I got into a very engaging conversation yesterday with a web developer at work on the topic of social aspects of the web.

So, what does social really mean?

According to Answers.com it is defined as: Living together in organized groups or similar close aggregates.

So what does social mean on the Internet (also known as a social network)?

According to Wikipedia it is defined as: A map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds.

The discussion started with an assumption that blogs are social entities on the Internet, whereas other (traditional) websites are not.

So, this led to a very specific question, are blogs inherently social?

I think not. A blog is actually short for web log as know as an online journal. This is not anything that implies social. in fact a journal is not a conversation, rather a form of communication that has a single path. Now, many blogs, just like this one, allows comments from readers and that is a social aspect, however, the blog is not defined by it’s social aspects, rather the social aspects are defined by the blog.

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