The Chronicle of Higher Ed often seems to be a reactionary sort of place, with a fondness for curmudgeonly luddites and fake controversies (see Tribble, Ivan), so it's good to see a positive article on this strange enterprised called "blogging": The Blogosphere as a Carnival of Ideas:

Why are so many academics beginning to blog? Academic blogs offer the kind of intellectual excitement and engagement that attracted many scholars to the academic life in the first place, but which often get lost in the hustle to secure positions, grants, and disciplinary recognition. Properly considered, the blogosphere represents the closest equivalent to the Republic of Letters that we have today. Academic blogs, like their 18th-century equivalent, are rife with feuds, displays of spleen, crotchets, fads, and nonsenses. As in the blogosphere more generally, there is a lot of dross. However, academic blogs also provide a carnival of ideas, a lively and exciting interchange of argument and debate that makes many scholarly conversations seem drab and desiccated in comparison. Over the next 10 years, blogs and bloglike forms of exchange are likely to transform how we think of ourselves as scholars. While blogging won't replace academic publishing, it builds a space for serious conversation around and between the more considered articles and monographs that we write.

It helps that it's written by a credible source, Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber, which is probably the best of the academic blogs—he has cause to see the promise of the medium.