A Blogging They Will Go: If you pay the coin to get behind the NYT's TimesSelect subscription service, you'll notice that a number of Op-Ed columnists have taken to blogging.

Well, they've been given blogs. Let's see if they use them. So far, not much has been written.

David Brooks will be writing The Way We Live Now, Tom Friedman's got Talking World Affairs, Frank Rich is Everyone's Critic and so on.

Here's a sampling of their blog rolls. Sorry too lazy to code the links.

*Brooks:

* andrewsullivan.com
* realclearpolitics.com
* aldaily.com
* theamericanscene.com
* politicaltheory.info
* bullmooseblog.com
* nationalreview.com

*Friedman:

* docsearls.com,
* irvingwb.typepad.com
* andrewsullivan.com
* dailystar.com.lb

Notably absent - at least the last time I looked - was Maureen Dowd's blog. Guess she can't be bothered.

Tag: TimesSelect

Update (9/23/2005): Meanwhile, Nicholas Kristoff seems to be giving blogging the old college try. His blog, On The Ground actually has a number of posts. He's spending some of his time, however, responding to angry e-mails from readers who now have to pay read his column.

"In short, charging for Web access may be good strategy or bad strategy, and it certainly has a downside, but I entirely disagree with readers who think this is an immoral strategy. Look, the paper has to make money ... And the newspaper industry is hurting, along with this paper, in part because of the migration to the Web. The Times announced this week that it will cut 500 jobs. So it's not that The Times is wantonly inflicting pain on others; we're feeling it right in our newsroom as well. I wish that Times content were free, not least because I'm sad at losing a lot of readers. But I also wish that medical care were free, and that food were free. In the end, none of my wishes may be realistic."

The market will determine the outcome here. So long as the online advertising market is robust, most of the NYT content will remain free. If NYT columnists are an important part of people's day, they'll pay to read them.