For many University students, campus does not exist solely in the physical realm. Ties between students are formed and strengthened in the world of online blogs.
The term blog, short for “web log” — can mean many different things. Some blogs provide news and opinions on current events. Some are “communities” for the discussion of topics ranging from pet rats to literature to the University itself. Others describe people’s daily lives for an audience of their friends, friends of friends and distant acquaintances. The age distribution for users of LiveJournal.com, a popular blog Web site, peaks at 18 years old, with more than 200,000 writers out of the total four million LiveJournal users. The numbers drop dramatically for writers over the age of 30.
However, to prove that blogs are not just a fad for high school and college students, the crews of both
President Bush and Democratic
presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry maintain official blogs from the
presidential campaign trail.
Numerous blogging services exist on the Internet that allow anyone to set up a site. Some sites require a small fee, but most are free. Three of the most well-known blogging services are LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com), Xanga (www.xanga.com), and Blogger (www.blogger.com).
Junior computer science major Rick Gorman prefers LiveJournal.com because of its friends page feature.
“You can check all your friends’ blogs, and it’s a lot easier than going to each one individually,” he said.
Gorman has had a LiveJournal.com blog for about three years, since the beginning of his college experience. He’s also used his computer skills to experiment with writing his own blog software, but primarily uses
LiveJournal for convenience.
Gorman’s blog is of the personal diary sort.
“One, it’s just to keep in touch with friends who aren’t in town; just everyday stuff,” he said. “Also, it’s kind of a way to talk to myself, but have everyone else hear me. I just like to write stuff about myself.”
Most blog services are set up so that blog writers can receive and respond to feedback from their readers.
“My social network is always growing, partially because of interaction on the blog,” Gorman said.
Blog social life has a downside, however.
“I have probably lost at least one friend over having a blog,” he said. “It’s like a big sort of gossip thing. It’s like a chat room, where you’re not really there, so some things get said that shouldn’t be said.”
“People read it for some reason and I write it for some reason,” he said.

Eva Sylwester is a freelance reporter
for the Emerald.