It seems that the first stage in adapting to a blog mindset is simply making entries and reading the entries of others to get a feel for the subtleties of the medium. It IS different from a traditional "home page", but quantifying the difference can be challenging. Any analogy I try to draw captures only a portion of the utility that a weblog can offer. It is a journal. It is a (heavy duty) favorites list. It is a two-way communication medium, but not in ways that you're used to. Userland's Radio tool (the one I'm using) enhances the two-way capabilities with its RSS aggregator. Because I've cut my teeth on Radio, I can't imagine what the blogging experience would be like without the INPUT side of the equation offered by the aggregator. Of course there are several news aggregators that, coupled with another weblog tool, could complete the circle. For those who do not use RSS-based subscriptions, does personal blogrolling (or services such as weblogs.com) serve as the INPUT source?
I've been thinking a lot today about how to use the knowledge captured within my weblog. Once I'm in the habit of wrapping just the right amount of myself around chunks of other sites, when do I use it again? How does it pop back into my workflow? The most basic of models seems to be, "Didn't I make a post about that? Hmmm... Did I use the phrase "image management" or "picture database"?" Seems klunky. Management of meta-data is a great idea (e.g. categories), but it requires, to some extent, some foreknowledge of how you're going to want to use the information in the future. I know...there isn't a good answer. I would love to see, however, a system that would automatically add meta-data that might prove useful. I guess I'm talking about some sort of intelligent agent that could analyze my entries according to unforseen parameters. Sort of like the engines behind personal management software like Creo's Six Degrees or Enfish Personal--both applications that attempt to categorize the data in your contacts, email, and documents to present meaningful options when you're working with any of the three. What if my weblog software were "smart" like this? I guess it almost sounds like Microsoft's Smart Tags (which has always sounded vaguely sinister) in application. Let's say I make a post about a project I'm working on that deals with instructional design for web-based courses. Could my tool cruise through the archived RSS feeds of the sites I'm subscribed to and suggest links to other's who are working on the same thing? Could it look through my own archives and find posts with similar themes? How would I see these suggestions? Would they be available to those who subscribe to my weblog? At this point I have many more questions than answers.
3:16:08 PM 
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