This is an interesting development. So many people have slagged off Metro, but everybody seems to sort of absent-mindedly take a copy for their morning commute. They see it as a passive thing, I've gathered. They would never seek out the paper. They're doing it for the hawker.

Now, with two free papers, both aggressively hawked at T stops, they'll have a choice, and that means that some will develop preferences, despite themselves. Just like you've got literati versus locals, Globe versus Herald, Starschmucks versus Dunkin Douchebags, Sharks versus Jets, and star-bellied versus plain-bellied sneetches, now you'll have Metros versus Nows. But who's who? (My guess is that since Now has that fancy new serialized novelette by the 23 year-old Agni editorial assistant with the cute little hat, it'll be the choice of the Globe-toting, star-bellied literati.)

Hawkers on your mark. This has got to culminate in some kind of colossal rumble. If it doesn't, well, I'm going right to the box office and demanding my money back!

You will come down in one or the other camp, too. Don't fight it. It's inevitable.

I was, of course, curious about the first edition, so I took a Now, but whether because the Metro hawkers in Davis Square are so beloved (does anyone know—are those two old guys lovers or just friends with AARP benefits?) or because the Now hawker has not found a good spot, I hardly saw any other Nows in my morning car.

When I got settled and had a look, my first impression was that it's a little harder on the eyes than Metro. The layout comes off as busier and not as bite-size inviting, maybe because the paper has less color—which, for all its faults Metro uses to its advantage. Now just substitutes different fonts to differentiate types of content.

The layout of the "dialogue" page was likewise busy and uninviting, with content cadged from the Christian Science Monitor.

But by far the worst editorial choice with the best possible intentions was the full page dedicated to the aforementioned "novelette," called Cringing in the Dark, or something. "One cannot, he thinks, separate ice from the heat that thaws it," eh? That's some heavy shit for a morning commute, dude.

This is an admirable and high-minded idea that should be, if not scrapped outright, seriously scaled back. The space could easily be put to better use. As, say, a full-page ad for butt-plugs.

There are no bloggers as of yet. The website is not 100% up and running. And the space set aside for them in the print edition is obviously flexible. As it stands there was really nothing I wanted to rush to my cubicle to read online. It remains to be seen if there ever will be.

From a blogger's perspective the idea of duplicate posts—on my own site and BostonNow's—is not particularly appealing. First of all, it adds an extra step in what has to at least appear to be a more or less spontaneous and ephemeral exercise. Blogging is basically a form of Tourette's. To even take the time to cut and paste shows a kind of malice aforethought that destroys the illusion of whimsy that allows readers to sympathize with bloggers in the first place.

Then there's the idea of competing, "American-idol-style," as one reporter from the New York Times I talked to put it, for a spot in the print edition. If you think of blogs as soufflés (they puff up, and if jiggled or punctured, collapse), this approach is bound to end in tears.

Still, while the print edition is a trifle, there's room for the blogger bits to breathe—to expand and contract with the ebb and flow of palatable content.

And I do think "trifle" is the key word here. Now, according to its publisher is all about active participation, about getting involved. "We will give you more opportunity for self-expression and community than any existing newspaper."

But if Metro's reception is any indication, putting too much thought into it would take the fun out of it. I don't think Metro is regarded as a "real paper" by anyone but its advertisers. It's a trifle that people read on the fly mainly because its free and they can't say no to the hawker, maybe to flatter themselves a little at how much smarter they are than it is, or possibly to do the puzzles. You have but to read the letters to the editors to see the types of people who take its content seriously.

And there's your biggest hurdle. It's clear that Now will have to overcome the "Naff Factor" if it wants contributions that count for anything but foolishness, fodder, and an excuse to hand out full-page advertisements disguised as a newspaper.