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AOL To Launch Blogging Service

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the tipping-the-bandwagon dept.

Jorkapp writes "Later this summer, AOL will launch its 'AOL Journals' blog service, provided free to its members. AOL Journals (named as such, since a survey showed the average user found the word 'blog' to be confusing) will allow users to post text, pictures, and voice entries. More information can be found at the Washington Post."

5 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I wish AOL would fix what they have first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Feel free to cancel your AOL account for a cheaper, better service that actually works. I give you permission. There, isn't that nice ?

  2. Confusing, no. Stupid, yes. by Paul+Carver · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not an AOL user, but I find the term "blog" stupid, not confusing.

    It's a freaking diary, keep it under your bed. What makes you thing the rest of the world gives a damn. And if you're too stupid or lazy to say "weblog" and have to save two characters, then I guess it makes sense that you're too stupid and lazy to learn something as simple as HTML.

    1. Re:Confusing, no. Stupid, yes. by FunkSoulBrother · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not a big fan of online journals or "weblogs", but come on dude, is it really necessary for everyone to learn HTML just so they can publish whatever they want to publish on the web?

      I mean it would be a nice skill, but not everyone is interested.

      Do you stand around outside of restaurants, yelling at people for being "too stupid and lazy to learn something as simple as" cooking?

  3. *blog* definitely sucks by SunPin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This word shows the worst side of tech--inventing a word for something that A) already exists in the physical world and B) has undergone ZERO changes outside of being ported to new technology.

    Since both are true, the word "Journal" works just fine.

    --
    Laws are for people with no friends.
  4. Why all the elitism about the word 'blog'? by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Lots of comments slamming 'blog' around here: "It's a diary!", "It's a journal!", "Why make a new word for an old idea?"

    Well, because it is a new idea. Diaries were kept for private viewing, a few notable exceptions notwithstanding. The idea of being able to post your "diary" globally is certainly empowering. Yeah, yeah, we're /. and we look down on anyone who cannot do HTML. Fine, be elitist, but most of the world is not, and never will be, programmers, or even scripters. And blogging software has given the rest of the world a simple tool that enables them to do what we have been able to do for years.

    Blogs are more than the sum of their parts, furthermore. It's not just that these "diaries" are online. The blog phenomenom is based on the mutual linking that goes on. It's a community -- that hardly describes a diary or a journal -- of users connecting to each other. Does that sound familiar? Sure, it's the promise of the web, only now accessible to a lot more people.

    Finally blogs are not just "diaries." For example, I have my web site where I have fun with the wording of headlines. In order to see how the power of blogging works, I recently created a blog of my site in order to see if the connectivity of the blog community would increase awareness. I'm playing with the blog phenemenon, in other words. Yet there is nothing about me at my blog, no diary entries, nothing. It's all about the humor.

    Blogging is about the community, not just a diary.