Without differences in opinion the blogosphere would be a rather dull place. And that includes the Newbie Blogger Initiative, because "how to blog" is as much a possible bone of contention as "how to play games". So while I very much respect other bloggers opinion on blogrolls, e.g. Syl's excellent post on that matter, I would like to state a differing opinion on this subject.

A blog is a living thing. The activity on it can wax and wane. The author of the blog might switch games and suddenly write a completely different type of blog posts (I certainly did that). And if you compare how frequently the average blogger updates his blogroll with how quickly blogs change, you will see that there is a possible problem: Your blogroll might direct people to dead blogs, and blogs that don't have much in common with yours any more. On the other side your blogroll might well miss active and relevant blogs, with the writers of those blogs being somewhat miffed that you didn't include them on your blogroll. And a blogroll, by being mostly static, can fail to point out the most important posts you've seen somewhere else.

For all of these reasons I have chosen a different link strategy for my blog: I don't have a blogroll, but instead I link directly to blog posts I consider relevant. That simultaneously gives me the opportunity to not just link, but also state my opinion on the other blogger's post. I consider that a more dynamic and alive form of connecting blogs with each other. But of course that is just my opinion, which isn't universally shared.