Online Diary Communities Becoming More Popular

Posted on August 4, 2000

People used to keep their diaries private and hidden from view. However, with the advent of the Internet and new services which allow people to easily type in diary entries online and showcase them to web surfers, there is a large group of people who are offering their diaries to anyone who surfs by.

TV shows like Survivor and Big Brother have shown that people are fascinated with reality-based programming, which follows the real-life experiences of regular people. Webcams have also been very popular, which show people's lives through online video. Diaries, which can seem even more personal than WebCams, are online too.

Some web services are making it easier for journalers or diarists to move their diary entries online. These services allow writers to keep private or public diaries, keep archives of each entry and to design the look and feel of their online journal.

At one of these service, The Open Diary, more than 120,000 people have started online diaries in the past year. Diarists writing at The Open Diary cover all age groups including teens, seniors, baby boomers and Gen Xer's. Another online service, MyDearDiary.com, which launched in 1998, also hosts thousands of personal online diaries.

Other online diary communities include DiaryLand, Diarist.net, rememory.com, MyOwnDiary and Diary-X. Some formats of online diaries and journals are often referred to as web logs or blogs. Blogger, a web journaling resource which uses this new term, provides a quick and easy way to create weblogs.