Journal/Diary vs. Blog an all out war.

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Jan. 14th, 2004 | 05:32 pm

So I got the opportunity to fill out a blogging survey. But I got a bit confused...and I repeatedly answered in my head.. "but I only read LJ and Diaryland" my friends who are bloggers, don't get read.. though my love for them remains constant.

This and a little prodding led me to wonder why I don't read blogs... I tend to use the journal tool as a way of keeping in touch with friends through an electronic means, with a method that starts in the middle of a conversation-- where you don't have to do.. so.. how are ya? and other conversation killers) Online Journals get to the "meat" of what the lives/folks in your communities are up to.

So Imagine my surprise when I read:
"LiveJournal is a simple-to-use (but extremely powerful and customizable) personal publishing ("blogging") tool,..."

It IS a personal publishing tool... which has (erroneously imho) apparently become synonomous with blogging... but it is not a blog... because it is so much more... it comes radically equipt with 'lock and load' community and readership. This predetermined framework makes for a different method of communicating. You don't have to push the vangard, write these thoughts down so succinctly as if your whole post-acedemic career and social life depended on it... because you have a set batch of readers, you can write about your alterations of macaroni and cheese recipies, and the facts of your dumb life - chronicle style. But in a blog (that you would like other people to read) each entry must be dripping with wit/thought/ and the juicy goodness that makes people come back... in short, as a blog your entries become an advertisement...and negates it's purpose of being a chronicler --- it has been overrun with the acedemitantrums (and acedemidrama and trackbacks) as attempts are gaining readership. So they aren't the same thing. LJ is a strange combination of friendster (and it's successors) and a diary... like the real live incarnation of a slambook... and the individually published blog, is like a note that is passed. The blog feels exclusive, because getting to its contents is also not as facile (it doesn't just show up in your friends like when updated) --- So because you have to actively seek them out --it changes the medium, and therefor the message.

Music meme time. -- CD collection on random.

Miss Jane - It's A Fine Day (ATB Remix) 3:34
Birds 3:40 Over The Rhine
The Frail 1:53 Nine Inch Nails
Bad Reputation 2:48 Joan Jett
Running Up That Hill 4:59 Kate Bush
American Pie Striptease 3:58
Cibo Matto - King of Silence (Dan The Automator remix) 4:58
Black Night (DJ Baba G & Dan The Automator Remix) 4:36
Hey Anta 4:30 Rachid Taha
Pheli War 5:54 Bally Jagpal

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Comments {5}

diego001

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from: [info]diego001
date: Jan. 14th, 2004 04:00 pm (UTC)
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You know, I still think of my diary as my chronicler. I make no excuses for anyone. If they don't like my blog, they can just leave.

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Haptotrope

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from: [info]haptotrope
date: Jan. 14th, 2004 04:54 pm (UTC)
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yeah -- you keep a diary... here on LJ... not a blog... I'm going to have to edit this up to make that clear...

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diego001

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from: [info]diego001
date: Jan. 14th, 2004 04:56 pm (UTC)
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Ah, got it. I didn't realize you were making a differentiation like that.

This is my diary. There's many like it, but this one is mine...

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Hypocrisy looks good on me

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from: [info]lizsybarite
date: Jan. 14th, 2004 05:13 pm (UTC)
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That's very interesting, and you summed it up quite well.

I read some journals that are so well and thoughtfully and cleverly written that they make my mouth hang open. And suddenly mine seems so trite and dull, by comparison. I guess in some ways, mine just chronicles the things in my life that I'd normally babble about in procrastination emails to friends or my own typed journal (which, prior to LJ, was a boring ol' Word file). But I also think about what to bother writing about, and what might interest the small group who slogs through it with some regularity.

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Rabbit

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from: [info]rabbitorf
date: Jan. 15th, 2004 10:23 am (UTC)
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I was under the impression that blogs, web-logs, were originally suposed to be just that - a log of what websites you had been to that you found interesting and what made them interesting to you, what your responses were. 'Blogs that just talked, no matter how dripping with wit and intelligence, were really just journals of one sort or another, regardless of the intended audience.

livejournals, i think, are different because you know people come by to read these things every day because it's so easy to just add someone to your friends page and see what they have to say along with everyone else. makes for a lot of different ideas of what should be in your LJ. I still use mine mainly to write when i need to write, not ncessarily when i want to share. i generally write for myself, then decide what level of audience is ok afterwards when i decide my privacy level just before posting. While sometimes responses can be good, i'd be writing this stuff anyway. having a way to do it online just makes it easier for me than doing it on paper.

when i read other people's, however, i use it as a way to see what people are up to, what sort of person they are, and what they have been thinking aobut. An easy way to keept rack of a lot of people at once so you don't spend half your time wondering where they are and how they are doing. I also like being able to have discussions through the comments section. More communication in times when our abilities to go out and see people are shorter and less frequent than we would like and the number of people we know through various media grows steadlily.

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