Online Journals 96
Foxxz writes "MSNBC has a story on online journals. personally, ive been writing in an online journal for almost a year using a perl script i whipped up. It can be a great outlet for a bitchfest." This is a great example of the whole "peer to peer" journalism that everyone wets their pants over about the Internet. Call it what you will, but the ease of accessibility to the materials is, IMHO, one of the most compelling reasons for web surfing.
Meeting old friends (Score:1)
-foxxz
Is this the web equivalent of flashing? (Score:1)
This seems similar to JenniCam and I just don't understand why someone would do this. Not that I don't visit JenniCam occasionally. Not that I can't imagine an interesting online journal. And I suppose an online journal is somewhat better in that you can choose what to reveal to everyone, but you still are revealing intimate details of your life.
It seems like normal human relationships involve a kind of progressive disclosure. A forming of intimacy where you reveal progressively more as your comfort level grows... and all or most relationships reach a plateau based on mutual comfort level and societal norms for the type of relationship you are having.
Not that JenniCam and web journals aren't good or, at least, entertaining for me, but is it good, healthy and normal for the people doing it?
Ok, that's my deep thought for the day...
Re:I was surprised (Score:1)
Re:6 billion weblogs (Score:1)
Probably about the same as a few porn sites (but not as usefull... heheh).
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I use PHPSlash (Score:2)
I'm using PHPSlash [phpslash.org] for my Developer's Diaries section of MidnightRyder.Com [midnightryder.com]. Actually, it runs the entire site :-) Anyway - it makes life simple to do something like a quick entry - just type it up in plain text or HTML, and hit submit - and your page is updated. I like it, you might want to check it out.
There are, however, some downsides - requires PHP4 (no big deal) and a MySQL database to power it (which might be a bigger deal for ya, depending on your ISP / Host). And it's probably a little over powered for just running an online-diary. But it sure saves you tons of time on updating pages!
And, of course, there are tons of other alternatives to that - /.'s engine can be used for the same thing (PHPSlash is a somewhat direvitive of the Slashcode - not much anymore, but, still the same idea). Look around a little bit at those two sites, and if they just look like too much effort, search for 'Blog' or 'Online Diary' in google or yahoo, and find all the rest of the cool little scripts for doing this out there!
Re:interesting (Score:1)
LiveJournal (Score:2)
Contrary to what people seem to think here, I don't think that the majority of online journal keepers do so because they want other people to read them. My motivation for keeping an online journal was because I always wanted to have a journal, but to do so with pen and paper or even at my computer was far too inconvenient. I didn't want a swarm of text files sitting around. This way, all I have to do is fire up a client (which I can do from any computer I'm at), type up an entry, and there it goes to the server. LiveJournal allows me to make entries public or private to my discretion. Personally, I don't have anything to hide, and if someone wants to read about my life, they're more than welcome to. I've met a lot of interesting people on LiveJournal; there's a large sense of community there with discussion groups, etc...
Shameless journal advertisement: My journal can be found at http://vorpal.livejournal.com [livejournal.com]
Re:Why is it only psychotics post stuff online? (Score:1)
Quite correct, of course. I think most flashes of genius are exhibited by people who also display psychotic tendancies. Whether this is a cause of the genius, or an effect of the social interactivity issues caused by such, I can do not know.
Re:interesting (Score:2)
The article lists about 9 websites that provide various types of this service. If you just can't read the article, then you might find some listed here [msnbc.com] or here [google.com].
All your event [openschedule.org] are belong to us.
Re:online journals, diary-x.com, etc (Score:2)
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:1)
Signal 11 was not a troll. He was a karma whore.
Shoeboy is not a troll. He is a humorist.
HTH
Newsweek Doesn't Get It (Score:1)
1) For people who supposedly would have spent days, if not a week or two, picking up background info and doing research the people who wrote this article don't seem to "get" the very real distinction between weblogs and online journals. Two completely different communities. Fairly small amount of overlap. One is 1995. The other is 1999.
2) Like I said, there aren't very many URLs for an article which is supposedly about weblogging and 'Net stuff. If you look closely, there are more URLs for weblog and diary-keeping tools than there are URLs for actual weblogs and diaries. Is the average Joe Blow reader of Newsweek going to want to take a look at a couple weblogs after reading the article? Probably. Is he going to be ready to immediately start his own weblog or journal? Probably not. D'oh.
