Weblogs As Social Networking Catalysts

A great summary of why weblogs are critical social networking tools and a bung of valuable reference links. Lilia efimova sums it up in five points:

1. Weblogs are online identities of their authors: by reading a weblog we learn about and connect with another person.


2. Networking. By reading a weblog a reader gets introduced to a blog author network.


3. Weblog networks serve as peer-filtering and recommendation engines: they help interesting ideas travel faster.


4. Distributed conversations. Weblog conversations do exist, but they are distributed, difficult to track and different from other technology-mediated conversations.


5. Connecting with community. By connecting with several weblogs belonging to a dense weblog network new blogger connects with a community.