A few years ago there was a trend afoot to kill the blogroll. Deep links in context were better, or so the argument went.   I could see their point.
However, I never killed off my blogroll because it is valuable for my readers. In fact, my stats show that people DO look at the blogs in my sidebar. In my new design, the blogs also have a clip from their last post and the date when they last published.   I do take it to heart that it is better to explain WHY someone appears in that esteemed list. Not only that, I read more...