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When Internet accessibility was widespread enough to drive Bulletin Board Systems underground, Usenet was the interactive component to the World Wide Web’s spewing of one-way information. Though Perl-built discussion systems quickly went into production, uniform discussion software didn’t become the norm until much later.

Today, the blogosphere has changed the way many people interact online, as more people are spending their time leaving comments on myspace and responding to individual blog posts than they are keeping tabs on any one particular forum. This is especially true with the popularity of such sites as Digg, which promotes individual blog posts. This, as well as search engines designed to scout blogs specifically, introduces blogs to readers who might otherwise never have known about a particular blog, and the new influx of readers will in turn generate comments on topics throughout the Web, rather than at one site alone.

While social networking sites are still growing, and will ultimately continue to evolve to change the future of the Web, some bit players herald what could come, by incorporating easily-created discussion “rooms” with Digg-like features. While such projects show significant promise, the key to their success will not be in hosting discussion content alone, but rather by integrating with the blogs of its readers. When a seamless transition between the Web’s blogs and a center for content discussion takes place, then perhaps smaller blogs will have a chance to borrow ideas from the greater intellectual community.

However things turn out, social networking sites are an interesting innovation that will undoubtedly influence how we use the Internet and gather our news.

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