Not sure how active this thread is any more, but I thought I'd add my two cents worth anyway. A couple of the posters have suggested that it might be a stretch to consider the SWJ community of platforms a model for future academic work. Rex rightly points out that at least for academics, blogging, forum moderation, etc., count for next to nothing towards the ticket punching that needs to be done for academics to progress.

Where this sort of thing can be better sold to academia is it's value as an extended seminar or workshop platform, a way of extending influence into the public domain, as "conversation" and "discussion" rather than as "publication". I think where some new media can easily fail is in trying to function as an alternative to peer-reviewed publication, or trying to replicate it in accelerated form, or trying to revolutionize how peer-review is done.

Why compete? Blogs, discussion fora, online magazines, all offer opportunities to extend debate and enable new and non-traditional voices to be heard - many of them non-academic practitioners with plenty to say. The can also enable academics, who might never be read or hear by any but their own narrow realm of academic peers, to become members of broader communities of interests, to have their work and ideas introduced to previously estranged communities.

If the management side of things remains focused, and keeps the content focused - as with SWJ/SWC - then the model works, and can be applied in innovative ways.