Please Welcome the First Editor of Freakonomics.com

As stated here before, this blog was barely meant to be born at all, much less go on for two years.

But now we’ve decided to stick around for at least a couple more years — when, if all goes well, we’ll publish our next book.

Since we’re going to keep at it, we figured, we might as well try to make the blog better. So we’ve hired a full-time Freakonomics.com editor, Melissa Lafsky. She’ll be doing a lot of things that are visible and a lot that are less visible, all of which should make the blog more worthwhile. The changes will be gradual (some have already begun), but the overall effect, in time, should be substantial.

Those of you who read a lot of blogs are probably already familiar with Melissa’s work. A reformed Manhattan lawyer, she was the anonymous creator of Opinionistas.com, a blog where she chronicled the odd tribal customs of … Manhattan lawyers (primarily herself). She left legal practice and joined The Huffington Post, where she wrote (and edited) everything from film reviews to media commentary to reported profiles. She has also written for The New York Post, Salon, Wired, The Columbia Journal of American Studies, etc., and is working on a book based on her blog. She lives in Brooklyn with her boyfriend and cat, each of whom receives regular play on her blog; the cat objects less.

Melissa also teaches a Learning Annex course on blogging that begins like this: Lesson One: Cancel Your Social Life. That is exactly the sort of work ethic we applaud here at Freakonomics.com. Please join us in giving Melissa a warm welcome.