AOL Offers Blog Service For Teens

America Online yesterday announced the creation of a new blogging service, "AOL RED Blogs," for teen members. With the new feature, teens can create blogs that they can either keep completely private, share with certain family or friends, or--for youngsters older than 15--open to the Web at large.

Malcolm Bird, senior vice president-general manager of AOL Teens and Kids, said the company anticipated high demand among the 3.8 million some teens who visit AOL RED each month. AOL has offered blogs for youngsters on a beta site for the last six weeks, Bird said, adding that about 600 teens had created Web logs on the site. "There's no escaping the popularity of blogs for teens on the Web," Bird said.

A study released by AOL yesterday, based on a February survey of 250 youngsters betweeen the ages of 12 and 17, revealed that 31 percent either read blogs or have themselves written an online Web log. AOL also reported that two-thirds (67 percent) of respondents said that if they wrote a blog, they would only share it with friends, while 16 percent said they wouldn't want anyone else reading it online.

But why would people keep blogs, as opposed to paper-and-pen diaries, if they didn't want others to read them?

Bird said that teens today "live and breathe online," so it's more natural for them to blog than keep an offline journal. Also, he said, a blog is accessible from school and home. "It's far more versatile than any diary or journal you could have or write," Bird said, adding that AOL's service allows bloggers to post pictures and add musical accompaniment to the entries.

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