Blog styles: Digital diaries

27 Oct 2010

Blog styles: Digital diaries

Blogging: Bringing the work of great diarists like Samuel Pepys into the modern age.

Keeping a digital diary of your life is one of the best uses of Blogging software. It makes sense. Blogs are unique, fresh content that’s published regularly, and, over time, build into an archive.

There have been a wealth of great Blog diaries over the years. We look at some of the best.

Early adopters

The first ever online diary is thought to be Claudio Pinhanez’s IT-centric Open Diary, which ran from 1994 to 1996. It was published at the MIT Media Lab. It’s no surprise to learn in the early days of the web, talk about technology and the internet itself was all the rage.

See also: Justin Hall or Diane Patterson

Community diaries

The growth of online diary writing (or escribitionism) led to web-rings such as now defunct Diarist.net and the quarterly Diarist Awards (1999-2004). Virtual diarists began to link to related content or other diaries they liked, often contributing comments on forums and comments.

Therapeutic diaries

Can Blogging make illness better? Writer Robert Rummel-Hudson launched a very personal diary about living with his young daughter and sufferer of APP (condition of being unable to form words). More than a memoir of a parent dealing with his child’s disability, his Blog is the account of a little girl who silently teaches a man filled with self-doubt how to be the father she needs.

Secret diaries

No Blog showed better the attention and web traffic that can be generated when content creates intrigue than Belle de Jour. It was Blog diary of an anonymous London call-girl supporting her £300-a-night income. Her Blogs became best-selling books, a TV programme and made the global press. In 2008 Belle was outed as PhD student Brooke Magenti.

Literary adaptations

Blog software has helped reinvent diary writing by taking the work of famous diarists and making the content appeal online. The diary of George Orwell has been on the web since 2008 (the 70th anniversary of the British writer and essayist’s first diary entry). A good example of how a dairy format supported by additional content can still make great reading 70 years on.

Image diaries

Blogs can be way more than just text. Sites, like this one run by Le Monde, display pictures of life in China. Another great Blog site is Jezblog.com, the work of photojournalist Jez Coulson. For something more quirky, cartoonist Mike Smith captures his everyday using a series of cartoons in Blogshank. It makes for more engaging viewing and really broadens the scope of Blogs as multi-media platforms.

Teenage diaries

Troubled teens can take inspiration from fictional anti-hero Adrian Mole and use Blogging to get over the angst of pimples, unrequited love and growing pains. One of the most popular Blog diaries is by Nikki Maxwell (Dork Diaries). Another Blog-to-Book format that has a great paper diarist look and feel and captures well the potential of Blogging as an easy-to-use forum that can reach a global audience.

Travel diaries

The diary has been an age-old means to record pioneering adventurers and travel expeditions. Cut to the 21st Century and we have a great example from a 34-year-old “deadbeat from Conneticut” Matt Harding who travelled the world doing a silly dance and keeping a blog. Watch his strangely moving video of his 2003 round-the-world journey.

Spoof diaries

Fake diaries have always caused a stir. A bit like the mockumentary in film, it’s one of those believable formats that engage readers. TheSpoof.com publish a hilarious series of fake celebrity diaries. Read the faux musings of such luminaries as PM David Cameron, the Pope or Osama Bin Laden.

Diaries to avoid

Finally, there are certain online diaries you dare not read read no matter how revealing or interesting from the diarist’s point of view they allude to be. Choose from Jeffrey Archer’s hypnotically awful personal Blog, the musing of magician Paul Daniels, or the anti-Muslim bile of right-wing ‘hate Blogger’ Pamela Geller.

So there you have it. Blogs are a terrific platform for chronicling pretty much any topic.

Why not let Curio Media show you how to produce your own Blog diary today.

No Responses to “Blog styles: Digital diaries”