Over on Sean Bonner's blog, there is a discussion on what makes a website a blog. This is one of those issues that might seem trivial but actually cuts to the core of what is really behind what we do.

Sean refers to the distinctive features that Jason Calacanis mentions on his blog (ah, the network effect!) and adds one of his own: Identifiable author(s).

I think all these points are correct but as I have said before, a key feature of blogs is the ability to be part of the blogosphere, which means the ability to link to individual articles is of a blog's very essence.

In fact I would say that most of the features that Jason Calacanis and Sean Bonner mentions are the things that a blog should have as 'best practice' but are not necessarily essential defining elements (for example there are many indisputably successful blogs which do not have public comment sections). Similarly you can have a group blog which does not show individual authors... it is just not a very good idea.

The definition we use for what makes a blog a blog can be found in the Samizdata.net blogging Glossary.

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