Vox: Bringing Blogs to The Masses
An attempt to bring blogging to the masses, Vox is a Web refuge for those intimidated by the prospect of jumping into the ring with MySpace's 127 million members. Created by Six Apart, a small blogging-tools outfit based in San Francisco, the Vox service allows users to create their own private blogs, complete with photo- and video-sharing features. Users can also choose which parts of the site they want their "friends" to see and which parts they want to make available to their "family." (Not every photo, after all, is fit for Mom's consumption.)
The inspiration for Vox came two years ago, when MySpace was beginning to draw huge numbers of visitors. Mena Trott and her husband, Ben, who cofounded Six Apart in 2002, felt the price of entry had gotten too high for would-be bloggers. "Trolls" left nasty comments on public sites; sharing photos with the world could be embarrassing. "Not everybody wants to be famous," says Mena. "We thought, 'People will not want to be as public as they are now.' "
Enter Vox, which creates a more private blogging space on the Web, one where you can share a picture of your last beach trip, say, where you don't look quite so great in your bathing suit–or more private moments with your family. "You don't want to put pictures of your kid on the Web, but they're part of your life," says Trott. In June, the site had 150 subscribers. Last month, that number had jumped to 85,000–with the vast majority of users between the ages of 25 and 45. Murdoch, are you listening?
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