Kid's Blogs

Technorati is tracking over 4 million weblogs. I wonder how many of them are kids blogs. I would bet its way more than 50%.

As I've starting navigating the world of Xanga and Live Journal, its been eye opening. Many more kids are blogging than their parents.

It turns out my niece has been blogging for as long as I have. I didn't know that. But I've been reading her blog since I found out last week and its great to be able to keep track of her life that way.

And my girls are blogging now. Emily seems more committed than Jessica, but we'll see if it continues that way. I read their blogs too.

I also comment on all of these blogs.

My brother told me he wonders if its a good idea to do that. Does it hold the kids back when they know their parents are reading? He's got a really good point there. The last thing I want to do is hold my kids back.

Jerry's daugther won't let him read her blog any more. She moved over to Live Journal and put up a password. I think that's her perogative and if my girls want to do that, it would be OK with me.

But I'd miss the ability to find out what they are thinking. Take Emily's trip to Greenkill this week. When I asked how it was, I got back "it was OK". I asked a few more questions, but that was all I was going to get.

Then she blogged the whole trip and I got to find out what she did and what she liked and what she didn't. That's what I wanted and through her blog I got it.

Then there's the issue of linking to the blogs. Jerry linked to Emma's but then she moved. Jeff links to his son's. Given all the nuts who read Jeff's blog and slam him daily in the comments section, I'd have a tough time doing that. I've chosen to avoid linking to Julia, Emily, and Jessica's blogs. I think that's best for now.

I suspect there are lot of parents out there in a similar situation, so if you have any ideas, comments, or thoughts about this issue, I'd love to hear them.

Comments

[Adam Fritzler]

I'm not sure I'd call most of what happens on LiveJournal 'blogging'. It's usually more diarist than blogger. Of course, LJ's friends page (feed aggregation before it was cool) creates communities much faster than on the wide-open blogosphere, too, so you end up with something halfway between diarist and blogger. Or, because you can associate different reading permissions with different people (including the public), the case where a user's public posts are a blog, but once you're "friended" and can see protected posts, you see that it's a diary, too.

I think this makes LJ very good for kids -- they can keep up with the friends and write to their friends, and manage their public face (ie, to their parents) much better. (Managing face is a skill where teenagers can beat even the most sociopathic of businessmen.)

It all creates a fantastic environment for pointless drama.

[Max Niederhofer]

Do you think these blogging services make a good investment opportunity?

[hey]

definitely encourage kids to blog behind passwords...

until you're really really really sure you want to be at least some sort of a public figure, you should avoid leaving easily identifiable tracks on the internet..

nyms and false email is the only way to survive in the internet age, especially when you're young... cause do you really want your immensely popular goth piercing blog being in the first page of results when you start going looking for internships, real jobs, colleges, going on dates in college etc?

[Spud]

I blog (journal) for school. I attend an online K-12 distance learning school in Las Vegas. Part of our assignment was to journal every week as well as current events etc. In keeping with the theme of attending online, I chose to create my journal at LJ.

We are given topics weekly or we can create our own.

So mine is not so much a 'diary' as a journal.

just as an fyi.

oh you can see mine if you click on my link here.

[video poker]

Nothing to say, interisting point of view.
--------------------------
Jeremy *\/* video poker (http://www.videopoker4u.com) *\/*

[nick]

I'm looking for other kid bloggers as well. Come by kidreviewer, leave a comment, or give some link love from your site. I'm not a 'diarist', www.kidreviewer.com is a real blog. As soon as I hookup a good camcorder I'll add occasional vlogs as well.

Nick Chance

[KidReviewer]

All those myspace, tag, and livejournal entries aren't like real blogs. BUT, there are serious kid blogs.

I'm going to do a post about them soon. I have a couple listed in my blogroll. But for a good example, check out mine, www.KidReviewer.com

I plan to be a writer as an adult. Blogs are a good place to start. Also, I felt that the hundreds of newspaper movie critics are all adults. They rate stupid boring dramas as good, and don't talk about how a kid sees things. They have no 'kid cred'. I do movies, books, video games. But also, check out my post on the PizzaHut BookIt! criticism. It's in the Nick Chatter section.

Nick

[Bob Weber Jr.]

Hi,
I'm a cartoonist. I do a syndicated comic strip titled "Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids". Not long ago I created a blog to display art from young readers. Under each drawing I post encouraging comments. The response from kids, parents and teachers has been terrific. The blog is www.kidcartoonists.com. I hope you will take a look and pass it along to your readers.

Best regards,
Bob Weber Jr.
www.kidcartoonists.com