Early History
The first web page in an online-diary format is thought to be Claudio Pinhanez's "Open Diary", which was published at the MIT Media Lab website from 14 November 1994 until 1996. Other early online diarists include Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal online diary-writing in 1994, Carolyn Burke, who started publishing "Carolyn's Diary" on 3 January 1995, Bryon Sutherland, who announced his diary The Semi-Existence of Bryon in a USENET newsgroup on 19 April 1995, and David Siegel, who started his journal on 30 August 1995.
Online diaries soon caught the attention of the media with the publication of the book 24 Hours in Cyberspace (1996) which captured personal profiles of the people involved in early web pages. The earliest book-length scholarly discussion of online diaries is Philippe Lejeune's Cher écran, ("Dear Screen", not yet translated to English).
The end of 1997 is generally considered the cut-off date for early adopters.
In 1998, Simon Firth described in Salon magazine how many early online diarists were abandoning the form. And yet, he said, "While many of the movement's pioneers may be tired and disillusioned, the genre shows plenty of signs of life -- of blossoming, even, into something remarkable: a new literary form that allows writers to connect with readers in an excitingly new way."
Read more about this topic: Online Diary
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