Analyze an emerging form of knowledge sharing that I call personal knowledge publishing. Personal knowledge publishing has its roots in a practice known as "weblogging" that has been rapidly spreading on the World Wide Web over the last three years. It is a new form of communication that many expect will change the way people work and collaborate, especially in areas where knowledge and innovation play an important role.

If you are a researcher or knowledge worker who is not very familiar with weblogging and personal knowledge publishing, reading this document should help you grasp the significance of this practice and better understand how you might benefit from getting involved in personal knowledge publishing. Although the emphasis is on research work, most of the ideas generalize to other kinds of creative knowledge work where knowledge sharing plays a role.

In the first section, I describe what weblogs are, and explain how they are altering communication patterns on the Web. The second section focuses on personal knowledge publishing and similarly describes the new patterns of communication that this practice is giving birth to. In particular, I explain how these patterns can facilitate the emergence of new communities of knowledge. I also point out the current limitations of personal knowledge publishing. I review the most important points in the conclusion.

Weblogs

Defining the term
Weblogs may be viewed as an evolved form of personal Web pages, or "home pages". The term, coined by Jorn Barger in 1997, refers to a web site that is a "log of the Web", indicating a record that points to material available on the World Wide Web. A weblog editor is often called a weblogger. The shorthand terms blog and blogger are also commonly used; usage of the word "blog" has become so common that it has recently been drafted for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Before I get into the full-blown definition, you may want to look at figures 1 and 2 as indicative examples.

Many definitions of the term "weblog" have been proposed. Since the genre is evolving quickly, there is currently only a rough consensus on what properly constitutes a weblog. However, a number of features are commonly agreed to be defining characteristics of the genre. In what follows, I will use the term weblog to refer to a web site that exhibits those features:

Personal editorship
The content of the site is under the responsibility of a single person (although visitors may post comments in designated sections) and to some extent reflects this invidual's personality. Whereas the creation of web pages may be outsourced, you cannot have someone else run your weblog, because then it would no longer be your weblog.

Hyperlinked post structure
The site's contents consists in typically short posts that feature hypertext links referencing material outside the site. These may be links to news items from sources such as CNN.com or the New York Times Online, or to other weblog posts. The selection of links is entirely up to the editor, who may link anywhere on the web. There is also no prescribed length for a post - some posts simply consist of a single link to content elsewhere, but most often they also include additional information and/or personal commentary on the issue under discussion. The presence of links is what distinguishes the weblog from the online diary, in which an author mostly recounts personal events and thoughts, and which is not especially relevant to anyone outside the author's circle of friends.

Frequent updates, displayed in reverse chronological order
A weblog is a continuously-running publication, much like a daily or weekly newspaper.

The latest posts (hence the freshest content) appear at the top of the weblog's main page, and older content appears further down. This characteristic creates an expectation of updates that incites readers to visit the site on a regular basis. A relationship is established between author and reader and strengthened with each visit, just as happens with other regular publications. This probably marks the most fundamental distinction between weblogs and personal web pages or "home pages", the latter often being seen once and seldom revisited.

Free, public access to the content

The site's contents is freely accessible via the World Wide Web without restriction such as payment or membership. (This is often taken for granted on the Web, but it distinguishes weblogs from commercial forms that make sharing more difficult.)

Archival
While older posts may disappear from the front page, they are archived and may be accessed elsewhere on the site. Each post is assigned a permanent hyperlink or permalink which makes it possible to reference older material.