Summary: Tom Coates' site, "plasticbag.org" has social software relevance and eye appeal. His recent entries on content (knowledge?) sequencing and development as processed by multiple participants (in one model-- threaded discussions-- preselected, in another-- blog-based discussions-- self-selected) is illuminating. I note one or two of the highlights and several very interesting links.

In Discussion and Citation in the Blogosphere Tom Coates makes clean work of distinquishing the linear discussion board from a blog-centered discussion [plasticbag.org]. If a blog manages to draw out at least one major response which does more than agree or disagree[e.g., summarizes salient points, responds to each and states/elaborates on an extension of the intial point], the discussion will progress [by developing, elaborating aspects of concepts , principles and boundaries of ideas discussed].

In the blog sequence "debate [takes the form of] a series of discontinuous leaps structured by impactful postings."
Whereas, in the threaded discussion, at least in its basic form, it is difficult to disentangle opinion-shifting entries from the whole lot. One reads and profits from the whole thread or not [I'm reminded of the Levi-Strauss term 'bricologe'-- a set of ideas/practices, etc. stuck to each other by association and tradition and having to be manipulated en masse. Awkward and ungainly compared to using refined task-targeted artifacts.]. In the blog sequence the boundary between points of view is clearer.

All of the above is made clear, clearer actually, in the full article that Tom has written and illustrated. Clarity was particularly enhanced by the diagramatic comparisons between blog-based and thread-based discussions.

Other related postings/references:

Those commentarians and their home bases are listed below:

Howard Rheingold [within which he provides a number of useful further links],

Rick Thomas at Toggleworld,

Oliver Wrede at Details of a Global Brain,

Chris Corrigan of Open Space software,

Lance Rose at the Well and cyberlawyer -- read his Harvard Harvard Filter Interview here ,

Anne Galloway who offers related links at her research blog ,

Will Davies at Isociety (with some good discussion, comments and links here),

Mamamusing's [Liz Lawley] social software reading list,

and, finally, Sunir Shah at Meatball Wiki--see his Social Software entries.