Dean asks, "Is a blog a blog if there are no comments?" I find this ties in with my questions in the past few posts---is a blog a blog if it does not have a global audience? Is a blog a blog without trackbacks? One thing I can say with certainty, x is not a blog without RSS. Now that I've said it with certainty, I'm sure there will be someone to tell me I'm wrong.
Trying to understand what makes a blog a blog may seem irrelevant. However, the very essence of what blogs and wikis can provide---social collaboration, lateral spread of control over content, venue for discourse---is no longer radical if a blogging platform or wiki is simply appropriated so that students can make a website without knowing html.