3) Although they mention a lot of tools, the one glaring ommission is Noah Grey's GreyMatter [noahgrey.com]. Not only was it created by Noah, who is ostensibly one of the main people featured in the article, it is also pretty much THE premiere tool for people who are serious about weblogging. Again, d'oh!
4) Okay, so Dave Winer is an old-timer on the weblogging scene. So mention him. But devote more quotes to him than almost anyone else in the article? Why? As a friend of Noah's, I'm a little bit biased, but: this whole article could have been devoted almost exclusively to him with a small sidebar of other cool weblogs and journals to check out and it would have been better, tighter, more interesting and given a better picture of the current weblogging community than this hodge-podge of out-dated and inconsequential notes ever will.
5) It's Newsweek. Newsweek is the Lame Stream. Newsweek screws up everything it touches. Newsweek is the Kiss of Death. When your web trend hits Newsweek, your web trend is dead. I hope Noah gets some decent publicity out of this, because I'm expecting that the weblogging scene will be dead or dying off nine months from now.
6) Dear Dave Winer: No, the world would not be a better place if all 6B of us had a weblog. That's B.S. Think about it for a minute and then go and interview a few of your oh-so-interesting cookie-cutter suburban neighbors. Then tell me if you really think each and every one of them should have a weblog.
7) D'oh!
To what end? (Score:1)
Journals are theraputic for some, narcissitic for others- the one thing they all have in common is that they are in some fashion constructive for the individual. Would I ever keep an online journal? Beyond the "sent messages" folder of my email client, forget it. I *do* keep a "journal of sorts- a slowly growing stack of notebooks that contains musings, plotlines, day to day bullshit, sorting of personal issues, flatwork, and a WHOLE lot of doodles and drawings. Paper and pen are more flexible for me than a keyboard can ever hope to be, though the success of these online diaries is obvious that a lot of people find the keyboard to fit their tastes perfectly.
Personally, I feel that rather than question or bitch about why those using these services do what they're doing, we should ask what may come out of services like this - are the police keeping tabs on them, what's security and privacy like, and in general issues of a more technological and sociological nature as opposed to the more personal end of the experience.
That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.
Re:To what end? (Score:1)
and the macro-personal blogs are cool too, a window into another being
an interesting exercise in self-awareness. (Score:3)
Towards the end though, after two years of daily entries, I'd covered pretty much everything of importance in my life up to that point in time. It was time to start living some more life worth writing about.
I'll probably start another in the future, but not just yet...
Re:What are diaries and blogs good for? (Score:1)
At the same time, I could turn your argument on its side: why do you post comments on Slashdot? Because you want others to read them, right? And these comments offer your take on the subject at hand to hundreds, of not thousands of other people, right? To use your own words, why do you assume that your trivial personal views are somehow relevant or helpful to the forum?
I'm confused here -- how, exactly, is posting Slashdot comments that much different from the view of blogging you presented?
LiveJournal... and Why Weblogs Matter (Score:2)
First, a bit about LiveJournal. We are a site with around 65,000 users, doubling in size every three months. Unlike Blogger, we are a free interactive online community created, designed, and supported by the people who use it.
LiveJournal enables its users to easily create online journals and communities. Updating your journal or community is as simple as typing into a software client or web browser screen and hitting submit... no html is needed, and spell checking, linking, and adding images to your journal is standard for all our major software clients. We have clients for every platform I can think of practically... Linux? PalmOS? BeOS? No problem. Since LiveJournal volunteers design, expand, and constantly improve the site's features, we expect to develop open source community-based applications at an increasing rate.
Why are weblogs important? Well, any new idea has a novelty phase, where people say "Neat, but what can it do?".. there are serious business applications for weblogs. For instance, LiveJournal uses its own communities, such as lj_dev [livejournal.com] and lj_biz [livejournal.com] to organize the sites' business and development efforts. I know that these communities are a great alternative to organizing groups with maillists; LiveJournal communities have about 15 times more posts per user per month than comparable maillist communities, according to our statsistics [livejournal.com]. If you also figure in that you can add other web-based applications as part of your community, such as chat, planning, calendar, and organization-oriented applications, maillists and Usenet-like solutions start looking pretty dated.
