Devoted to show business and the entertainment industry

With ratings at the highest level they've ever been, "24" should be a laboratory for anyone that is interested in creating a hit show.

One of the most unique aspects of the show is that there are even people who don't watch the show online but are still crazy about it.

For example Clay Steiner of Boulder, Colo., insists "I've never seen a minute of the show," he happily follows the action on Barry's blog, as well. "Reading the comments has led me to believe that I'd just get frustrated with and/or disgusted by the plot holes, technobabble and preposterous geography -- I'm a former L.A. basin resident -- so the comments and Dave's updates do just fine for me."
 
And Susan Ellingson of Miami makes it a point to interact with Dave Barry's (yes that Dave Barry) blog before she sits down to watch the next episode of "24." Barry inputs his unique observations of what's going on in the show and tons of fans are able to offer their own comments there.

Think of that! Here is a show that has spawned a blog by a humorist that in turn gets a legion of fans to his blog by talking about someone else's show. Does that give you an idea that nothing in the entertainment world can remain the same?
 
Ellingson adds that "Commingling the two is just a hoot -- and hard work if you do it in real time, like I do, I don't have a laptop. I end up running back and forth from my living room to the dining room to comment."
 
While I think that the fast pace of the show and the technology theme adds to net users interest, along with twists and turns that make people want to analyze over and over again what may happen the next week, I think it's success and appeal also goes beyond that.

I think that another appeal of the show is that it's not made linearily. It is more like creating a collage but putting one piece on in one place and another piece on in another part of the collage unconnected at the time. This is why people love to go over all the plot with a fine toothed come to see if they can figure it out before others do. In other words there is an unspoken competition that people are involved with that keeps them connected to the show and each other.

The show creates the desire by viewers to speculate and discuss, similar to how the X-Files did.

While the mainstream media attempts to downplay and disparage bloggers, one writer of the show says that "the blog explosion of the last couple of years has been an enormous boon to both the site's and the show's popularity."

Evan Katz, an executive producer of "24" says "Bloggers are by nature tech-headed, so they have loved '24' since its inception. But now they are spreading that geek-love to the masses through the Internet. Bottom line, it seems word-of-mouth from '24's' existing, built-in, technologically sophisticated fan base, propagated through blogs and other new user-friendly technologies, is pushing the show well beyond its core fan base."