How many blogs does the world need? There is already blog gridlock. When the Washington Post editorial page started a blog before this year’s conventions, participants (I was one) were told: Don’t forget that the Post political staff also has a complete set of blogs. It wasn’t clear what we were supposed to do about this, but the implication was that there are only so many aperçus to go around, so don’t be greedy.
The great thing about blogs, in my view, is that they share the voice of e-mail. It’s a genuinely new literary form, which, at its best, combines the immediacy of talking with the reflectiveness of writing. But many readers may be reaching the point with blogs and websites that I reached long ago with the Sunday New York Times Magazine–actively hoping there isn’t anything interesting in there because then I’ll have to take the time to read it.