The World

Close observers of this blog may notice a few changes from tomorrow. For a start, the blog’s name is going to change. It will be called “The World” (or something a bit like that). This will reflect the fact that I will no longer be the sole contributor to the blog. Five of my FT colleagues will also become regular bloggers: Alan Beattie in Washington, Roula Khalaf (our Middle East editor), William Wallis (our Africa editor), John-Paul Rathbone (our Latin America editor) and a fifth mystery signing, whose arm is still being twisted by the World Desk. The foreign-affairs team also plan to post occasional “issue briefings” on the blog. I will continue to blog as frequently (or infrequently) as before – ie about three or four times a week. The others have promised that they will be good for at least one contribution a week. But the precise division of labour will doubtless evolve.

From my point of view, this new arrangement has a couple of distinct advantages. First, I need no longer feel guilty if a couple of days have passed, and nothing has been posted on the blog. I can even go on holiday, without shutting it down. Second, it will be good to draw on a broader range of expertise. For example, last night I noticed that Ai Weiwei had been released – and felt I should probably say something about it. But I haven’t been to China for many months – and most of what I know about the case is gleaned from western experts or the papers. In future, a post like that might well be written by somebody on the spot – or by a regional expert.

From the FT’s point of view, the new arrangement reflects the realisation that the more stuff that you put on a blog, the larger the audience it tends to gather. The most visited blogs on the FT web-site are Alphaville and Beyond Brics, both of which have their own dedicated staffs – and therefore gazillions of posts a day. We are not quite going that far here on the World blog. But there will certainly be more to read in future.

I think it is traditional on these occasions to say -”I am sure that readers will be as thrilled as we are by these exciting new developments.” So let me just say that, “I’m sure that …”