If you think about it, all weblogs really are is a modern-day adaptation of Usenet for web browsers. Weblogs can be used for numerous purposes, such as journals, communities, and weblogs... but ultimately, their real value to people is when they are connected together, allowing people to interact.
Our long-term goal is an Internet where websites are much more dynamic than today... where you can essentially add the content and the people that interest you to a friends list. Want to add your favorite musician to your friends list and hear their latest songs over the Internet? How about your favorite underground comic strip? As you can see, there are applications that are far bigger than just reading your friends journal. We have the opportunity to create a uniquely open source kind of media that isn't controlled by the powers that be. Unlike push technology (that pushed ads on your desktop) you can have customized webpages designed to keep you connected with the latest entries from your friends, in communities, websites (such as Slashdot), and some of the most interesting people all over the Internet.
So, yeah. Weblogs are important if you think that the ability to fundamentally change the nature of the Internet matters.
Curious? Interested? Want to help develop something great? Feel free to visit our site [livejournal.com], or drop me an e-mail [mailto]. I'd be glad to hear from you.
Re:What are diaries and blogs good for? (Score:1)
My 'view of blogging' expressed above is targeted at what seems to be the majority of them... individual blogs and diaries full of inane 'I went to the store and bought muffins this morning and then I met Bob and he told me his cat is sick...' and 'I feel horrible again today so I'm writing another depressing page of angst...' type entries. ^_-
You're right in that I (incorrectly?) assume that most of these individual blogs are targeted toward a general audience, but that's due to my general feeling that (consciously or not) they're established and promoted by people looking for attention (whatever the underlying motive is) - show-off egotism and exhibitionism, desperate seeking for sympathy, looking to ensnare someone of your preferred romantic persuasion, or just attempting to establish the most links to other webloggers in a popularity contest. Personally I see my online friends pester me to read the latest diary or blog entry they posted a moment ago, in the midst of an IRC or IM conversation; and I believe the interlinky lovefest syndrome that has grown up around blogging is somewhat well known.
Maybe it's just me, but a well written Slashdot post or a thoughtful and edited essay on a personal website is preferable to the minute-by-minute ramblings that most blogs seem to encourage.
Re:A highly inaccurate history lesson, actually... (Score:1)
--
OliverWillis.Com [oliverwillis.com]
Livejournal Spam (Score:1)
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OliverWillis.Com [oliverwillis.com]
they are good for (Score:1)
Re:Is this the web equivalent of flashing? (Score:1)
Re:online journals, diary-x.com, etc (Score:1)
I did help Avian Chaos with several slashdot-trolling programs, mostly because I thought they were nifty and useful. You can still get them, in fact, from http://awdang.com/slashgame/ [awdang.com]. There's three different versions of the slashgame, one unfinished version of the game in perl, and a few utilities for googlifying text and finding hidden sids.
The scripts themselves can't take anything down except maybe Google. None of them automatically post anything to slashdot; they only look at slashdot or google, and print text to standard output.
It's been a while since I looked at the number of diaryland users. Oh well.
--
Stephen Deken.
Yeah! You tell 'em! (Score:1)
(note to the clueless: that was sarcasm)
Re:Why is it only psychotics post stuff online? (Score:1)
[shameless plug]
www.suicideisfun.com [suicideisfun.com]
That said, maybe it's just because all the happy people are too busy picking dasies and singing sweet songs about rays of sunshine. Seriously though, most creative writing (or anything that you would put up because someone else might actually take interest in it) comes out of depression or sheer boredom, because if you're riding high on the reigns of your ego, what's there to write about? How glorious the flowers look popping up on a hazy spring morn?
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online journals, diary-x.com, etc (Score:4)
I'm Stephen Deken, the creator of diary-x.com [diary-x.com], one of the sites listed in the article. I'd like to address some of the more common concerns that many
The first thing people usually ask about online journals is "why would anyone want to keep an online journal?" The answer to that isn't simple, but it can be boiled down to the fact that writing about your problems helps you to overcome them. Many, many people (diary-x has around 4000 users, diaryland has about 20,000) find online journaling to be a very useful and theraputic service.
The next question is usually "okay, but why online? Why not in a paper journal?" Again, the answer is complicated but it comes down to the ability to easily manage the journal - you can't shuffle pages with physical journals as you can with online journals. Not only that, but you have the added psychological bonus of being contacted by other people who have gone through the same things you're going through in your own life, without those people knowing exactly who you are.
