Andrew Sullivan joined the
blogging bandwagon in 2000 in order to establish an online identity. As a
freelance writer he started blogging because he saw it as the next big platform
for communication. Indeed, blogging definitely has taken off to become an online
phenomenon that dominates a good portion of the World Wide Web. Sullivan was no
stranger to online writing: he wrote for Slate, the first exclusively
online magazine; nor was he a stranger to writing newspaper articles or lengthy
essays. He has many mediums for expressing his writing, but he choses to blog
because of its uniqueness. Blogging provides the most updated version of a
person's reactions and opinions regarding a specific topic. Sullivan mentions
how he experienced 9/11 together with his blog readers in real time. He recalls
the blog entries he made throughout that horrific day, and traces how his
feelings changed. There was no need for Sullivan to submit his blog writings
through a spider web of various editing or revisions. He could simply write
what was on his heart, click publish, and the world had access to his thoughts
within seconds. The simple process of publishing a blog does come with
consequences. Readers of the blog are highly critical and freely express their
distaste with the bloggers' work. Sullivan discovered that "within
minutes" of posting something readers would lash out their criticism or
concerns of the blog. This creates a dialogue between reader and writer. A
virtual interaction, absent in traditional writing, occurs with a blog. This
dialogue and the ease with which he can publish his writings, are reasons why
Sullivan continues to blog. Finally, Sullivan values the invention of the
hyperlink. He claims that having authority in the blogosphere improves blogger
status. Should a reader take issue with a claim made in a blog, a simple
insertion of a hyperlink to the authoritative source elevates the authority
status of the writer. For Sullivan, blogging is a no-brainer must.
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