Online diary
Encyclopedia
An online diary is a personal diary or journal that is published on the World Wide Web
on a personal website
or a diary-hosting website.
s, though some differentiate by calling them personal blogs. The running updates of online diarists combined with links inspired the term 'web log' which was eventually contracted to form the word 'blog'.
In online diaries, people write about their day-to-day experiences, social commentary, complaints, poems, prose, illicit thoughts and any content that might be found in a traditional paper diary or journal. They often allow readers to contribute through comments or community posting
.
website from 14 November 1994 until 1996. Other early online diarists include Justin Hall
, who began eleven years of personal online diary-writing in 1994,, Carolyn Burke, who started publishing "Carolyn's Diary" on 3 January 1995, Bryon Sutherland, who announced his diary The Semi-Existence of Bryon in a USENET
newsgroup on 19 April 1995, and David Siegel, who started his journal on 30 August 1995.
Online diaries soon caught the attention of the media with the publication of the book 24 Hours in Cyberspace
(1996) which captured personal profiles of the people involved in early web pages. The earliest book-length scholarly discussion of online diaries is Philippe Lejeune's Cher écran, ("Dear Screen", not yet translated to English).
The end of 1997 is generally considered the cut-off date for early adopters.
In 1998, Simon Firth described in Salon magazine how many early online diarists were abandoning the form. And yet, he said, "While many of the movement's pioneers may be tired and disillusioned, the genre shows plenty of signs of life -- of blossoming, even, into something remarkable: a new literary form that allows writers to connect with readers in an excitingly new way."
s) began to learn from each other, several Webring
s formed to connect the various diaries and journals. The most popular Webring was Open Pages, which started in July 1996 and had 537 members as of 20 October 1998. A community website called Diarist.Net was formed and awarded "The Diarist Awards" quarterly from 1999 through 2004. There were a number of lists of diaries and journals by topic, called "'burbs", which allowed people to find sites that had some correlation to each other.
Mailing list
s helped solidify the community. "Collabs" were collaborative projects in which people wrote on given topics and subjects.
, online stores, RealAudio
, RealVideo
, live webcam
s, notify lists, and daily self-photographs.
Today's diaries and journals may feature podcast
s, trackBack
s, permalink
s, blogrolls and a host of other cutting-edge technologies.
LiveJournal is also very popular.
, Diary-X
, Xanga
, Femmunity and LiveJournal
caused an explosive proliferation of online diaries and journals. Today, interactive online diaries, online journals, personal blogs and group blogs
are integrated into the daily lives of many teenagers and college students, with communications between friends playing out online. Even fights may be posted in the diaries, with not-so-veiled insults of each other easily readable by all their friends, enemies, and complete strangers.
Personal opinions on experiences and hobbies are very common in the blog world. Blogs have given the opportunity for people to express their views to a mass audience.
In October 2006, the History Matters campaign, a 2006 joint project by the major heritage organizations in England and Wales, conducted the 'One Day In History' project, asking residents of the UK to write an online diary of what they did on 17 October 2006. The diaries were stored at the British Library
from November.
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
on a personal website
Personal web page
Personal web pages are World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature rather than on behalf of an employer or institution. Personal web pages are often used solely for informative or entertainment purposes....
or a diary-hosting website.
Overview
Online diaries have existed since at least 1994. As a community formed, these publications came to be almost exclusively known as online journals. Today they are almost exclusively called blogBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s, though some differentiate by calling them personal blogs. The running updates of online diarists combined with links inspired the term 'web log' which was eventually contracted to form the word 'blog'.
In online diaries, people write about their day-to-day experiences, social commentary, complaints, poems, prose, illicit thoughts and any content that might be found in a traditional paper diary or journal. They often allow readers to contribute through comments or community posting
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
.
Early history
The first web page in an online-diary format is thought to be Claudio Pinhanez's "Open Diary", which was published at the MIT Media LabMIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
website from 14 November 1994 until 1996. Other early online diarists include Justin Hall
Justin Hall
Justin Hall , is an American freelance journalist who is best known as a pioneer blogger , and for writing reviews from game conferences such as E3 as well as the Tokyo Game Show....
, who began eleven years of personal online diary-writing in 1994,, Carolyn Burke, who started publishing "Carolyn's Diary" on 3 January 1995, Bryon Sutherland, who announced his diary The Semi-Existence of Bryon in a USENET
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup on 19 April 1995, and David Siegel, who started his journal on 30 August 1995.
Online diaries soon caught the attention of the media with the publication of the book 24 Hours in Cyberspace
24 Hours in Cyberspace
24 Hours in Cyberspace was "the largest one-day online event" up to that date, headed by photographer Rick Smolan. "The project brought together the world's top photographers, editors, programmers, and interactive designers to create a digital time capsule of online life."-Overview:24 Hours in...
