About 12 million Americans keep blogs, according to a survey released last July by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Even more people might blog if the technology weren’t so public. After all, who wants to share a high-school-reunion video with stockbrokers in Istanbul or teenagers in Tokyo?
Privacy controls that let a blog’s author decide who can view each post are a major feature of several new blogging platforms. Vox, a free Web-based service launched by the San Francisco blogging-software maker Six Apart, allows users to assign various privacy settings to each post. The software is free, but bloggers have to accept that an advertisement will follow each of their posts.
Six Apart was already making blog-publishing software when, in 2005, it acquired LiveJournal, which has one of the fiercest followings in the blogosphere, thanks partly to privacy settings that are now part of Vox. “Sometimes you only want your five best friends in the world to see a post, and you should be able to do that,” writes Six Apart cofounder and president Mena Trott in her own blog. The Pew survey suggests that this desire is widespread: only 27 percent of U.S. bloggers told researchers that a major reason they blog is to change the way other people think. A larger group, 37 percent, cited staying in touch with family and friends.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
The problem with plug-in hybrids? Their drivers.
Plug-in hybrids are often sold as a transition to EVs, but new data from Europe shows we’re still underestimating the emissions they produce.
Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch
Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.
How scientists traced a mysterious covid case back to six toilets
When wastewater surveillance turns into a hunt for a single infected individual, the ethics get tricky.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.