I read Claire’s piece with some interest this morning, where she wrote:
About the time when I first got into the working reality, the blog was far more personal and exclusive to intimate outbursts of emotional and mental confusion, cast out over a less flashy blog template. My readers were less, but they were equally constructive in their critism and responses to the posts–I had a relationship with most of them, and I never hesitated to share IM contacts to bring the reader-blogger relationship up a notch.
via MiniNanos.
She’s right. How the blogosphere has changed. Its (a) gotten a lot larger and (b) a lot more diverse. As an advocate of the written word, i can only say that this is a good thing.