(1996) which captured personal profiles of the people involved in early web pages. The earliest book-length scholarly discussion of online diaries is Philippe Lejeune's Cher écran, ("Dear Screen", not yet translated to English).
The end of 1997 is generally considered the cut-off date for early adopters.
In 1998, Simon Firth described in Salon magazine how many early online diarists were abandoning the form. And yet, he said, "While many of the movement's pioneers may be tired and disillusioned, the genre shows plenty of signs of life -- of blossoming, even, into something remarkable: a new literary form that allows writers to connect with readers in an excitingly new way."
Formation of a community
As diarists (sometimes called escribitionistEscribitionist
An escribitionist is a person who keeps a diary or journal via electronic means, and in particular, publishes their entries on the world wide web. The word was coined in June 1999 by Erin Venema, an online diarist, in the course of a discussion on a mailing list for web journalers...
s) began to learn from each other, several Webring
Webring
A webring is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure, and usually organized around a specific theme, often educational or social...
s formed to connect the various diaries and journals. The most popular Webring was Open Pages, which started in July 1996 and had 537 members as of 20 October 1998. A community website called Diarist.Net was formed and awarded "The Diarist Awards" quarterly from 1999 through 2004. There were a number of lists of diaries and journals by topic, called "'burbs", which allowed people to find sites that had some correlation to each other.
Mailing list
Mailing list
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is referred to as "the mailing list", or simply "the...
s helped solidify the community. "Collabs" were collaborative projects in which people wrote on given topics and subjects.
Technologies
Some early diaries and journals showcased different emerging internet technologies, including interactive message forumsInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
, online stores, RealAudio
RealAudio
RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is...
, RealVideo
RealVideo
RealVideo is a suite of proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks – the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and is at version 10. RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile...
, live webcam
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
s, notify lists, and daily self-photographs.
Today's diaries and journals may feature podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
s, trackBack
TrackBack
A trackback is one of three types of linkback methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to their articles...
s, permalink
Permalink
A permalink is a URL that points to a specific blog or forum entry after it has passed from the front page to the archives. Because a permalink remains unchanged indefinitely, it is less susceptible to link rot. Most modern weblogging and content-syndication software systems support such links...
s, blogrolls and a host of other cutting-edge technologies.
LiveJournal is also very popular.
Lifestyle
The formation of diary hosting websites such as Open DiaryOpen Diary
Open Diary is an online diary community, an early example of social networking software. It was founded on October 20, 1998 by Bruce Ableson, known on the Open Diary website by the title of his diary, The DiaryMaster...
, Diary-X
Diary-X
Diary-X was the name of an online journaling service which allowed Internet users to create and maintain a journal or diary. It was launched in 2000, and between half and three-quarters of its users were between 14 and 19 years old. Basic use was free, though for a small fee users could email...
, Xanga
Xanga
Xanga is a website that hosts weblogs, photoblogs, and social networking profiles. It is operated by Xanga.com, Inc., based in New York City.-Origins:...
, Femmunity and LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
caused an explosive proliferation of online diaries and journals. Today, interactive online diaries, online journals, personal blogs and group blogs
Collaborative blog
A collaborative blog is a type of weblog in which posts are written and published by more than one author. The majority of high profile collaborative blogs are based around a single uniting theme, such as politics or technology....
are integrated into the daily lives of many teenagers and college students, with communications between friends playing out online. Even fights may be posted in the diaries, with not-so-veiled insults of each other easily readable by all their friends, enemies, and complete strangers.
Personal opinions on experiences and hobbies are very common in the blog world. Blogs have given the opportunity for people to express their views to a mass audience.
In October 2006, the History Matters campaign, a 2006 joint project by the major heritage organizations in England and Wales, conducted the 'One Day In History' project, asking residents of the UK to write an online diary of what they did on 17 October 2006. The diaries were stored at the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
from November.
See also
- Weblog softwareWeblog softwareWeblog software is software designed to simplify the creation and maintenance of weblogs...
- EscribitionistEscribitionistAn escribitionist is a person who keeps a diary or journal via electronic means, and in particular, publishes their entries on the world wide web. The word was coined in June 1999 by Erin Venema, an online diarist, in the course of a discussion on a mailing list for web journalers...
- a term for a person who keeps a diary or journal via electronic means, and in particular, publishes their entries on the World Wide Web. - LiveJournalLiveJournalLiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
External links
- the online diary history project recollections from some pioneers who began writing between 1995–1997; they trace the development and popularization of the medium up to 2000.
- The Effort to Keep an Online Diary Private by Bly Lauritano-Werner, 24 July 2006, NPR
- List of Public Diaries Huge list of public online diaries
- Diary Directory Online directory of diaries.
- Zinglog Online service to create private diaries.