Network Computingwww.networkcomputing.com

The Internet buzzword of the season is blog, short for Web log. Not familiar with the concept? Here's a quick definition: Blogs are frequently updated Web pages in a sequential time log format, often with links to related sites and stories. Some blogs are discussion-based, such as slashdot.org, while others are diary-style, like livejournal.com.

Blogs can be useful for daily news and project updates. However, the blog format breaks down when used for general topic links, such as the Mobilog at radio.weblogs.com/0101123. The advantage over periodic e-mail messages is that you can see the archive of updates -- not just the most current entry -- easily. It's also one less e-mail message for employees to ignore. The catch is that links to topical stories aren't best presented in a time-based format.

If you want to read about 802.11a, for example, you want links to all relevant stories, and you don't want to spend time searching for them day by day. Until blog developers address the issues of archive classification and sorting, blogs can't possibly live up to their potential.