MISCONCEPTIONS: This post by Bill Quick drastically overstates InstaPundit’s influence, I think. But a misconception in his comments — though quickly corrected by Steven Den Beste, no less, in the subsequent comment — may be widespread enough to be worth mentioning here.

I don’t get a bandwidth subsidy from the University of Tennessee. Although other faculty-run blogs are hosted at their universities (I’m pretty sure that The Volokh Conspiracy is, for example), InstaPundit never has been. It was on blogspot, and now it’s hosted by the swell folks at HostingMatters.

I could have hosted it at UT, I guess — my Dean is very supportive of InstaPundit, and regards it as scholarship because it’s part of an ongoing experiment in communications and technology, and the University President had some nice things to say about the blog when we met at a dinner last June — but I’ve always kept it separate from the day job. Though only a fool would think that I, or any other faculty member, speaks for the University, it’s just always seemed smart to keep it a distinct thing, though I couldn’t quite tell you why it’s seemed that way to me. I understand that other faculty bloggers may feel differently, but that’s always been my instinct.

UPDATE: Reader Robert Mandel notes that all the guy had to do was to look InstaPundit up on Netcraft. Yeah. Or just look at the “Hosting provided by HostingMatters” button over on the right. . . .