An Australian text, Uses of Blogs by Axel Bruns and Joanne Jacobs, is the first edited collection of scholarly articles on blogging by experts and practitioners in a wide range of fields. Some commentary can be found byJean Burgess at Creativity Machine and Mark Bahnisch at Larvatus Prodeo.

Uses of Blogs can be counterbalanced to this sceptical account by Leslie Cannold, who says:

Peruse personal websites, blogs and the comment sections offered by mainstream and boutique news sites, and amid the sometimes insightful and occasionally amusing commentary are a significant number of contributions in contention for the totally-missed-the-point, played-the-person-not-the-ball, mono-rail-mind or axe-to-grind awards. On one Australian opinion site, a band of "forum participants" with masculine, often gladiatorial-sounding names, roam from one female-authored article to the next displaying both significant anger management and comprehension issues.

So what do Bruns and Jacobs say?

They acknolwedge that weblogging is a broad-based movement, not the province of a select few, and say:

While there is some information on who these people are likely to be (male rather than female by a small margin, probably under 30 years of age, relatively well-off, well-educated, and well-connected via broadband), what remains unknown, however, is just how they are using blogs both as readers and as producers of content—only one fact is certain: not all of them will be engaging in news commentary and political discussions.

Further, and partly because of the mass amateurization of publishing online, blogs have been criticised in some professional sectors as being illegitimate or even dangerously skewed information archives. Yet it is the specific implementation of a blog that determines its value: its operational structures and response mechanisms, as well as the style of writing and method of recording ideas, commentary and institutionally relevant information, all influence the significance, reputation and success of a blog.