The diary is a personal page on the Internet which allows you to share ideas with other people, learn each other better, discuss events together and simply communicate: both with you and with other people.

According to British company Gartner, the number of internet diaries will reach its peak in 2007: there will be about one hundred million bloggers. Analysts believe that this growth will stop in succeeding years, because everybody willing to have a blog will have already started one by that time. During the last few years the majority of bloggers have been mainly young girls and housewives, whereas nowadays politicians, teachers, doctors and people of nearly all professions have blogs as well.

But why do people prefer internet blogs to usual paper diaries?
When asked about his blogging habit, Ibrahim, 24, from London, who was blogging for last 4 years says: ”In my generally clever head there are usually many different ideas on every possible subject. But it is sometimes hard to put them into shape of conversation. Sometimes there is nobody I can discuss them with. Certainly, we still have forums as an alternative way. Yes, I have already tried chats, forums and other services of this kind. But they weren’t what I wanted. In my opinion, a chat is just a waste of time and traffic; a forum is boredom medicine, but still ineffective and short-term. And, actually, there is nobody who takes you serious there. One day I came across the Live-Journal website and without thinking twice started my page there. One more reason for that was one rather clever person’s words, who said that keeping a personal diary is a thing which contributes to the development of professional success, so to speak. "
People who use blogs are showing non-conventional use of the latest Internet opportunities, overcoming borders between public and personality. They also propose a new definitions of our concept of "private life".

The number of those who publish daily records on special Internet pages is growing. I’m not talking about journalists, writers and feuilletonists only, I’m also meaning ordinary mortals not deprived of literary gift.

Blogs allow famous photographers and artists to publish their photos or collages, alongside with actors and writers who blog their bright texts. Blogs are actively used for political work. Their widespread use by political parties is a tool of organising meetings, processions, pickets and other actions of the public protest.

Public resonance of Internet diaries is undoubtedly prominent: news spread promptly, scandals flash instantly.

According to recent research, Americans have ceased to read newspapers and magazines. Citizens of the USA have preferred blogs to printed press. It is interesting that such largest Internet servers as Google and Yahoo are not popular in America. It is connected with some restrictions - news agencies deliver far not all the news and with certain delays, which make people lose interest in reading them.

Bloggers wine efficiently: to reach the Internet, write some lines, probably, supply a photo - it only takes minutes! Considering that almost everyone has a mobile phone connected to the Internet, the news appear in the network just a few minutes after an incident happened.

The average blog users are people aged 14-25, as well as people who were using paper diaries in the past. And, in their case, the desire to have their diaries read by someone is abundantly clear: for this reason their records are not locked, but published on the Internet and opened for everyone who wish to pay their respects and leave comments.

Day after day, certain number of Internet pages is being filled by girls who do not really care about beauty of style and even misspellings. They come to the Internet, communicate with each other, look for new friends. In most cases, unlike their male contemporaries, they speak about music and such teenage classical issues like school, friends, personality. Special attention is given to beauty of a body: the most visited pages are devoted to diets and fashion.

Psychologists suggest that it might be a strange phenomenon, and quite an American one at that; the English never used to "wash their dirty linen in public". However, this is apparently not the case, with people writing books about their dreadful childhoods and abuse at various stages of their lives, thought it might seem that these blogs are similar to that. It is hard to get a book published, and even harder to write one! It is difficult to get on a TV programme and share your problems with the world, but easy to write your own blog and tell everyone about your problems. Suzanne Lively, psychology teacher in Bellerbys College says:" Perhaps, in some way, it is attention seeking behaviour - people these days are all so busy, often our families and friends don't have time for us when we really need them and, perhaps, this is why people turn to the Internet. "

In the USA people see blogs not just like everyday activity. For the last few years some books, such as Marketing of Blogs by Jeremiah Right, have been published, which contains analysis of business using blogs issue. Popularisation of brands, maintenance of consumers’ feedback or development of marketing strategy have become widespread phenomenon with the help of blogs. General Motors uses them to discover strong and weak points of its new car models. Boeing analyses pages from experts in tourism and aircraft for developing new plain models. The Microsoft employees analyse responses of bloggers in order to make changes to software products.

But one of the most famous types of blogs nowadays is sex-blogs. Frank diaries are hardly new, but Internet technology allows revealing confessions about sexual communications with strangers, colleagues, other lovers to be shared with the world. Sex-blogs can bring to its author both problems and glory. An American woman, Jessica Cutler, was prosecuted after it had been discovered that it was she who was writing a blog (in which she signed as Washingtonienne) about the senator assistant’s sexual relations with six men. One of the characters of her blog records brought an action before court, after which she became well-known, and subsequently wrote a book about her sexual adventures and then had her photographs taken for Playboy. Therefore, keeping such Internet diary can be not so simple. The author should balance between necessity to keep anonymity of the characters and reality of described events.