In Dec. 2005, when the Harvard Crimson first began publishing its Sports Blog, a rash of blogs linked to Ivy League newspapers emerged as we all attempted to keep up with the Joneses. At the time, the DP quickly followed with the sports-oriented Buzz and finally, in the fall of 2006, the culmination of all Ivy blogging efforts: the Spin.

(What, you think it’s a conflict of interest to have the opinion blog editor post about the blogs? Pssh.)

This transition from newspaper to media organization has proved daunting in some cases. The Columbia Spectator’s first effort, SpecBlogs, died and then experienced an impressive resurrection ten months after its first conception. Now their version of Inside the Newsroom, The Editors Notes, gives a voice to the Spec Managing Board, while undergrads and grad students alike express themselves on the opinionated Commentariat.

With the Spin, we’ve evolved over the years, too.

Sometime between that first historic post, which optimistically pleaded that “the conversation … never end,” to more recent posts, just-as-optimistically begging for reader guest blogs, we’ve also transitioned from “online columnists” to real bloggers who post much shorter reaction pieces and curse like sailors.

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