And so to Blog
Diaries have been with us a long time, they are invaluable records of social history. The diary of Samuel Pepys covered both the Black Death and the Great Fire of London, Livingstone's explorations of Africa are detailed in his diaries, other diaries show us people taming the American Wild West, traveling across the world, surviving wars, living through change.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.
Oscar Wilde
I've kept a diary ("journal" didn't sound quite right to me) since late 1993, spanning nine full blank books and part of the tenth. Back in 1993 I would never have thought I'd put any kind of diary online. But that was before getting married, moving to America, taking writing classes, creating and maintaining two major web sites, spending three years unable to work, things that tend to shake up your outlook a bit.
Today (February 2002), a Google search on "blog" gets you well over a hundred links, starting with Blogger and including a paid ad link to a news blog. A similar search on SourceForge turns up well over seventy programming projects ranging from interfaces to Blogger and Manila, to web-based blog managers, to stand-alone programs. My own programming project, Chronicle, is a stand-alone blog manager. It was going to be just a diary program, then I discovered blogs, tried a couple of different methods for content management, and decided to adapt Chronicle to my new-found love of blogging.
My paper diary has not died, nor will it in future, but the blog will definitely stay. The paper diary stays because there are some things I don't want the world to know. I need an utterly private place to record personal events and thoughts. My blog is for the things I wouldn't mind anyone seeing, including a future boss, family, friends, and the rest of the world. I assume that anything I put there will be read by the person I would least like it to be read by, and write accordingly. It stores observations, progress with my programming projects, random thoughts and opinions.
I only regret that everybody wants to deprive me of the journal, which is the only steadfast friend I have, the only one which makes my life bearable, because my happiness with human beings is so precarious, my confiding moods rare, and the least sign of non-interest is enough to silence me. In the journal I am at ease.
Anais Nin, June 1933
There's an element of exhibitionism in any blog, you assume someone is going to read it. There are several different methods that allow visitors to leave comments on your blog. Sooner or later, some random stranger will turn up and read it.
Everyone has an opinion. Blogs let you tell yours to the world.
Information on blogs and blogging: