevant web log entries together. What's the point and should we bother?

I believe that though blogging is primarily a sole pursuit, the ability for folk to comment, refute, correct, or admire a web log entry more deeply than a simple commenting system allows is the next step in devising blogging more meaningful, and possibly more accountable.

So how do we do it?

The three main players (it seems, feel free to add person if I've lost them) seem to be Technorati (http://www.technorati.com), Haloscan (http://www.haloscan.com), and native web log commenting systems.

Technorati seems to be popular amongst the established blogging community - the users who understand the Technorati 'Cosmos' and what it means. I think that Technorati is deliberately vague simply about what their system makes and how it makes it as there is no documentation that I can find on the Technorati site (other than an 'About' page evidently written by a marketer). I assume that the name Technorati is a play on the word Illiminati which possibly gives us a hint to Technorati's lack of explanation on how they work. Possibly we're simply supposed to 'get it'. Piece Technorati seems solid and has a large subscriber base, I think (again, no documentation) that only Technorati subscribers are considered part of the 'Cosmos'. There are millions of blogs out there that aren't active in, and therefore not accounted for by, Technorati.

I simply ran across Haloscan yesterday and enforced their trackback system into my blog. Haloscan offers a central commenting and trackback facility for any type of web page, not simply blogs. The idea is that the comments and trackbacks of a page are unbroken in one central repository rather than scattered all over the blogsphere on each individual blog. Once considering blogs specificially, I don't see the logic in this. Since all comments must reside somewhere - what's the difference between having them reside on my web log or on several another server? Unlike trackback, I think all blogware supports comments.

The trackback part is absorbing because it actually provides a service to folk (like me) who don't have trackback accessible natively on their blogware. It works well, has several features such as moderation, and generally provides what it promises. The only change I would-be like to see is the ability to implement the trackback code right into my page rather than having it in a pop up window. I actually like the commenting/trackback ping layout of Blizza Blizza (http://www.chrislawson.net/blog).

I besides ran across a somewhat related technology called Gravatar (http://www.gravatar.com) which stands for Globally Recognized Avatar. As near as I can tell, the idea is that you transfer a small 80x80 avatar and then Gravatar supplies you with the link to that image. You can then use that pictures anyplace on the web that you wish. It's a neat idea: creating a sense of continuity for users between blogs and websites, but in the end - it's simply a small bit of webspace. Anyone with a web log can probably transfer an avatar and use it in the same fashion.

Finally, the last little bit of magic is Google. Google has galore 'operators' and one of them is the 'link' operator. Typewriting 'link: www.somesite.com' into Google will reveal all the sites on the Computer network that link to somesite.com. The data returned by Google for my site is more much extensive than Technorati, but it is besides really out of date. I cognize I am coupled to (by exploitation Technorati and by discovering it through surfing) yet galore of these links do not show up on Google.

So which technology will win, if one makes at all? I'm in favour of trackback. It's easy, all the big web log platforms keep it, and it has a nice format. By that I mean that a typical trackback entry contains a 200-ish word summary of the entry so a visitant can decide whether they want to bother reading the whole entry before clicking on it. As well it breeds inter-linking between blogs of a like nature, or at least between web log entries of a like nature.

Just because I like it doesn't mean trackback is going to win, there are problems with it. Roy - the administrator of a large blogging site called Tabulas (http://www.tabulas.com) - for example, feels that even as if he were to implement it natively on Tabulas that really few users would-be have the technical savvy to numbers out how to use it properly, and most users wouldn't bother with it at all. Roy knows his stuff once it comes to blogging, so possibly he's not only correct - but besides reechoing the sentiments of galore blogware authors.

I guess only time will tell, but for now I'm hoping for trackback as the victor in this little skirmish.

About The Author

Jon is an Computer network observer and technology enthusiast. He holds a sheepskin in Computer Information Systems, has spent time sailing the earth in the Canadian Navy, and has been actively web developing and blogging for several years.

http://www.theheatsinkbbs.ca

heatsink@theheatsinkbbs.ca