Courtesy of blogger.com and SCJThe Internet serves as a giant diary for the public at large to display their daily adventures and thoughts. In the few last years the trend of online diaries, or blogs, has blown up faster than big hair back in the 80s.
There are many types of online diaries available on the web. The most popular are livejournals (http://www.livejournal.com), xangas (http://www.xanga.com) and blogs(http://www.blogger.com/start). All of these sites are free unless the user wishes to upgrade to a premium version that has more options available.
Perhaps this convergence of technology and diaries has become so popular due to the fact that many people do not have the time to keep in touch with every single one of their friends and family everyday. If instant messenger is the way to communicate instantly, think of online journals as a way to post a really long away message that explains exactly what is going on in your life.
Andy Greenwald has a significant portion of his book “Nothing Feels Good” dedicated to observing teenagers and the phenomena of online diaries. Greenwald writes, “People as old as fifty-five have livejournals, as do many web-savvy professionals in their thirties and forties. But most dedicated adult internet journalers graduate to the more malleable (and less centralized) services like Blogger and Pitas.”
According to the online version of Silicon Valley, http://weblog.siliconvalley.com, blogs really picked up pace back in spring of 2003 when the popular Google bought Pyra Labs, which was responsible for creating some of the earliest technology to make blogs possible.
Dan Gillmor of the Silicon Valley writes, “The buyout is a huge boost to an enormously diverse genre of online publishing that has begun to change the equations of online news and information. Weblogs are frequently updated, with items appearing in reverse chronological order (the most recent postings appear first).
Typically, they include links to other pages on the Internet, and the topics range from technology to politics to just about anything you can name. Many weblogs invite feedback through discussion postings, and weblogs often point to other weblogs in an ecosystem of news, opinions and ideas.”
In early high school days many people probably had a diary or a journal that was stowed away under the bed or hidden in a desk drawer. It was loved because it was the place to write down deepest desires as well as recap of daily events.
Now take away all that paper and throw away the lock and key, and one is now ready to begin an online diary.
Creating a blog is fairly painless, but there are a few drawbacks.
An addiction can arise. “Blog addiction” is the need to update a blog on a daily basis and check to see who has left comments.
Most importantly, one must remember that the thoughts and ideas posted are now available for anyone to read. Yes, one’s closest friends will read it, but also remember that total strangers might give it a glance also.
It is easy to start an online journal. Do not let all the technological speak and hype discouage the start of a blogger.
Let’s use Blogger as an example. The process of starting a Blogger is broken down into a three-step process.
Step one consists of creating an account. This is where the username and password used to log into the site will be created. A “display name” will also be chosen in this process. A “display name” is what will show up every time a new post, or entry, is created.
The second step is perhaps one of the most important for it is where the name of the blog will be chosen. This is the time to let creative juices flow, to let one’s wit impress every reader that happens to stumble upon the blog in the future.
After all the formal things are completed with steps one and two, the individuality of the blog will be created in step three. This final step is where the “template” is chosen. The designers of every online journal do not expect users to be computer geniuses so they have created templates, which are pretty much the layout of a soon-to-be blog. This is where the font and the colors are chosen and a profile is created.
Through these simple steps, one can now join the world of “blog addiction.”
Posted to the web by Cecelia Francisco
