The Ontology of Blogs

I learned that word - ontology - in grad school, and I thought it was really funny. It's the study of the nature of being and existence. What a $1 word for a $.01 concept.

Anyway, Andrew Sullivan, very prominent blogger and former editor of The New Republic wrote a treatise entitled, "Why I Blog", in the new edition of The Atlantic. My favorite part is when he talks about the importance of hyperlinks in blog-writing.

But the superficiality masked considerable depth—greater depth, from one perspective, than the traditional media could offer. The reason was a single technological innovation: the hyperlink. An old-school columnist can write 800 brilliant words analyzing or commenting on, say, a new think-tank report or scientific survey. But in reading it on paper, you have to take the columnist’s presentation of the material on faith, or be convinced by a brief quotation (which can always be misleading out of context). Online, a hyperlink to the original source transforms the experience. Yes, a few sentences of bloggy spin may not be as satisfying as a full column, but the ability to read the primary material instantly—in as careful or shallow a fashion as you choose—can add much greater context than anything on paper. Even a blogger’s chosen pull quote, unlike a columnist’s, can be effortlessly checked against the original. Now this innovation, pre-dating blogs but popularized by them, is increasingly central to mainstream journalism.

It was actually Delaney Flushboy, learning to use "the world-wide web" in the early 90s, who explained to me what a hyperlink was. How you can point to something else for reference, clarification, sarcasm, or just plain fun. Hyperlinks are atomic footnotes, something we've never been able to do before in print.

This is what I love most about the internet, and about reading - and writing - blogs. What do you use blogs for? What do you like most/least about them?