The Wrong Question: Is it a "Real Blog"?

Zoli Erdos has touched off the latest round in the omnipresent "what is a blog" wars, with modified that position to effectively agree with the largest group in Mike's poll. I know everyone likes to say that it's about "the conversation" and so on, which is getting a touch overused as a metaphor (but is still essentially true, I think). The bottom line for me is simply that the comments on a post are often at least as interesting as the post itself, and in some cases much more so. In that sense, the post is like a magnet that attracts different viewpoints - some of which are bound to be moronic "you're an idiot" kind of comments, but some of which are occasionally going to add huge value. For example, I found the back-and-forth between Blake Ross and his critics on the Google issue (see www.mathewingram.com/work and