Diary

: See Diary (novel) for the novel by Chuck Palahniuk and Diary (album) for an album by Sunny Day Real Estate

Internet Diaries

As Internet access became commonly available, people naturally adopted it as yet another medium with which to chronicle their lives, with the added dimension of having an audience (negating, to some, the very definition of "diary"). Apart from the odd tangent on USENET and posts to proprietary forums on the earliest Internet service providers, the first online personal diary is believed to be that of Carolyn Burke, which debuted on the web in January 1995. The number of people publishing web journals grew quickly, but for some time the practice was limited to people who had both internet access and a familiarity with HTML. However, several diverse communities of web diarists eventually developed.

Related Topics:
Internet - USENET - Internet service provider - Carolyn Burke - Web - January - 1995 - HTML

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Blogs

Easy-to-use web-based services soon appeared to make online publishing easier. But the great explosion in personal storytelling came with the emergence of weblogs, also known as blogs. While the format was at first focused on external links and topical commentary, widespread weblog tools were quickly seized upon to create web journals - albeit consisting of short, spontaneous entries rather than crafted essays. Further, the weblog community was more naturally comfortable with networking and linking, creating a thriving online community. Much like the web diarist community that came before, there were cliques and protests over a supposed A-list of authors. Like online journals, "personal weblogs" are frequently maligned in the broader web log community as a form of "navel gazing."

Related Topics:
Online publishing - Weblog - Clique - A-list

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Some weblog services are small and merely offer a way to publish one's writing, while others have become true communities offering opportunities for feedback and communication with fellow diarists. While many of the people using these online communities are presumed to be teenage girls and young people, (who perhaps see them as a way to keep their inner thoughts secret from their families while expressing and exploring their feelings and the experience of growing up), there is a fair amount of evidence that the stereotype is fading with the growing prevalence of journals and weblogs on the internet.

Related Topics:
Feedback - Stereotype

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