The New York Times weighs in on blogging today with an article entitled “A Nation of Bloggers and Googling by E-mail.” (link requires registration)
Reporter Pamela LiCalzi O’Connell looks at new sites and portals springing up to bring order out of chaos when searching through about 1/2 million blogs on line.

There is no easy way to search for blogs by content or
popularity. The major blog directory, at
portal.eatonweb.com, has only 6,000 listings. But a bevy of
new sites offer interesting ways, if somewhat esoteric
ones, to browse the blog universe.

“The number of Weblogs is just so numerous that these
grass-roots organizational sites are a necessity -
otherwise, you’d never find new blogs among the deluge,”
said Matthew Haughey, co-author of the new book “We Blog:
Publishing Online With Weblogs” (John Wiley & Sons).

BlogStreet.com puts blogs in neighbourhoods and the ever popular BlogTree.com give blogs a geneology.

WebRing.com). And sites like
blogs4God.com and nycbloggers.com organize blogs by
interest group or geography.

I was reading comments recently where bloggers were discussing these neighbourhoods and groupings forming like special interest UseNet groups did before them. I think it is human nature to find those of like mind, and isn’t a ‘bad’ thing. The web is global and any tools that help you find what you are interested in is a plus for most of us.

I think this NYT article points that out well. Groupings will become negative when they become only exclusive, commercial, and rule driven. None of the sites listed above come close to that yet, or will. An open and global web will ensure that any site owners attempting to own, spam, use, or exploit blog groups and neighbourhoods will be worked around by free wheeling others and dismissed. Organizing groupings and neighbourhoods is going well with the site and portal models listed in this article.

The field is still wide open,” Mr. Haughey said. “There
are still tons of blogs without a good way to search them,
clump them or suggest ones you might like. I’m sure more
sites will spring up this year to fill that void.”