Academic papers largely influence … other academics. In a cycle that often seems set up to do little else than impress one another within a insular niche. Ok, I’m exaggerating the skeptic’s side of the coin, but it does seem rare that an academic paper has a truly large impact on the wider world (though I’m sure inevitably [influence] is a power law). If you want to influence the world, talk to the world. Blogging is one route. Also, I agree with the comment by Eliezer Yudkowsky that blog posts are not like newspaper articles. The best posts will be continually rediscovered through links and search engines. You’ve created one of the most vibrant and participatory blogs I’ve seen covering a serious subject: many kudos. One example of your breadth of reach: I noticed that tech celeb Marc Andreessen has you listed among his “interesting writers”: see http://blog.pmarca.com/ .
To build on David Pennock’s argument (if I may), I’d say that I begin to see academic papers referring web postings (including blog posts) and publishing their deep links (URLs) in the appendices.
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UPDATE: Robin Hanson…
I seem to have failed to communicate, as all these comments seem to have missed the point. Yes, blog posts can influence people, but the question is whether that influence feeds back much into more related intellectual insights that accumulate over the long run.
