It began as a seemingly innocuous blog, but by the end it became clear that Evan Schnittman had retired his digitally-inclined blog Black Plastic Glasses.

Personally, I had thought that Schnittman -- managing director, Group Sales and Marketing, Print and Digital, Bloomsbury Publishing -- was simply laying off following his move to Bloomsbury (from OUP) in the manner of Richard Charkin, who retired the Charkblog when he joined the famous Harry Potter publisher. Evan has written only two blogs since he joined Bloomsbury, and only one this year - and now one last addition: his coda.

But Schnittman is making a different point. He has not only finished the blog, he has also replaced the spectacles, and thus his role as digital guide. "I realized the world of publishing is now so thoroughly changed by digital, that digital is no longer a discrete topic/subtopic/theme/raison d’etre. Digital has ceased to be an independent, stand-alone, separate entity; digital is now blended into the very fabric of the entire publishing business."

What there is still to discuss "is a discussion about core strategy . . . and that discussion is usually, if not always, a private, severely limited-audience kind of discussion".

So digital is all grown up, or in Schnittman's words "it has gone corporate".

I can't help but think that Evan, whose role at Bloomsbury means he works on both sides of the atlantic, is leaving a little too soon for his UK audience. Digital has indeed gone mainstream, but in the UK we are not yet in the fast lane: e-book sales are still in their infancy, we don't yet have Google eBooks, or the Nook (or an equivalent), and the UK's biggest high street bookseller has yet to unveil a robust digital strategy, presumably because it has not yet worked out that it needs one.

There is more talking to be done. In the open.

But Schnittman's move is a positive step, and shows has far we have gone in a gloriously short amount of time, and how effective the corporate publishers have been at managing the transition. Helped, no doubt, by bloggers such as Evan, who says he will now "begin the process of building a new brand". Sans those Black Plastic Glasses.