Dear Oon Yeoh,
Thank you for your quick email reply. I applaud your attempt to find a useful definition for what is a blog.
You said, "the objectives of a blog and online diary are slightly different, and a distinction should be made". You further defined this distinction as, "meant to be excerpts of other content coupled with embedded links and the blogger's own personal comments about the external content or the issues raised in that content". Essentially, you said the function of a blog is, "to point people to other links".
There are two scenarios that i would like to pose to you for your consideration and comment based on what you've mentioned above:
1. What would you call a website that a person uses to post his own personal commentary on a variety of issues (e.g. technology, society, politics) and uses links to strengthen or elaborate his view?
As far as i understood from your definition, comments on blogs are "(personal commentary) almost secondary or peripheral, and a handful of blogs don't even contain much commentary, just links", then this means that a blog is a blog because of the existence of links and not because of the commentary.
An example of this type of website is my own, the Volume of Interactions (http://www.aizuddindanian.com). I write about the things that are important to me. The war in Iraq is of concern to me. My hairy experience in a plane is of concern to me. The state of Malaysian politics is of concern to be. I write about them all. And, usually, either as extra information for my readers, or as a way to prove or illustrate my point, i do include links to other websites.
Would i be, under your definition, a blog?
2. In your attempt to narrow down the definition of a blog, i believe you may have made it too difficult to distinguish between an online diary and a blog.
Take this scenario: Hani's Honey (http://hanishoney.pitas.com/) and the Psycho Circus (http://xtremys.pitas.com/) are personal diaries, but they have a number of links to other blogs and also to other non-blog websites. Would such websites, under your definition, be blogs or personal online diaries?
Basically, how many links to other websites of similar interest or content or topic does it take, under your definition, for a website to be a blog? 1? 2? 10? 20? 100?
I think the hardest task of any knowledge endevour is the search of a proper definition; Aristotle infuriated himself and others in his incessant search of definitions. I think an indication of how difficult your task is lies in the wide range of definitions there are already out there for what is or what is not a blog. In spite of these challenges, i am sure that you will find a definition that works. I eagerly await the results of your exploration. If there is anything i can do to help, please do let me know.
Peace,
Aizuddin Danian
http://www.aizuddindanian.com
ps. yes, i do personally view each blog that is submitted for listing in the GMBL, just to make sure it fits within the guidelines i've provided. Its not a very hard task as its mostly automated. Even the submission form is relatively simple for a visitor, taking no more than 2 minutes to fill in. Have you tried it yet? You would be doing me a great favour by adding your blog to the list, by assisting me in achieving my goal:
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