What are the characteristics of a blog?

• content is published in the form of posts, often in reverse chronological order
• content is posted on a website, online, with hypertext capabilities
• they are self-published, regardless of hosting platform, in that there is no gatekeeper authorizing publication

Blog posts do not have to be read in the order they were originally published.

Also as a distinct format, they are worthy of consideration, because the medium a message is served through is as important as the message itself.

Blogs are broad and can be defined by a lot of different examples. Technology enables it but does not solely define blogness. There are distinctions though

• composed of addressable, distinct posts
• order-irrelevant and non-hierarchical
• impermanent and ever-evolving
• self and external-referencing
• it is published online to an unknown audience
• multiple types of content (image, video, text, sound, ...)

In contrast, newsletters miss the searchability. They are not addressable and lack of public publishing. The publisher can know the audience.
Social media serves a mixed feed with posts by other authors. The algorithm incentivizes the work creator's post. The platforms reinforce a strong bias to the present.

It seems "blogs argument themselves". They are "contemplation on a particular theme in depth".

What is the future of the blog medium? It's still a new medium and it depends on how we want it to mature in the next 20 years.