Glenn Reynolds, Superstar

The New York Times gets around to sanctifying Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds with a very flattering profile of the world's fastest and most wide-ranging blogger.

At the risk of shameless ass-kissing: Reynolds is particularly interesting as a media phenom in an age of cultural proliferation. Where other popular bloggers (say, Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus) had establishment chops before blasting off into the blogosphere, Reynolds (like Matt Drudge) was for all intents and purposes a complete unknown, a Mr. Nobody from Nowhere.

Yet within a short period of time, Reynolds has become a remarkably (and rightly) valuable and respected source of information and opinion. That's no small trick--and it's no unimportant one, either. The information world is incalculably richer than it was just five or 10 years ago. Why? Because of technological advances (the rise of cable TV, desktop publishing, DIY music, the Internet) in large part, but also because of people such as Reynolds who figured out how to use these developments in new and interesting ways.