Online diary

An online diary is a personal diary or journal that is published on the World Wide Web on a personal website or a diary-hosting website.

Online diaries have existed since at least 1994. As a community formed, these publications came to be almost exclusively known as online journals. Today they are almost exclusively called blogs, though some differentiate by calling them personal blogs. The running updates of online diarists combined with links inspired the term 'web log' which was eventually contracted to form the word 'blog'.

In online diaries, people write about their day-to-day experiences, social commentary, complaints, poems, prose, illicit thoughts and any content that might be found in a traditional paper diary or journal. They often allow readers to contribute through comments or community posting.

Modern online diary platforms may allow the writer to make entries from a PC, tablet or smart phone. Writers might rate how they feel each day, invite someone to engage in a personal conversation or find counseling.

The first web page in an online-diary format is thought to be Claudio Pinhanez's "Open Diary", which was published at the MIT Media Lab website from 14 November 1994 until 1996. Other early online diarists include Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal online diary-writing in 1994, Carolyn Burke, who started publishing "Carolyn's Diary" on 3 January 1995, Bryon Sutherland, who announced his diary The Semi-Existence of Bryon in a USENET newsgroup on 19 April 1995, David Siegel, who started his journal on 30 August 1995 and Catherine Elizabeth Clay's 'Oneopinionatedbitch.com' started off as a photographic diary in 1995 then added a full written diary 'deardementeddiary.com' currently available in print volumes with Vol. I being Life Cycles.

Online diaries soon caught the attention of the media with the publication of the book 24 Hours in Cyberspace (1996) which captured personal profiles of the people involved in early web pages. The earliest book-length scholarly discussion of online diaries is Philippe Lejeune's Cher écran, ("Dear Screen", not yet translated into English).

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Wikipedia