Following a Collectively Constructed Blogstory(Microdoc News) - where Microdoc surveys the types of blogs that have responded to the story and how the story has continued.  This post ends with a call to action : "What we need is a site that will provide summaries of blogologues, provide all citations, have a summary of each, the type of blog post (vote, summary, opinion, reaction) so that we can follow stories far more easily. There is a task for Daypop, Blogdex, Feedster or Popdex."

Practical Considerations in Tracing a Blogosphere Story: where practical considerations in tracing the progress or evolution of a Blogosphere story are discussed.  Interesting to note observations based on the 'mutation' of the original post by Microdoc News.  Some problems they have documented :

Here is the problem -- in mapping this story, what can I count as a node contributing to the collective story? Do I count comments on the Doc Searl site as a contribution to a blogging story? In that the comments are on the Doc Searl site, is not it sufficient to indicate that the main posting of Doc Searl is enough to show as the voter or opinion in the blog story map?

We also experienced difficulties in what can be included as a blog. Is a site of just links a blog? Such as the links of Anil Dash. Also, can we count Blogdex, Daypop, and Popdex as providing a vote or not in the story? These sites are a vital way of people learning about the story, and in some cases people identify these sites as a source of their story. Does a blog always need to be the source of a blog post, or can it be an automated site that simply stores links?

What is the point of referencing? Why do we need to know where Joe obtained the link from? Apart from helping us map the story, there is kind of a intellectual honesty thing here. How hard you looked, where you gained the intelligence, and the type of link from which you obtained the story is all relevant. It is kind of the "authorization" of the story

Discussion and Citation in the Blogosphere...[plasticbag.org].  Here's an absolutely wonderful piece by Tom Coates, in which he attempts to resolve some basic questions about discussions and conversations through blogging. 

"Can you have a good discussion through the blogosphere? What is the nature of that discussion? How does it differ from message-board conversation?"

He speaks of a "micro-paradigm shift - a kind of hyperactive academia, where discussion moves forward in discontinuous chunks - with an initial weighty post articulating a position that is then commented upon, challenged and cited all over the place.  But the debate doesn't move forward until someone manages to articulate a position of sufficient weight to shift the emphasis of the discussion to their new position"

Here's a neat diagram on comparisons between online threaded discussions and weblog style microparadigm shifts :

I like the thought that "debate across weblogs self-organizes in a pretty useful way".  

Like an unbound sieve .... filtering out the grain from the dust ....