Doctor Recommended

I Don't Know What A Blog Is, But I Have One, I Think

There is something comfortable, knowing that no matter what, there is always a group of people you can continually poke fun of -- these hapless individuals are called AOL users.

Well, apparently someone inside of AOL bumped into weblogs and got the bright idea of implementing a new service called AOL Journals (it really is a good idea, I'm not just being sarcastic because I'm blindingly jealous).

Jeff Jarvis has the scoop, here are some interesting tech tid bits:

- You'll be able to blog from IM (which includes AOL from your phone).

- They are starting right off publishing every weblog in RSS/XML.

- They've decided to call the product AOL Journals and thus, position it as a community tool (read: LiveJournal) more than a publishing tool (read: Movable Type). The word "blog" is only part of the subtitle.

Actually, the whole thing is pretty interesting in terms of watching another big player jump into the arena and what Dada angles they look at (remember, Microsoft FrontPage 2003 supposedly has various "blogging" capabilities built into it).

Burningbird has a good analogy as to both the short and long run consequences of AOL stepping up to bat, comparing the onslaught of AOL users invading the blogosphere with the onslaught of AOL users that invaded Usenet back in the mid ‘90s – utter anarchy. Concluding:

Looking at this, perhaps having all that fresh new blood from AOL -- all without their little weblogging heros and talk about weblogging and this conference and that and all with little or no interest in the politics of weblogging -- will be a good thing. A very good thing.

Here's hoping for complete and utter anarchy.

The comments are amusing too, so if there is one thing you do today, besides downing a cold one, be sure to read the enlightened wit from these misanthropic commentators.

Posted by Tim at July 8, 2003 04:02 PM | TrackBack