YeahOKButStill has an interesting take on the interaction between philosophy done in blogs and philosophy done in journals:

"... Many older philosophers lament the current lack of creativity and ingenuity in the field (as compared to certain heady, action-packed periods of the 20th century), yet, it is a well-established fact that in order to be published in a major journal or present at a major conference, a young philosopher has to load their paper/presentation with enormous amounts of what is called the "relevant literature". This means that even the most creative people among us (a group I do not count myself as belonging to) must spend huge amounts of time, space and energy trying to demonstrate just how widely they have read and just how many possible objections to their view they can consider, lest some irritable senior philosopher think that their view has not been given a fair shake. Of course, there is no evidence whatsoever that the great philosophers of the 20th century wrote and thought in this manner, as a quick survey of that relevant literature will show.

Blogs are a space for young philosophers to explore their ideas without these sorts of constraints, to try ideas on for size and to potentially get feedback from a wide audience. Indeed, the internet has the potential to host forums that could make reading groups at Oxford and Cambridge look positively stultifying. Yet, this is not how things are playing out: most young philosophers I know are afraid to even sign their real names to a comment thread. This, as anyone can see, is an absurd situation. However, since I have no control over it, I must bid this public space adieu."