I’m writing an article about the blogging phenomenon at the moment and, naturally, use the web as a research resource. It’s wonderful what there is out there if you go searching. For example, this excellent piece in New York Magazine, which looks at the operation of power law distributions in blogging. And then there’s Dave Sifry’s State of the Blogosphere survey and his more recent analysis of the growth of the blogosphere as media, in which he discusses some of the emerging trends in handling information overload. These are all thoughtful and helpful essays, and I can get them without leaving my study. Fifteen years ago, this would have been unthinkable. And I still can’t quite take it for granted.