[Air-L] Use of @ as convention for blog/forum threading

Hello, all, One of my students is looking at the diffusion of the "@" sign as a convention for threading conversations in blogs. She's done a preliminary scan of the literature, and hasn't found much that addresses this specifically. Any suggestions for work that addresses the question of the evolution of meta-discourse for conversation control in contexts (mailing lists, IRC, IM, forums, blog comments) that often do not have built-in threading? Thanks! Alex -- -- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais, cyberflâneur // http://alex.halavais.net //