a group blog is definitely better, but what will be the difference between, let's say, the Simon World contributed by simon, eswn and dave, and the ESWN contributed by eswn, simon and dave?

Personally, I think blogs work best when they are primarily the work of one person. I read blogs which are written by people who seem to know what they are talking about, and cover interesting (to me) areas ... as soon as you move to a 'group blog' the focus and style gets less clear, and often I find it is less interesting.

One of the strengths of blogs is that anyone can setup their own - why have 2 people co-blogging when they can each have their own blog? If they're both writing interesting stuff, I'll subscribe to both of them.

As for frequency of posting: As more people subscribe to your feed, this become less relevant. People will be notified when you put up a post - whether it's an hour, a day or a week after your previous one.

So long as the additions' posts measure up to the quality set by Dave and yourself, I wouldn't object to the extra content. But if they're just going to offer tabloid humor and snark, you should send them my way (AP could always use more sensationalism and snark).

The idea would be any new co-authors would be someone I would want to read myself. I'm not looking for clones.

Bingfeng- I don't pretend to do what ESWN does, and don't pretend I even could. I sometimes disagree with ESWN and he with me. I would say our two sites occupy different niches. I wouldn't ask to be a guest blogger on ESWN and I doubt he would want to be here - while I have great respect for that site, it's not what this one is about.

Dave - I've thought about that. The problem is one of time. People don't have all day to surf the web and read sites and while it's not so hard to go from site to site, it's certainly easier if the posts are in one place rather than spread across several sites. Point taken about feeds, but they still represent only 10-15% of readers to this site at the moment.

Chris - we all need tabloid - it's what made Rupert Murdoch rich.

I think the greatest advantage of a group blog is consistency. If one author goes on vacation, or has a real busy week, the blog is less likely to suffer. It boils down to diversifying your portfolio, especially when one person can't be expert in every subject the blog seeks to deal with. I'm not a Japan-guy, for example, so I'm glad we have monocrat at EAW to pick up the slack on Japan posts.

The danger, of course, is turning into something like NRO's The Corner, which has become nearly unreadable.

First off, Simon, thank you for your kind words. It's been a pleasure co-blogging on your site.

I would encourage all those talented would be-bloggers to come out of the 'lurking' phase and join the adventure. It's great fun, if you have many opinions about Asia, China and Hong Kong you can get a good deal off your chest instead of grating on your co-workers or loved ones.:) As Simon mentioned, it is indeed easy to use his system, really no prior experience with blogging or html is required... you'll just need to pass the Simon M litmus test of creditable (and humorous) acidity!

Hunter - again a good point, and something I'm wary of. That's why I'm limiting it to only a smallish roster, under the assumption at any one time one or two contributors will be unable to post.

Dave - you've set a high bar for newer contributors...if worse comes to worse, I'll just outsource it to India!

I like the current format. If you want to include an extra person, then perhaps you could give them a 1 week trial run and see how the readers like their posts.

The best collaborative blog (if you could call it that) is the Tech Central Station. It is more a series of columns, rather than a blog...but that is why I think it works.

What I find refreshing with some collaborative blogs are that one person takes over for a period of time...rather than mixing in different writing styles on the fly. That is...Simon does the bulk of the work...then Dave fills in when Simon is away. That works and is accepted, I think, by most readers.

I'd love to be more active on my blog...but as anyone has seen by the month of October...it was a brutal month for REAL work. Someone's gotta pay the bills.

I think it's a great idea, and I like Spirit fingers' suggestion. Sometimes another voice can be different, but really complementary, enriching the whole site. I read "coming anarchy" and "Chicago Boyz" often, and really enjoy the interplay of people who aren't clones of each other, yet still operate in the same intellectual universe.

I wish I could find a couple of co-bloggers myself. I've gotten tired, overworked, and bored with it, but don't want to quit. Anybody who thinks they're too lightweight for Simon's place, but would still like to put up a short piece or two, give me a call.

Group blogging is the only way to go and the only way a blog can survive the test of time. Face it -- we can't post everyday, but if we don't, people stop reading.