if one were to develop a taxonomy of blog-verbs, as suggested by Jon Udell...
My reflex comment is that if the authoring UI were to capture just a sprinkling of metadata - - for example, cues that a post intends to "opine" or "clarify" or "disagree" or "summarize" -- then these kinds of visualizations would become much more feasible. But the use of such cues, like the use of titles, would take a little time to do, and a little thought to do well.
...then the introduction of one blogger to another is an interesting case. Indeed, there is an interesting duality to be studied (by non-fundamentalist meme-types). On the one hand, we are studying the spread and mingling of memes; on the other hand, we are studying the development and interaction of individuals (to whom certain memes adhere, and from whom certain memes memes emanage). A meme-fundamentalist might argue that the person is an epiphenomenon. The individualist might argue that the memes are mythical entities; the real phenomena are people and their ideas. I'm a meme-pragmatist, I suppose. I really believe in the usefulness of the concept (and of course in the concept and value of the individual person); I also believe (meme-pragmatically) that the usefulness of a concept ultimately essentially determines the reality of the referent.
There's more on the relationship of memes, evolution, pragmatism and other such evolutionary epistemology issues in my 15-year old essays on William James and the emerging philosophy of the World Wide Web and William James Writ Large. (This stuff really does all tie together, I swear. Remarkably, though, there may now be a community of interest in a very real community of thinkers whose existence was barely imagineable 15 years ago! ) (PS I say "barely", to acknowledge (among others) Teilhard de Chardin's concept of the noosphere. de Chardin, incidentally, was influenced by James. Have I mentioned that I'm interested in tracking the flow of ideas?)
