The Difference Between A Community Blog And A Blogging Community
Comments: 2
When I first
joined
the 21Publish team, there was a good amount of terminology that I
needed to adjust to. I am still adjusting to it and trying to figure
out how our customers perceive us. Some of the problems can be attributed to the proliferation of blog buzzwords ...
In any case, one of the most common misunderstandings I find in the market is regarding the notion of community blogs versus blogging communities (also sometimes known as "group blogs" or "multi-user blogs").
Community blogs are predominantly websites where many authors can post journal entries on a single space and where people can respond by commenting on posts to the community blog.
Blogging communities are collections of individual blogs (potentially tens, hundreds, or thousands) tied together by a larger common value or theme. Conversations can occur on the individual blogs, between the blogs, on a common messageboard that binds the invidudal blogs together in a community, or across other blogs in the blogosphere.
Blogging community services, a niche that 21Publish occupies, specialize in providing value-add services that encourage community interaction and the channeling of hot information within the community. Example value-added features include:
Confusion may also be created by the fact that many of the individual blogging platforms may the terminology above in a slightly different way (mostly to reflect co-authoring capabilities).
Any preferences?
In any case, one of the most common misunderstandings I find in the market is regarding the notion of community blogs versus blogging communities (also sometimes known as "group blogs" or "multi-user blogs").
Community blogs are predominantly websites where many authors can post journal entries on a single space and where people can respond by commenting on posts to the community blog.
Blogging communities are collections of individual blogs (potentially tens, hundreds, or thousands) tied together by a larger common value or theme. Conversations can occur on the individual blogs, between the blogs, on a common messageboard that binds the invidudal blogs together in a community, or across other blogs in the blogosphere.
Blogging community services, a niche that 21Publish occupies, specialize in providing value-add services that encourage community interaction and the channeling of hot information within the community. Example value-added features include:
* automatically highlighting hot discussions or "big debates" within the community
* tracking recent posts in the community
* being able to track (in one place) responses to comments an individual has left on other blogs within the network
* more sophisticated administration and configuration services than enable the formation of groups (for restricting read and write permissions), newsletter functions, and management of user registrations (or synching of registrations with a company's existing, internal databases).
* co-authoring capabilities (which are also present on many individual blogging platforms as well)
* others (and more to come).
I hope that this post has helped to clarify the difference between
community blogs and blogging communities. My next goal will be to try
to better understand how people view 21Publish. Although I view the
following terms as describing what 21Publish enables, having multiple
terms may confuse people:* tracking recent posts in the community
* being able to track (in one place) responses to comments an individual has left on other blogs within the network
* more sophisticated administration and configuration services than enable the formation of groups (for restricting read and write permissions), newsletter functions, and management of user registrations (or synching of registrations with a company's existing, internal databases).
* co-authoring capabilities (which are also present on many individual blogging platforms as well)
* others (and more to come).
* group blog
* multi-user blog
* blog community
* cooperative publishing (and/or content management).
* multi-user blog
* blog community
* cooperative publishing (and/or content management).
Confusion may also be created by the fact that many of the individual blogging platforms may the terminology above in a slightly different way (mostly to reflect co-authoring capabilities).
Any preferences?
Back to entries Comment on this entry
Amy Gahran
(Homepage)
on January 7, 2006 at 8:13 PM
Hi, SteveBeth Kanter pointed me to your blog, via a comment she left on my blog, The Right Conversation:
- http://www.rightconversation.com/2006/01/what_a_crossblo.html#comment-12653415
Some of the things you and she said in an earlier exchange prompted me to consider the limitations of blogs as effective conversational media -- at least for some communities.
See "Blogs as a Barrier to Conversation"
- http://www.rightconversation.com/2006/01/blogs_as_a_barr.html
As I was reading over some postings in your blog, I was struck by your wuick rundown in this postings of some 21Publish features. Recently I posted on how I wish blog comments were easier to follow
- See: http://www.rightconversation.com/2006/01/i_wish_blog_com.html
I was wondering if you'd care to expand your thoughts on how blog comments and cross-blog conversations might be made easier to follow? I mean, it's great that you're building that functionality into 21Publish blog communities. But what could be done to improve the situation in the rest of the blogosphere?
I'm curious to hear your thoughts -- either in a comment to my blog, or a posting to yours.
Thanks!
- Amy Gahran
RightConversation.com
Contentious.com
sshu
on January 9, 2006 at 11:56 PM
Posting reply here at your blog ... http://www.rightconversation.com/2006/01/blogs_as_a_barr.html 
