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Open Diary
Open Diary (often abbreviated as "OD") is an online diary community, an early example of social networking software. It was founded on October 20, 1998. Open Diary went offline on February 7, 2014, but was re-launched on January 26, 2018. The site was owned and operated by Bruce Ableson and Susan Ableson, known on the Open Diary website by the title of their diaries, The DiaryMaster and The DiaryMistress. Ableson has described Open Diary as "the first web site that brought online diary writers together into a community."
Open Diary has hosted more than five million diaries since it was founded, and was home to over half a million diaries. As of October 2008, there were over 561,000 diaries on OpenDiary.com, including diaries from 77 countries and all 7 continents. The site innovated some key features that later became central to the architecture of other social networking and blogging sites, including reader comments and friends-only privacy.
Open Diary went online on October 20, 1998. Shortly afterwards, the site added the ability for readers to post comments on others' diary entries – an innovation that was the forerunner of the interactive nature of today's blogs and blog comments. Early features of the site included public or private diary entries, indexes of diaries by age and geographic location, and a "Favorites" page for the diary owner. The Favorites page was used to aggregate information about the latest posts of the user's friends, and was a predecessor of the friends lists and "friends-only" privacy options used by many blogging and social networking sites today.
In late 1998, the site was featured as a Yahoo! Pick of the Week and membership increased rapidly, growing to more than 10,000 diaries in the first six months. In 2000, Ableson created two related websites: Teen Open Diary (in January), and Quit Smoking Diary (in April). A September 7, 2000 feature article in USA Today described Open Diary as "the Internet home of more than 130,000 personal online journals," in addition to the more than 25,000 diaries hosted on Teen Open Diary and the more than 1,700 hosted on Quit Smoking Diary. The article describes the demographics of the site as 75% female, with more than half of all diarists being 21 years old or younger.
On November 2, 2000, the Diary Circles feature was added to the site. Diary Circles provided a common space where members could cross-post entries from their diaries related to specific topics. The most popular circles include "Depression", "Relationships", "Poetry", "Love & Passion", and "Advice Wanted".
Two diarists posted entries while on assignment at McMurdo Station, Antarctica during 2001 – possibly making Open Diary the first online community to have people writing from all seven continents.
Open Diary introduced the premium service Open Diary Plus in 2001, a paid version of the original Open Diary. In addition to freedom from advertisements, Open Diary Plus offered several new features, including the ability to block specific users from reading the diary and the ability to organize the diary into chapters. The free and paid versions of the site were temporarily separated into FreeOpenDiary.com and OpenDiaryPlus.com. The two sites were later recombined, with free and paid memberships both remaining available at OpenDiary.com.
A major upgrade to the Open Diary software was released in September 2003, adding the "Favorites Only" (later Friends Only) option for diary access, private notes, member interests, and other features. At the end of 2003, there were over 218,000 diaries active on the site.
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Open Diary
Open Diary (often abbreviated as "OD") is an online diary community, an early example of social networking software. It was founded on October 20, 1998. Open Diary went offline on February 7, 2014, but was re-launched on January 26, 2018. The site was owned and operated by Bruce Ableson and Susan Ableson, known on the Open Diary website by the title of their diaries, The DiaryMaster and The DiaryMistress. Ableson has described Open Diary as "the first web site that brought online diary writers together into a community."
Open Diary has hosted more than five million diaries since it was founded, and was home to over half a million diaries. As of October 2008, there were over 561,000 diaries on OpenDiary.com, including diaries from 77 countries and all 7 continents. The site innovated some key features that later became central to the architecture of other social networking and blogging sites, including reader comments and friends-only privacy.
Open Diary went online on October 20, 1998. Shortly afterwards, the site added the ability for readers to post comments on others' diary entries – an innovation that was the forerunner of the interactive nature of today's blogs and blog comments. Early features of the site included public or private diary entries, indexes of diaries by age and geographic location, and a "Favorites" page for the diary owner. The Favorites page was used to aggregate information about the latest posts of the user's friends, and was a predecessor of the friends lists and "friends-only" privacy options used by many blogging and social networking sites today.
In late 1998, the site was featured as a Yahoo! Pick of the Week and membership increased rapidly, growing to more than 10,000 diaries in the first six months. In 2000, Ableson created two related websites: Teen Open Diary (in January), and Quit Smoking Diary (in April). A September 7, 2000 feature article in USA Today described Open Diary as "the Internet home of more than 130,000 personal online journals," in addition to the more than 25,000 diaries hosted on Teen Open Diary and the more than 1,700 hosted on Quit Smoking Diary. The article describes the demographics of the site as 75% female, with more than half of all diarists being 21 years old or younger.
On November 2, 2000, the Diary Circles feature was added to the site. Diary Circles provided a common space where members could cross-post entries from their diaries related to specific topics. The most popular circles include "Depression", "Relationships", "Poetry", "Love & Passion", and "Advice Wanted".
Two diarists posted entries while on assignment at McMurdo Station, Antarctica during 2001 – possibly making Open Diary the first online community to have people writing from all seven continents.
Open Diary introduced the premium service Open Diary Plus in 2001, a paid version of the original Open Diary. In addition to freedom from advertisements, Open Diary Plus offered several new features, including the ability to block specific users from reading the diary and the ability to organize the diary into chapters. The free and paid versions of the site were temporarily separated into FreeOpenDiary.com and OpenDiaryPlus.com. The two sites were later recombined, with free and paid memberships both remaining available at OpenDiary.com.
A major upgrade to the Open Diary software was released in September 2003, adding the "Favorites Only" (later Friends Only) option for diary access, private notes, member interests, and other features. At the end of 2003, there were over 218,000 diaries active on the site.