"A blog is an animal that is always famished," said NYT Assistant Managing Editor Ian Fisher, explaining why the NYT is closing down so many of its blogs.

The NYT told Poynter there would still be "bloggy content with a more conversational tone," but not in blog form. Part of it is that the redesigned site isn't working well with the The Times’ blogging software, but it's also an assessment of where the traffic is going and whether all the work of feeding the hungry animal called Blog is worth it.

Fisher disclosed that little traffic arrived on the NYT site through the blog's first page and we're told "he's rethought: The necessity to brand blogs. 'I’m actually a believer for the most part that we don’t need to be naming things.'"

That sounds odd and in need of interpretation. I think what's going on there is that blogs under the NYT brand failed to develop their own set of loyal readers, and the goal of increasing traffic to the NYT site was not served, not enough to justify writing in that format.

Blogging is a writing format, and it can be mobilized in service of different ends. I'm pleased at the failure of blogging as a means to the end of increasing traffic to a mainstream media website. I have long believed in blogging as a format for independent, individualized personal expression.

You've got to be the blog, not regard it as a pesky Other, always whining for more.