In general, I've become much less enthusiastic about blogging than I was years ago. The power of real conversations is certainly a possibility – it's just not what usually happens. Blogs have become filled with the same crap that litters most other mediums.
A few days ago, Creative Weblogging put up a sponsored post on this blog about a company called PeerSight. There was a negative comment about the price and then I commented about why I don't like these types of businesses. The nice thing is that Steve MacGill of Peersight came and left a comment too. He explained why he thinks it is a good value. I don't know if it is or not, as I'm just not interested in most types of social interaction on the web. But regardless, I think it's cool that such discussions, although admittedly short ones, can take place.
i think most sites suffer from lack of freedom of expression – i.e. comments deemed ‘disagreeable’ are disappeared.