Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do.

That's the usual course of things with weblogs. The next phase is, "This is taking too much of my time and I must cut back."

When I look back at my past blogrolls and I see how many of my once favorite weblogs are now defunct, it strikes me that weblogs have a shorter life-span that even teenage rock-bands. There's been about 80% turnover among my once favorite weblogs, and yet I've only had a blogroll for 2 years.

It seems to me all weblogs go down one of three paths:

1.) They end.

2.) They don't end, but the author becomes comfortable taking breaks of a month or two (both Virginia Postrel and Christina Wodtke took month long breaks when they were in the final stages of the various books they've each written).

3.) They don't end, but become group weblogs. Tom Tomorrow, Chris Bertram, Eugene Volkoh, and Harry Hatchet all gave up on go-it-alone weblogs and then either joined group weblogs (Crooked Timber for Chris Bertram) or invited other writers to write on their site. Becoming a group weblog has the same result for each individual writer: it becomes easier for them to take month-long breaks.

This Website is a treasure of treasures. Please know as I have told you before how deeply much I appreciate reading your posts each day, and reading the wonderful responses. Dear Brad, thank you so much.

Anne

no need for a brad/paul/nouriel ecc blog; rss feed is the solution

I've been going since December of 2001, and I've neither turned my blog into a group blog (though I've *also* started posting to *another* group blog), nor taken breaks of a month or more, though I do sometimes take a week or two off, and don't religiously post every day (though typically I'll post a whole lot for several days and then take two or three days off).

Just for the record.

Of course, Brad still doesn't link to me enough (there is no such thing as "enough" when considering links).

I agree with everything Anne has said.

One way around this is to establish a firm time for posting. You can post no more than 1 hour per day, and you don't have to post on any given day. That frees up the rest of your time, and makes you more enthusiastic about posting during your posting time.

Of course, I, who am a member of two groupblogs, still haven't been able to enforce the discipline on myself.

"Addicted to blog"

I always wondered where the authors got the time to blog and engough time just to have a life.
Dammed if I could. I also don't understand how people have the time to post responses. I have time, not much, because I am retired.
I would feel some loss if Brad abandoned ship.
At least wait until after the election. If the election goes badly Brad could just have an open blog for people to post stories about which country they are emigrating to.

"I always wondered where the authors got the time to blog and enough time just to have a life."

I always thought having a life was overrated.

Does this reflection relate to having burnt the food the other day?

Bloggery, from a few reliable, trustworthy and not too partisan sources is really open-sourced news and analysis, without which many of us might lose arguments with republicans. Must be going somewhere or we wouldn't spend all this time reading 'em. We need you, so forget your personal life, and get back to blogging! We can talk about pay sometime next week.

I agree with what Anne said.

Brad, reading your weblog has become a daily requirement. It is alway interesting and informative.

I am new to the internet and haven't spent much time on it, just getting acquainted with basics,like going to the Louvre, etc. I only first heard the word "blog" six months ago when several people asked me within a few days, "do you blog?" (I hold strong opinions.) I shouldn't admit this, but i had no idea of where to even go to find a "blog" and my brother had told me about all the right wing crazies out there. So the other night when I couldn't sleep and was taking a break from Ben Franklin, I turned on my computer and realized-duh-I could just enter "blog". However not wanting to encounter too many nuts in the middle of the night, I had the bright idea of entering "john Kerry blog". And there, my first ever encounter was BRAD DELONG! IS that good karma or what?