Open Diary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Open Diary is an online diary community, an early example of social networking software. Founded on October 19, 1998, it is the oldest such community on the Internet. The founder of Open Diary is Bruce Ableson, known on the Open Diary website by the title of his diary, The DiaryMaster. As of January 2008, there are 533,757 diaries on OpenDiary.com, including diaries from 63 different countries and all 7 continents.
[edit] History
Open Diary went online on October 22, 1998 as the first community for online diaries or blogs. Shortly after the introduction of the site, the ability was added for readers to post notes on author's diary pages - an innovation that led to the interactive nature of today's blogs and blog comments.
In late 1998, the site was featured as a Netscape Pick of the Week and memberships increased rapidly, growing to more than 10,000 in the first six months. A feature article in USA Today in August, 1999 led to many more writers and readers discovering the site.
In 2001, Open Diary introduced the premium "Open Diary Plus", a paid version of the original "Free Open Diary". While free memberships remained available, paying Plus subscribers were offered an increased level of service. In addition to freedom from advertisements, paid diaries have additional functionality, including the ability to block other users from reading the diary, increased searching ability, password protection, diary chapters and the ability to view all notes left by the diarist.
One of the many features of Open Diary is the existence of "interests." These are ways for the diarist to show his or her personality and to meet other people who share similar interests. The site also allows users to find other diarists by age group and by U.S. state or country. Other features include a "Theme of the Week" - which asks writers for an answer to a weekly question (updated on Sundays). "Reader's Choice" allows readers to identify interesting or compelling diary pages for other readers.
On September 11, 2004, the Open Diary database server was hacked, resulting in the loss of eleven weeks worth of diary entries for all members. The DiaryMaster offered a cash bounty for information leading to the arrest of the hacker, and the FBI was involved in the investigation.
On February 2, 2006, a new "Lifetime Membership" was introduced for a fee of $100. The DiaryMaster stated that this new membership level was created to raise money after declining subscription rates in the period following the 2004 hacker attack caused Open Diary to go into debt.
On April 26, 2006, a message board component was added to the website, including forums on many subjects requested by the members of the site.
In February 2008, for the first time in the site's history, the DiaryMaster has introduced a volunteer help desk team. Three long-time members known as EWS, Gail and X, who have been serving as the forums administrators, were promoted to Open Diary help desk administrators and have become responsible for all customer service issues and rules violation reports. Despite these efforts, Open Diary service was initially spotty for the early months of 2008.
On May 15, 2008, Open Diary upgraded its site security and changed the maximum password length. Previously only 8 characters were allowed for the password, but with the upgrade this was increased to a maximum of 30 characters.
As of May, 2008, Open Diary has hosted more than five million diaries over a nine-year history, and continues to be home to over half a million diaries. An accurate count of active membership is unknown because of the transient nature of online journaling. Generally there are between 2,000 and 3,000 members on the site at any given moment. This can be accessed by the counter on the front page
