Before there were Weblogs

In Chapter 3 of The Weblog Handbook, Rebecca Blood states:

"Before there were weblogs, there were online journals, e-zines...photo albums, community bulletin boards, special interest resources, and home pages of all kinds. Choose the format that suits you best, and use whatever tool is necessary to maintain it."

Consider each type of resource:

E-zines appear to differ from online versions of major publications like People. They are independent, quirky, and they spring up often. Many look to be an outlet for unknowns to be publihed. Some information can be found at The Book of Zines. In the more professional realm, some might be inclined to classify sites like ZD NET as online mags.

Photo Albums are consistently evolving and there are many options, such as AOL's You've Got Pictures, which has been a popular feature for a number of years. Increasing in popularity are photo albums in blog form.

Community Bulletin boards, such as the Student Senate's on MSN Communities, are usually open to all. The message boards that I've seen generally contain announcements and discussion topics. Posting on a message board allows a wide number of people to see and comment on what you're thinking. We use ours not only as a way for students to comment, but also as an announcement board in place of batch emails.

Home Pages are the building blocks of the web. Every website has one. In another blend of "old" (if you consider early 90s old) and new technology, many people and organizations link to blogs from their home pages.

To me, the Online Journal presents the greatest challenge in terms of definition. Is it really all that different from a blog? What differentiates a LiveJournal with one entry a day, or several, from a Blogger blog? I know we've established that the two are somehow "different", but what I see are two names for essentially the same thing. LiveJournal even promotes itself as a blog tool, so what's the difference?

In fact, as Blood states, use of the different technologies is a matter of personal preference. Personally, I am a user of blogs, message boards, and web pages, all for different purposes.