Crossing the Threshold

A few days ago, Cameron Marlow (creator of Blogdex) compiled a great list of people who publish what he called "low threshold links". Usually displayed on a sidebar alongside lengthier weblog posts, low threshold links are a way of including the classic filter-style weblog links while still being able to publish longer, more self-contained posts. The increasing number of such lists is an interesting indicator of the maturity of the weblog format itself.

Though most of the sites mentioned on Cam's post maintain their link lists in Movable Type, we now also have tools created specifically to manage these kinds of lists, such as the Link TypeLists built into TypePad. Web-based writing tools tend to be the opposite of desktop writing tools in the sense that the tools form around the ways people write, instead of the desktop application model, where the tool informs and influences the works that are created with it. Microsoft PowerPoint's rather famous effect on its users is probably the best example of the results of a tool influencing its users instead of vice versa.

So, the birth of new tools marks the maturity of new formats for communicating online, and the increasing popularity of auxiliary link lists speaks to a milestone in the evolution of the weblog format, even though the format of brief annotated hyperlinks dates back to the birth of the web and weblogs themselves.

It probably bears some examination what we mean by "weblog" these days, anyway. Weblogs used to be the part of a site which contained the frequently-updated posts of an author or authors, but now the term "weblog" is frequently used to refer not just to that part of a site, but to the additional items that make up a full-featured weblog, such as comments, categories, a blogroll, some way to find out more about the author, a way to get in touch with the author by email or instant message, and now low threshold links. All of these elements are in addition to the main body of posts that form the heart of the weblog.

Low threshold links are still marked by a few traits that keep them distinct from standard weblog posts. Permalinks to individual links would be largely redundant, and so are usually skipped. Syndication of such links is perhaps even more important than for standard weblog posts. Categories are seldom applied to these lists, and indeed the uncategorized, serendipitous nature of the links may well be part of their allure. The final element which distinguishes most link lists from standard weblog posts is the fact that comments are almost never enabled for individual links. This may well be due to the fact many sites which originally started as collections of links contributed by a group of individuals tend to change over time to be as focused on the comments and community as on the links themselves.

The question remains whether weblogs will continue to evolve, adding new types of information and new ways of presenting content, or whether we've seen the beginning of a stage of maturity, where innovation will happen through use of the elements that already exist. We see in mature media like magazines that, though design elements differ and layouts change, standard components like a table of contents and an engaging back page remain fairly consistent. While few weblogs will ever contain all of the elements that are possible, we are starting to see signs that people are more interested in customizing those elements than in inventing entirely new ones.

If this is the case, and most people are now focused on communicating through weblogs instead of being wowed by their novlety, then perhaps low threshold links are one of the best examples of a mature new weblog realm, focused on discovering new ideas instead of discovering new technology.