Tuesday, September 23, 2003

A Very Special Blog


Blogs can be divided into a number of categories. No, I do not mean just good and bad. Some are political. Some are opportunities to rant. Some are professional. Some are personal. (As in a blog about a couple getting ready for their wedding or someone living in a foreign country for a year. Friends and relatives can keep up with what's going on in the bloggers' lives.) Original Content is either a rant or a professional blog, depending on the point of view of the reader.

However, there is another variation, a variation that is more about form then content. I am talking, of course, of live journals.

Live journals are, I guess, always personal and use a variation on blogger software so that the journalist can work in more personal information in a formated sort of way. As in "My Current Mood" with an adjective and emoticon to describe said current mood. It also appears that people can post messages in response to journal entries, though I'm not a hundred percent clear on how that works or if there is some kind of netiquette involved.

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of live journals since they do seem to involve posting personal info for your friends and strangers to see. And sometimes they are rather mundane. "I did this, then I did this, then I did this." But I suppose they help people with a need to express themselves and communicate. In days of old, all journals did was meet the first need. In the 21st Century we multi-task and live journals are a twofer.

I was ego-surfing last week and stumbled upon a reference to Saving the Planet and Stuff in someone's live journal. "Reading Saving the Planet. Fair."

Maybe she was talking about another book.



No comments: