AOL has joined the fray and launched its own blogging platform -- Red Blogs. This platform is aimed squarely at teenagers. It will allow them to create private, semi-private, or public blogs. Younger teens, aged 13-15, will need parental approval and cannot present their blogs for public viewing.
Blogs are big with teens, so AOL is clearly throwing a soft homerun pitch in creating a platform for this market. It will also create a platform with great "legs." Teens who blog will grow into adults who blog.
Recently in a discussion with other women bloggers, we admitted that we had kept diaries in our teen years. No pink fake leather with a tiny lock for the teens of today. Instead of a lock that their siblings and prying parents can pick with a paper clip, they get to keep their thoughts on a server protected by a password. My lament is:"Born too soon once again."
I will be interested to see not only how AOL develops this platform, but also whether the discipline of writing a blog improves the writing of teens. Watch as I hop up on one of my favorite soap boxes -- good writing only comes with practice. The more you write the more your brain and fingers connect, so writing a diary on line will force some type of connection between thought and words for teen bloggers. Are we someday going to become a more literate society -- too much to ask for, perhaps?
Comments