Clay weights in as well.
The key question for AOL is "Is this a community tool, or a lightweight publishg platform?" Now one obvious answer is "Why pick?", but I think that answer is starting to wear a bit thin. The weblog world has, broadly speaking, three basic patterns -- tight conversation, loose conversation, and publication.
...
So AOL has a momentous choice before it, and it is a choice that will be played out in a thousand small ways, each choice magnified by millions of users. Does the product ship with comments enabled by default or disabled by default? Do users set comments on by blog or by post? Does Trackback get integrated? How do groups form blogs? Do groups of AOL journal users enjoy better clustering features than AOL+non-AOL groups? and so on.
Social Software - AOL, Weblogs, and Community
Jeff Jarvis also got to see the beta of AOL Journals.
: The most impressive feature: You'll be able to blog from IM (which includes AOL from your phone). That elicited many oohs from the room.: The smartest feature: They are starting right off publishing every weblog in RSS/XML.
: The real point: Ultimately, your content is more valuable than professional content.
BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis - AOL blogs!
