I remember when what we had were homepages. Then there was the journal movement, and now weblogs. It seems to me that we can choose to have categories with labels, or we can have communication problems. To me a web page about a person’s life and interests that has internal links but only few external ones is a homepage. A journal or diary is pretty obvious; it may contain occasional links to interesting stuff, but isn’t mostly about collecting the interesting stuff (links) you found on the web and want to share with and possibly comment on to your readers. That last thing, that’s quite obviously a blog.

Why does it matter which category good writing comes in? Some classifications of fiction are genre and some are setting (that is, any kind of story can be told in a particular setting such as western or science fiction) and sometimes something is both or neither.

No, of course not, Michael, you’re right. Especially so for the writerly blogs. I am constantly blown away by some of the wonderfully written blogs and or journals that do not generally link.  Dervala.net is one example and she does not link because she writes offline generally and uploads through a remote dialup) Which brings up a problem. The linkers tend to get linked hence viewed through that game of link tag that seems to be the living breathing currency of blogworld. How do we find and sustain these wonderful writers’ blogs, though? Will they give up? Does it matter? Is it link or die?