Another concern is about security. Journals on diary-x (as well as the other services) can be 'locked' if you're only wanting the service for the convienence, so only you, or the people you trust, can read your journal.
People here seem to be giving an awful lot of flack to the spelling and grammar of many online journalers. Bear in mind that free services such as diary-x attract a very young, mostly non-net savvy user base -- the age of the user is what dictates the 'feel' of the journal. Most young people (by young I mean younger than 20 or so) don't look beyond themselves, and so yes, their journals are somewhat tedious.
But as these same posters have pointed out, there are gems in the sand. To find the really great journals, you have to sift through the ones that don't live up to whatever your standards are - just like the rest of the internet.
For further perusal, you can check out diary-x.com [diary-x.com], as well as my journal [diary-x.com] on it. Or, take a stroll through the member's lists [diary-x.com] if you want to try and find some of those gems.
Thanks,
--
Stephen Deken
awdang.com [awdang.com]
diary-x.com [diary-x.com]
Online Journals (Score:2)
A nice history lesson on weblogs [rebeccablood.net].
If you're interested in starting your own, there's a number of web apps that might help you, including Pitas [pitas.com] and Blogger [blogger.com].
I keep my web log [whatdoesnotchange.org] as a way of recording what's going on with me for friends, parents, and myself. Sure, it's not particularly in-depth or personal, but looking back on it helps me place when events happened, and is a nice little digital record for me to look back on.
And our next guest is... (Score:2)
WTFC? (Score:1)
Really, most people have boring lives. Why would you want to read about someone else's life? Here's my guesses:
1) You're a psycho stalker. [bad]
2) Your life is even more boring. [bad]
3) You're addicted to websurfing and you've already reloaded
if (your.reason == 1 || your.reason == 3)
seekProfessionalHelp();
else
getALife();
This is like distributedOprah or something, and, IMHO, is the best argument for net censorship
Moderators on the Cheap Crack: this is [+1, Funny], not [-1, Troll]
NewsPro! (Score:1)
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I say it's fun (Score:1)
Or controversy, considering that I was really angry and swore at a school administrator and got suspended... That kind of sucked. Lot of First Amendment vs. respect anger there. And then a friend of mine quoted me [dyndns.org] and got suspended too.
However in general I think that democratizing this sort of publishing is really positive, as long as it's not merely bitching about having a crummy day and so forth.
I bought the domain thwart.net [thwart.net], hoping to make it into a sort of anarchial index of other people starting up weblog-type setups oriented around their friends, not just themselves. However I've been busy. :-( Could be cool though.
--
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:1)
one has a rather interesting NDA attached to it,
one is regarding as-yet-unreleased writing I'm doing not free to talk about,
two I'm not free to speak about because it's my reaction to somebody else's as-not-yet-public problem,
and the last one I need to deal in a public forum with the author of the offending comments, not in a journal.
Usually if I need to bitch, I do it on the IETF, Bugtraq, or NANOG mailing lists anyhow ;)
If I can't address it in a forum like that, it's time to bend the ear of a friend, or pick up my '78 Ibanez Artist and crank it up for a few hours, and wish I had a Marshall stack, and a place I could actually crank it to where it sounded good....
Re:I use PHPSlash (Score:1)
What are diaries and blogs good for? (Score:4)
Yes, the majority of my online friends have jumped on this latest fad (establishing online diaries [opendiary.com] and blogs), but when I peruse them I primarily see just overhyped cookie-cutter angst and cries for sympathy on the diary side, with meaningless mental tidbits coupled with a race to establish the most feel-the-love linkylinks on the blog side.
Thing is, I can't tell if the primary motivation for all these activities is more exhibitionism or narcissism. I have to agree with the above comment [slashdot.org] by ChuckFlynn when he says online journaling and blogging reinforce self-delusions of grandeur that your trivial day-to-day experiences are somehow relevant or helpful to the world; and the AC who pointed out they're usually 'self-centered unimaginative ramblings' with a limited and egotistical perspective.
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:1)
<Inoshiro_away> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/02/26/0232
BTW: Nice troll.
