Over the past *cough* years that I've been using the internet, I've kept a few online diaries and had a few little websites here and there. All eventually fell by the wayside when other things stole my time away (or I just became bored with them). I keep thinking about keeping a diary again; something I've done on-and-off since I was about 10, but haven't decided on the format yet.

An online friend of mine also has had various websites over the years, most of which have been closed down due to time restrictions and having other commitments. However, more recently she has decided to keep a blog. Hers is part diary, part cookbook, part photoblog, and partly to keep track of her interests. No specific topic I guess is what I am saying.

Inspired by her dedication, I decided to start a blog too...

...And ended up with three

A Pet Shop Boy
At work, there are so many amusing/stupid moments with customers that we always have said we should write them down. So I decided to keep a little record of any that happen, or any that I remember from the past 8 or 9 years I've been working in a pet shop.

Aurally Yours
I'm no great music critique, but I enjoy my relationship with music. More specifically, my relationship with individual songs. So this is just a self-indulgent exploration at the songs I enjoy, or memories to do with music.

Animals From Slightly Below
And this kinda came from nowhere. I took a photograph of a Guinea Pig a little while ago (this one) and, for some reason, it amused me because of the angle. On a whim, I decided to then keep taking photographs of 'animals from slightly below'. So far I've managed to keep it updated every day since May 19th. Today is the first day I don't have anything scheduled, so I should really go take a photo quick It is silly, somewhat random, and some of the search engine keywords that have arrived at the blog are worrying. But still. It's fun to have something creative to do.

I would be interested to know if any other forumites keep a blog? I manually check The Matazone Blog every now and again (because, for some reason, I always forget to just use RSS features), but would like to read other people's creative moments too.

Incidentally, my friend's blog is called Reverberations and is definitely worth a read. Her 'about me' reads: "I'm a web developer who likes to pretend I'm a baker/photographer/blogger/world traveler. I aspire to improve my German skills. Best buddies with a white mini schnauzer." Her schnauzer is very cute

/le read

It was odd starting mine - I never wanted it to be entirely personal, because it is a public part of an entertainment website, but I wanted to at least put a few things of my life in there. I still update occasionally whenever there is something I want to rant about or that is too cool to miss, but Facebook has taken over a lot of the more 'micro-blogging of cool things' side of my life. I suspect Pinterest is going to steal content too because it takes things that I find visually interesting.

I've been shamelessly using the Roses and Thorns thread as my personal diary for a few years now. I've had LiveJournal and Tumblr attempts, but it's just not something I was interested in keeping up with. To Narth's pleasure, I'll never let the Roses and Thorns thread die.

Amused by your first blog. I don't see why he eats his sammich in the back. >_>

I find it a little strange that Facebook hasn't tried to create an area for more traditional blogging, since it would easily lend itself to something like that. The 'notes' function is about as close as it gets really, but that's not quite the same. I guess they ultimately don't want people to write ONE BIG POST to cover the day's events. They wants LOTS OF LITTLE POSTS instead, as this means people will check FaceBook more regularly and therefore generate more revenue from advertising.



I honestly have no idea :/

It wouldn't do any harm to add a blog section to Facebook, I think. It already has a sufficient number of people on there for it to be a suitable platform for publicity and journalism. Facebook succeeded because of the appeal of micro-blogging, but I don't think that this necessarily means that it has to stop there.

I also suspect that FaceBook would prefer to have companies pay to be linked to FROM FaceBook, rather than host substantial content themselves.

i.e. I imagine they get some referral money for having links to The Guardian, Yahoo News, etc. etc. etc. Chances are, if they decided to incorporate a blogging platform, it would probably be just via an app that they would link to for monies, rather than something internal to Facebook

Tricky - that would certainly be the easiest for them to maintain, but they would get more revenue for their own advertising than referrals, so I would think that they would try to pursue that option. It's not like they don't already have all the data to begin with...

Then again, it might be like Twitter removing the 140 character limit - it might undermine the appeal of the platform. Facebook was the first major micro-blogging success and they would be keen to avoid damaging that.

The notes feature is fb's idea of a blog, I believe.

Yeah, I know a couple of people that use it like that. But it isn't really shown off very well.