You do realize that you are guilty of exactly what you are accusing Carr of – picking some aspect of the subject matter and dealing with just that.

I read the piece three times: Carr deals with the nature of blogging – platforms vs. process, abandoned blogs and the loss of the concept of “blog personality” that has fallen under the ax of commercialization of the medium.

And this is before he makes the analogy comparing blogging to amateur radio.

You said

I like the analogy, but it does have limitation. The popular blogs that arose out of nowhere he romanticizes about were always just a small part of the Blogosphere. Just focusing on the nature of the Blogosphere’s head — the top 100 blogs or even the top 5000 blogs — and ignoring the long tail misses a lot.

I read the piece and I did not find evidence of Carr “romanticiz[ing]” popular blogs – if anything, he bemoans the fast that they are seem to be commercial engines designed to pull in readers (and presumably the ad revenue that comes in with eyeballs).

At least give us a some supporting arguments to go with the throw away comment about missing the long tail else this post is at best a collection of random thoughts and at worst sloppy writing.