------------
Re:Why is it only psychotics post stuff online? (Score:2)
Remember that it's still a bit of effort to start and maintain a journal - it's more work than just pissing and moaning with your buds over a beer at the local tavern. Almost everybody has issues, but most of us are able to find a friend, dump on them for 10-15 mins about what a total ***hole their boss was today, and get on with their lives. However, some people can't find a person to vent at, or find themselves unable to, or whatever. As a result, people won't start a journal unless they have a pressing need to vent about something.
You haven't seen an online journal of a "sane person" because sane people by and large do not feel a need to vent their sanity. People with issues do feel a need to vent.
Re:Blogger (Score:1)
Evan Williams, the sole employee left at Blogger, put it this way after laying off all his employees: "I just had to drastically scale down the plan for immediate world domination." On Pyra's website, he puts it as wanting to "turn Blogger into a successful business. Not a hobby. Not a volunteer-run organization."
Seems to me that Blogger is kind of the Microsoft of weblogs. I'm not saying their software sucks, but this is one relatively new software field where open source apps can become the dominant players, so choose wisely before weblogging really becomes important to people.
Re:LiveJournal (Score:1)
You also have an inaccuracy in your post. Livejournal has approximately 65,000 users... not 100,000... yet. Give it another 60 days.
Re:Is this the web equivalent of flashing? (Score:1)
Are they right for everyone? Probably not... but there is no reason that you have to use journals for exhibitionistic purposes, either. I use community based journals to organize events, get work on the site done, talk about special interests, and basically interact with my friends. So... what's the harm in that?! m.
It sounds evil if you ask me (Score:1)
It encourages people to whine and complain. In fact, I think this whole trend towards people communicating online about personal relationships is bad. I'd almost go as far as to say it is dangerous. Whether it is emailing long rants to friends, on public forums, or in these so called weblogs. It is not healthy.
It also reminds me of a Slashdot article not so long ago, regarding the guy who said he would have found Ted Kazinski (or whoever) before the FBI given a little more time, based on the references to certain historical things, or the requisite knowlege to have certain insights (in other words, they could deduce where you were educated, where you grew up, and so on.) My point is that it will come back to haunt you one day, even if you are posting these things anonymously. Thats the thing about the Internet, what you post is here forever..
Just today I was searching google on my real name and the first things that come up are Slashdot posts from 1998 (before we had user accounts), and they're posts Id rather not have prospective employers see in the future..
Re:interesting (Score:1)
All your event [openschedule.org] are belong to us.
a bit or a rant... (Score:1)
_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.
Re:How about JonKatz opinion? (Score:1)
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:1)
I'll tell you how I use mine. [chronotope.com] It is a tool:
So frankly I don't give a damn whether anyone else finds value in it. It is my tool. It works pretty damn good and I have been doing it this way for 6 years with no apparent problems. (consistent backups - definately needed)
Hope this helps fill the hole in your understanding.
Cool (Score:1)
---
emailed logs (Score:1)
More stuff on the web, and history (Score:1)
-Moondog
Re:How about JonKatz opinion? (Score:1)
Online Diaries are cool. (Score:3)
Go start one today. Maybe no one is reading. Who cares? Dead tree journals are all right, but if nothing else, you can atleast html format one of these babies. Spill your guts. Or better yet, lie! Have fun and good writing.
--Raymond Stray
weblogs vs. journals (Score:1)
Re:Cool (Score:1)
This is not a chicken-and-egg scenario... ;-)
Re:A highly inaccurate history lesson, actually... (Score:1)
I like LiveJournal enough, but I find this slick coordinated "grass roots" promotional campaign a little trying... But anyway.
LiveJournal facilitated JOURNALS, primarily, not WEBLOGS. LiveJournals may have been among the first sites in that vein, yes. You also have Diary-X, Diaryland, Opendiary, MyDearDiary... it goes on and on. Journals were of course built by hand since way back when - Carolyn Burke in 1995, Justin Hall, other names tossed around often.
Meanwhile. 'Weblogs' as a term existed as far back as 1997, and really, Yahoo!'s primordial days as a list of links at Stanford back in 1994 (?) may have been the first. As far as that format of web publishing, Pitas and Blogger pretty much captured the masses. Independent scripts like NewsPro already existed, of course, and since then advanced scripts like Greymatter are spreading.
Anne Frank... (Score:1)
well then... (Score:1)
Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:2)
- Why would you want every lamer in the world to have access to your innermost secrets? Why would you want to expose yourself to that sort of voyeurism? At least when you keep a deadtree journal, you know who has access to it (at least until you die). When it's online, even access logs aren't much help.
