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Precursors
Electronic communities existed before internetworking. For example the AP wire was, in effect, similar to a large chat room with "wire fights" and electronic conversations. Another pre-digital electronic community, amateur (or "ham") radio, allowed individuals who set up their own broadcast equipment to communicate with others directly. Ham radio also had logs called "glogs" that were personal diaries made using wearable computers in the early 1980s. Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, e-mail lists and bulletin boards. In the 1990s Internet forum software, such as WebX, created running conversations with "threads." Threads are topical connections between messages on a electronic "corkboard." See "Common terms," below.
Diarists kept journals on the Web: most called themselves online diarists, journalists, journallers, or journalers. A few called themselves escribitionists. The Open Pages webring contained members of the online-journal community. The first famous journaller was probably Justin Hall. Other forms of journals kept online also existed. A notable example was game programmer John Carmack's widely read journal, published via the finger protocol. Websites, including both corporate sites and personal homepages, had and still often have "What's New" or "News" sections, often on the index page and sorted by date. |
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