Just what is a weblog, anyway? Do "blogs" have anything in common? Why do people, in fact, bother to blog?

Answers to these questions vary considerably, but one thing's for sure: Blogs have become influential means of communication, and are gaining in popularity. To be honest, some blogs, especially those more personal in scope, attract limited interest. They're nothing more than online diaries that might appeal to a person's friends or relatives. But many blogs focus on particular topics and offer insightful commentary.

Higher education one such topic. I've found several higher ed blogs ranging from personal accounts of college life to adjunct issues to "moments of monumental malfeasance on campus." You can also find blogs based on campus, like this one at Harvard Law School and this one at Oxford, that address myriad issues, including higher education. Faculty have gotten into the blogging game, as this article points out. One faculty weblog, Instapundit, attracts more than 100,000 visitors per day. To get a good sense of the variety of such sites, look here.

Several blogs offer content related to education or its application to industry. Joi Ito, for instance, offers this commentary on the potential for blogging to aid participatory democracy among Japanese youth. Students of the world, unite! And this one on technology, venture capitalism and entrepreneurship has implications for university-industry partnerships and tech transfer opportunities.

So, again, how does one define a weblog? Donna Wentworth, affiliated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law, offers the following: "A weblog...is a website updated frequently with links, commentary and anything else you like. [....] Blogs can be political journals, news digests, and/or personal diaries; they can focus on one narrow subject or range across a universe of topics. The weblog form is unique to the Web, highly addictive, and may be changing how we communicate with one another."

So there you have it. I hope you enjoy poking around and reading what others have to say about this fascinating subject.