- You're opening youself up to cries of plagiarism, either by others or by you yourself (as you discover how others have plagiarized your work).
- You're leaving an enormous e-papertrail for police and criminals alike to hunt you down and cause you anguish.
- You're opening yourself up to pangs of self delusion and false pursuit of grandeur. Journals are an inherently narcissistic endeavor, labeling anyone who keeps one as a fool who cannot keep his mouth shut or who insists that others might find his experiences somehow relevant or helpful.
- Ultimately, journals are an ill-advised use of resources and bandwidth. How many more enlightened endeavors could we pursue with all the diskspace and bandwidth that is currently devoted to online journals? Sites like kuro5hin.org [kuro5hin.org] waste far more space on users' diaries then they'll ever spend on actual useful articles and discussions.
If it's worth doing, then it's worth doing right. If it's worth saying, then it's worth writing up using principles of correct grammar and elegant prose. Private journals are a haven for miscreants and illiterates in a world properly dominated by real journalists (such as our own Jon Katz). If you must insist on keeping one, then keep it offline where it belongs. Don't subject the rest of the world to your silly musings about anime or your latest unrequited teen crush.Blogger (Score:2)
-tokengeekgrrl
Re:6 billion weblogs (Score:1)
Blogger, et. al. (Score:1)
What's really nice about blogs is that they make the Internet a more personal place. Rather than reading someone's list of, I don't know, favourite video games, we can read their diary. This is a direction that I'd really like to see the Net move in.
Dear Diary... (Score:1)
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:2)
- In most of the journals I've seen, the authors don't just come out and blantently state their secrets; they hide them in metaphors and such. They would be of no intrest if they just came right out and told their secrets. Besides, "every lamer in the world" won't see it, let alone understand it, or even care.
- You're not writing a journal for money or recognition. Personally, I wouldn't like it if I was plagerized, but it's still better than having no presence at all (and besides, the lamer might actually give you credit and a link, therefore publicity).
- Police = crim.... nevermind. >:) Well, honestly, if you divulge your plans to bomb the white house all over your website, you're an idiot and deserve what you get. Same thing if you're bragging of your 1337-ness. As for using the info for preditory purposes, I don't think anyone would go through the trouble when there are other ways of finding out information on a person.
- Yes, self-delusion does seem to go hand in hand with putting your writing out there (especially if you recieve compliments), but it's really just a phase. I had it myself. Also, I don't think anything I write is "helpful"... it's not supposed to be. You're misguided (to say the least) if you look to online journals for advice and leadership.
- The only thing on the internet that's a waste of bandwith is the marketing filth and hundreds of e-commerce sites, complete with pretty little flash graphics and streaming video. Comparativly, a few measily graphics and text are nothing in terms of bandwith use.
If you don't like it, then you don't have to read it. That's all there is to it. No matter how poorly written, it's still stomeone's opinion put into so many words, and who are you to judge?--
...the story of my life... (Score:1)
My weblog is filled with my thoughts on current issues, my life, those around me, etc. I think it's a nice, simple environment that you will either like for the information or hate for the lack of "stuff." I update it fairly often.
My weblog's purpose is to provide me with memories of the present as the past in the future. (That's a good quote!) So, to this end, I try to convey what I feel about anything as I feel it in order to provide myself with an accurate history of my life later.
Thoughts? Click the link below, and email me.
Re:Anne Frank is a fraud (Score:1)
Big Brother (and everybody else) is watching... (Score:1)
On the one hand, that's almost a funny image.
On the other hand, that's a very scary image.
How about JonKatz opinion? (Score:1)
Re:Why is it only psychotics post stuff online? (Score:1)
_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.
What are weblogs for (Score:2)
_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.
Re:Why is it only psychotics post stuff online? (Score:2)
The couple of online diaries that I read aren't anything like that at all. Alan Cox's diary [linux.org.uk] is mainly about the linux stuff that he's working on or some other project at home. His wife's diary [linux.org.uk] can be down right hilarious at times (the recent mouse problem, why did Alan buy 5 alarm clocks off ebay, etc.). She sometimes has links to pages with pictures of the conferences that they attend.
I have a journal, and that article was crap (Score:1)
1) I have a journal. I do it because I enjoy writing about my life. What's so freakin' complicated?
