Book prize unbound ... the Baghdad Burning blog - in its book version - is among nominees for this year's Samuel Johnson prize
This morning's news that the blog-book Baghdad Burning has made it onto the longlist of the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction marks a significant moment on the road to the wider recognition of online writing.

Thousands of readers from around the world have been following the blog since its inception back in 2003. Written by a former computer programmer in her 20s under the penname Riverbend, it deals with the state of Iraq following the allied invasion, and specifically considers the circumscribed way of life to which all Iraqis - but particularly women - have become forcibly accustomed.

Her most recent post, a week ago last Sunday, coincided with the third anniversary of the invasion; in it she presents, in unsentimental but desperately moving prose, the horrifying position in which the citizens of Baghdad find themselves, three years on. Her descriptions of the stockpiling of food and medical supplies in defence against anticipated acts of violence, and the growing rifts between moderate citizens along Sunni and Shia lines, provide an insight into the state of the country that news reports and comment pieces are unable to equal, while her own despair in the face of the fourth year of occupation, which looks like being the worst yet, is compellingly expressed.

If you haven't yet read her blog, do so: it's brilliant. And it is of course wonderful that prizes such as the Samuel Johnson are recognising the importance of the internet as the place where some of the world's most powerful writing is currently taking place.

But this acknowledgement - following hard on the heels of last week's announcement of the shortlist for the inaugural Blooker Prize for hard-cover versions of online journals - also raises some interesting questions. Why is it, when the blog exists in a far lengthier, continuously evolving and arguably more complete form on the net, is it only in its incarnation as a book that it has been nominated for the prize? And is it right, or does it constitute a fundamental misunderstanding of the medium, that Baghdad Burning will be judged in its physical manifestation alone, despite the fact that, unlike the other books on the list, this is an ongoing work?

If blogs such as this were to become eligible for literary prize nomination in their raw state, this would in turn throw up some sticky issues about the judging process. Is it possible, or just, to compare a constantly developing piece of writing with a bound and edited book? Will we always have to keep the two fields separate, unless a book-of-the-blog is published - or is the way forward perhaps to create a blog category in the Whitbread (or whatever they're about to become) awards? Knotty problems for the literary prize circuit to consider ...