Another interesting weblog paper

Robert posted a link to a very interesting paper from Bonnie Nardi, Diana Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht and Luke Swartz, called "I'm blogging this", A closer look at why people blog (submitted to Communications of the ACM).
I'm going to read it instantly!

Comments

[Ton Zijlstra]

Hi Carla,

Have you also seen this list, over at Seb's, with papers about blogging in education?

http://seblogging.cognitivearchitects.com/2004/03/22#a1244

[Anjo]

Dear Carla,
Replace "Blog" by "Taxi Driving" and it still makes sense. This paper is bogus I think. Statistically irrelevant, methods doubtful ("we ran a customised script on each of the informant's blogs" is not going to work, as I experienced), no theory, no model, just observations. If it does get published in CACM, I wil have to resign my subscription.
Perhaps, I'm missing something ....

Anjo.

[Carla]

Hi Ton,
no, I haven't seen it so thanks for the tip!

Hi Anjo,
It's a pity if you resign your description because of this paper. I think the authors' type of research (qualitative, inductive) is just a different way (another way, not quantitative and statistically correct) of doing research, it's goal is to develop theory from the examples, just because there is no theory (about blogging) till now. They describe what they see, which is a descriptive method and to me a first step in the direction of modelling. Quantitative research is not the (only) 'correct' way of doing research, I think.

Carla

[Anjo]

Carla,
I do not have a problem with the paper as such, it is just the prospect of seeing it published in CACM (a journal which has tracked progress in IT over many decades).
A paper on the blogging phenomenon in CACM would be ok, but this is just a seemingly random collection of impressions (anecdotes) and there are other platforms that appear more appropriate.
Anjo.

[Carla]

Ok, Anjo, I can understand this reason a bit more. Still, I wouldn't do it.. (maybe write a letter to the editor)

Carla