In the blog world, no individual is indispensable

Daily Kos had about 16 million visits in April 2007, a relatively small increase over the roughly 15 million visits in April 2006. This was a bit of a surprise -- April was the first month since November 2006 in which Daily Kos experienced year-over-year growth for that month. December 2006 through March 2007, Daily Kos had experienced a roughly 5 percent decrease from the comparable year-ago periods.

Why is this interesting? Well, I've been gone for most of April on my paternity "leave" (yeah, it's all relative). Yet the site isn't just holding its own, it's actually growing.

I like to talk about this being a "leaderless" movement, and that no single individual is really all that important to it. No one individual was indispensable for the rise of the netroots. Subtract any of us now, and the movement would continue to chug along with barely a bat of the eye. And what better example of that is there than the fact this site actually has had its best April ever despite the general absence of the guy whose name is on the site's masthead?

At the end of the day, this isn't a movement based on personalities or individuals, but on our collective action and influence. We're all expendable. None of us are essential. And it's wonderful.

Update: A corollary, from the comments:

or rather

we're all essential.

just no more essential than the next person.

and it's not a leaderless movement. It's a movement with so many leaders, so many different ones on any given issue or are or day, that it's the quintessential "leaderfull" movement.

I like that.