2) The article missed some of the more important figures in this whole journalling thing: justin hall (links.net) Derek of fray, Kottke, Megnut, etc. I don't know any of the people, but I know of them, because...
3) this article has been done to death, and they're always freakin' mentioned.
Note: the fall of Pyra Labs was excluded from the article, as were any links to the services. Is MSNBC run by retards?
Pot, Kettle (Score:1)
Yeah, after all, net-savvy users (like the ones who post to Slashdot) are the model of perfect spelling and grammer. :-)
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:2)
A highly inaccurate history lesson, actually... (Score:1)
In June of 1998, Brad Fitzpatrick created a method to update an online weblog without having to manually upload files to his website, bradfitz.com. At first, his solution was fairly primative, using a simple web-based client. Eventually, Brad shared this method with a few friends, and created livejournal.com. On March 18th, 1999, Brad created a software client to post his journal from. You can read the post here.
LiveJournal soon had hundreds of users and multiplied in size rapidly. Brad, never really promoted the site much, so it took awhile to catch on outside of the Pacific Northwest. He never tried to make Livejournal into a commercial entity unlike Blogger and Pitas/Diaryland. Since then, we have changed (and grown) a lot in a short amount of time. The site is now much more of a community-driven site and largely run by over 100 volunteers. We currently have around 65K users, doubling in size about every three months. We are financially supported by about 1300 members, and have received about $30K in funding for server upgrades and colocation costs over the last 5 months or so.
Re:LiveJournal (Score:1)
WTF? (Score:2)
I even tried to explain things to the crack-impaired moderators this time, just in case they didn't clue in to the fact that I was kidding. Sadly, they just don't care.
We've got loads of them... (Score:1)
I just started one myself... (Score:1)
It's got support for multiple authors, and groups, etc. and I intend to whip comments for each entry soon as well (and put some actual design in the HTML).
It doesn't really have much in it now but I'm slowly starting to fill it up.
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
Why is it only psychotics post stuff online? (Score:2)
Most of the online journals I've seen tend to reflect this. Usually people tend to be griping about what's wrong in their lives, the same problems over and over.
Perhaps this is because the internet is an easy means to a constructive outlet, a way to deal with thier issues. Any way, I can't say I've seen one online journal of a person who can easily be regarded as sane. Anyone else notice this?
interesting (Score:2)
Honesty? (Score:1)
6 billion weblogs (Score:1)
6 billion weblogs, now that would be a nightmare. Can you imagine all the server space??
I just don't get it. (Score:1)
Of course, then they start in with the "My name's Rodg, I design software." stuff from the Comcast commercial.
Hey wait, they're not laughing with me... They're laughing AT me! Next time I see one of those friends of mine I'm going to punch them in the back of the head! And I'll post the video of it online so I can be in a MSNBC story! It'll be the highlight of my life!!
Don't Forget Idiot boy over at www.links.net (Score:1)
http://www.links.net/ [links.net]
and it's been around since 1994!! Well thats according to NSI.com... so wouldn't Slashdot be considered one of these Bloggers?
what a fucking waste of time if you ask me...
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:2)
Some people write these things for all the reasons people have already mentioned (lame, weird, etc). Others do it for good reasons: I do it because I like writing, and the more I write, even if its just "how my day went" or "why I hate Taco Bell", the more likely I'll get something good out of it. The Muse comes not during preparation, but during construction.
So there.
Nice Troll. (Score:1)
Who cares? Depends. (Score:1)
Take me, for example. I'm about as Joe Blow as you get... (er, except my name is Noah). Yeah, I aspire to be a writer and artist, but right now I'm a video store clerk working for minimum wage. Who would want to read MY journal?
However, last summer, I threw away my old life and decided to bike across Canada (second largest country in the world, eh?). I took a handheld computer with me (PSION 5) which I used to write a daily journal, keep my maps, and interviews with strangers along the way, as well as access to the internet.
The entire trip took about four months. Now THAT is a journal I think people might be interested in reading. I didn't know about or have access to what we're talking about, so I had to suffice myself with emailing my friends and family on a semi-regular basis (whenever I could use a phone jack).
But now it's back to Jow Blow Average Life, for the time being, anyways. Maybe next year I'll bike to Mexico...
