journal vs. weblog
BY RYAN KAWAILANI OZAWA
Hundreds of online diary authors keep weblogs. And thousands of people use weblog sites and software to keep journals. So what's the difference? Plenty.

That is to say, journals and weblogs come from very different places, even though today they have collided or should I be trendy and say "converged"? and are indistinguishable to the untrained eye.

In short, and in my humble opinion, a traditional weblog is focused outside the author and his or her site. A web journal, conversely, looks inward the author's thoughts, experiences, and opinions. Some sites, of course, do both. So to better see the "perfectly blurred" line, you have to step back a bit.

Online diaries and journals have been around almost as long as the World Wide Web (Justin Hall and Carolyn Burke had a mixture of personal information and commentary online by late 1994). Weblogs didn't really pop up until 1998 (although some say NCSA link pages dating back to 1993 counted as the first).

While web diaries caught the fancy of the media now and then in the late 90s, more recently, weblogs have really generated some buzz. But the mainstream fad-trackers, not surprisingly, tuned in late, and thus even some big articles in reputable publications (like Deborah Branscum's March 5 piece in Newsweek) have gotten some basic things confused.

The Nebulous 'Blog

Since you probably know what an online journal is, let's focus on the original, basic definition of weblog:

"A weblog (sometimes called a blog or a newspage or a filter) is a webpage where a weblogger (sometimes called a blogger, or a pre-surfer) 'logs' all the other webpages she finds interesting."  Jorn Barger, Weblog Guru

The alternative definitions notably 'pre-surfer' helps clear things up a bit. Originally, weblogs were basically richer (and often automated) link lists. "Click here to see an article on human cloning, here's what I think about cloning, click here to post what you think about cloning."

Instead of forwarding "check this out!" URLs to your friends, you could post them on the web for anyone to see. A weblog's popularity would grow depending on the uniqueness and novelty of the sites you linked, and the commentary you'd provide about them. And the appeal for readers was simple: why waste hours trying to be entertained, educated or disgusted on the web when someone else is happy to do all the surfing for you?

Evolution

Automation is a central reason why weblogs exploded. People created a variety of ways for people to start and maintain a weblog. Scripts like Noah Grey's Greymatter made linking, reviewing and commenting a point-and-click affair. And web-based services like Blogger minimized the need for extensive HTML tweaking (and partner site Blogspot provided free, weblog-friendly hosting). Five minutes and a few forms later, and anyone could be a blogger.

It should be no surprise, then, that people enjoyed simply speaking their minds, and started dropping the "link" root of weblogs, instead taking advantage of weblog tools as an easy path to online publishing. Or, more specifically, to simple and irresistable expression. "Here's what I think about cloning... and here's what I had for lunch."

Today, it's quite possible that more people are using Blogger and weblog tools to keep online journals than to comment on the web. (The only difference to visitors, really, are generally shorter entries and the 'newest on top' convention.) And that's probably why newcomers figure that's what all weblogs are all about.

But now you know they're not. Longtime bloggers at great link-and-commentary sites like Slashdot would be the first to say so. (I mean, who wants to be associated with online diarists?) And that's why online journalers start weblogs without a hint of redundancy their journals are about them, and their weblogs are about where they go on the web.

A person who keeps a diary or journal online is logging their life, not the web, no matter how they get their words out. So the next time someone uses "blog" as a synonym for "web diary," do both bloggers and diarists a favor and straighten them out.

Ryan Kawailani Ozawa is the founder and lead editor of Diarist.Net. He is not very good at either journaling or blogging, but he writes about them anyway. He can be reached at .