The most recent copy of the Communications of the ACM focusses on many aspects of Blogging. There are articles in it looking at several aspects.
Kumar et. al have looked at things like Geographical distribution of bloggers – and some demographics of blog users (for example, they have found a cluster of UK blogs about Harry Potter – run by 43-48 year olds). Much of the data that they used was drawn from LiveJournal – which typically attracts “Social/ diary” type blogs.
Cayzer, looked at Semantic Blogging – focussing on how information is shared in a large corporation (in this case Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol), and how a blogging type environment might enable the searching and archiving of this material. They are also interested in the Semantic Web – and are developing tools to concentrate on the metadata of entries (or, as they call them “Snippets”).
Blood looked at communities and how they develop online – her website includes her blog – and information about assorted other articles she has written. The article in the ACM looks at the changing technology – and how this has influcenced community development.
All of these (and more) are in the December 2004 issue of Communications of the ACM.