Re:And our next guest is... (Score:1)
The value of journals (Score:2)
1. Maybe they'll learn something. I manage an online journaling community and have met relative novice web users who have gotten journals... suddenly, they're all curious about basic html, design, writing, etc. Next thing I know, they start to have a site as good as mine... which leads me to think that they have entirely too much time on their hands. Soon enough, they become useful, confident members of our community and have some talents that are actually of value in this world.
2. They become a part of the user base. Like it or not, every successful website needs a user base. In LiveJournal's case, we're member supported, so more users = potential paying members. Gotta keep those servers humming.
3. Their posts are of interest to people other than yourself. Did it ever occur to you that someone might write a journal for a reason other than to entertain you? Maybe they do it for personal reasons, or maybe they do it as a way of sharing their lives with their friends. Either method is valid and is of interest to the right person.
4. Journals breed familiarity. When even marginal writers create a journal, it allows others a chance to know them, determine if they are of interest, and basically feel like there is a real person on the Internet somewhere connected to their posts. This is important, because it creates a stronger community. I think most people are kind of sick of the anonymous nature of so much of the Internet. Take Slashdot, for example. How many stupid posts would never be written if the author realized that their posts might actually be >>gasp! associated with how people perceive them. Everyone and their dog complains about how "the Government is going to search the web and find out all about me." Which begs the question: do you really think the Feds care about you? They can't even prevent spying in the highest levels of the FBI, where they can use routine polygraph tests! Rather than complain about injustices you can't prove, why not complain about the real injustices we all deal with daily, like having to read painfully bad posts? Know all the fine details of my life... fine. I have nothing to hide. Just don't expose me to stupidity.
Importance of print underestimated (Score:2)
We dont have a large audience, but we do manage to print and distribute 1000 copies of this journal, four times a year.
We always put extracts of past issues on the web [esplumoir.com]. (Pages in french.)
After a brief survey of our readers, we came to the conclusion that the print edition would remain, and that only some extract would be posted on the web. It turns out that most of them prefer to have a hard copy to read just about anywhere.
They DO, however, want more info on the web, such as statistics of the issues, complete index etc.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
Re:I have a journal, and that article was crap (Score:2)
heh
it isn't my journal (Score:1)
Re:Why is it only psychotics post stuff online? (Score:1)
This is NOTHING New. (Score:1)
And as a member of Saucybard.com [saucybard.com], I was one of their cadre of site reviewers... mostly a lot of sites from teen domains [plastique.org] (or angsty teen domain owners [frostylips.com] or hostees [oubliette.nu]).
And it's not so much "people are voyeurs" but "people find the internet a medium in which they can rant/rave/bare their souls to comfortably". Some of it is the anonymous aspect-- how many of your site visitors do you see in person?-- and some of it is just the fact that some people are very open about themselves.
Hell, I'm even guilty of it myself [saucybard.com]. (Nothing from this year uploaded yet, because I'm trying to recover them from my old HD. ^_^;;
I was surprised (Score:1)
They did not even mention how this would affect cyberstalkers.. usually when one of the mainstream news companies do features like this, they tend to make the average net user look like a freakish pervert..
kudos to msnbc
A journal that's actually interesting (Score:2)
Summary: This guy is a reporter for a newspaper that is about to be shut down after over 100 years of publishing, reporting from the inside on the mood of a paper that's about to go under. Suddenly, the community rises up and sues the paper to keep it publishing! They're forced to search for a buyer, and miraculously, even in this market a buyer is found! The paper is saved! And then the journalist finds out he's gonna be let go by the new buyers because of all the bad things he said about the paper in his journal...
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:3)
I'm not saying you should start a journal. It doesn't sound like you'd have very much fun with it. But don't suggest it's a waste of time. Slashdot, arguably, is a waste of time. That rant of yours, arguably, is a waste of time. No one is forcing their opinions on you unless you decide to read their opinions.
And as for "plagarism" who cares! It's a diary! I hope someone would quote me if they used my writing, but more than anything else, I'd be flattered that they thought it was good.
Jon Katz writes to an audience, so I can see how some of your claims make sense with him. But the nice thing about slashdot is it allows you to turn off Jon Katz, which I have. Don't bemoan free expression. Not even stupid free expression. Do what I do. Ignore it.
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE (Score:1)
If I had mod points right now, they'd be yours.
But it IS their choice (Score:1)