Into...or Out of the Blogosphere

When blogs first started to capture the attention of teaching faculty, which in my experience was around 2003-2004, I often was asked "well, what's the difference between a blog and a discussion forum, like in Blackboard?" I struggled at first to provide a clear explanation for them, in large part because blogging was new to me too back then, and I was only beginning to discover the rich possibilities they presented in terms of teaching and learning. Later the differences between the two became clearer:

• blogs usually centered around a single author, with readers reacting and responding to his or her thoughts, while discussion forums were often more organic, with multiple authors creating threads based on their own lines of inquiry and numerous readers responding based on their own interest (or as a participation requirement)
  
• blogs were more non-linear insofar as they often included external links that encouraged traversal to other sources, whereas discussion forums remained more insular and linear
• blogs were presented in reverse chronological order and organized by category and keywords, while discussion forums were arranged chronologically by threads
• blogs were usually public and open to anyone to read and comment; discussion forums were, at least in the case of Blackboard, closed to a specific set of users
  

I started thinking about these differences again as I evaluated the TOMB in terms of sociability, usability, and social capital. After all, the Tape Op Message Board is somewhat antiquated in terms of the software platform that supports it (phpBB) and is less like a blog than it is a discussion forum. And yet, in many ways it seems more sociable than most blogs, is as easy to use, and exhibits social capital building through weak ties or, as Burt calls them, structural holes. Various individuals within disparate geographic networks serve as brokers of information which connect not only these networks themselves but also the otherwise disconnected people within them. Each of Lin's four elements for social capital are present: information flow; influence of certain agents (experienced studio engineers/producers) on other actors (newbies looking to break into the recording business); social credentials (individual member's "street cred" and connectedness to sought-after resources (be they jobs, gear, other professional relationships); and reinforcement (creating a sense of an individual's self-worth by being a part of a vibrant, friendly, hip-nerdy community). And there's certainly plenty of that other element that social network analysis researchers value so highly: reciprocity.

All things considered then, the TOMB stands as a compelling example of an online community, even though it is based on older technology and lacks many of the Web 2.0 features present in so many of today's heralded social network sites.