AOL Journals, which here was first reviewed clear back in July 2003, and was previously only available to the AOL paid members is now being opened up to the web as long as folks sign up for an AIM account.

The move marks the latest effort by the company to expand beyond its base of paying Internet services customers. For years it has offered AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) service for free to anyone willing to sign up for an account and download AOL’s desktop software. The company estimates that there are more than 20 million active users of the IM service

How to create your own AOL Journals blog - step-by-step
STEP 1. I just went over to AOL Hometown and clicked on the link on the right column that says “Create a Journal.”

Note: If you do not have an AIM account, then you’ll need to create a new (free) AIM account.

STEP 2. Fill out the details about what your blog will be about (shown below):

STEP 3. Add your first blog entry through the web or through the AIM instant messaging client:

Note: if you are going to be prolific with your blog entry and/or include lots of HTML, the generous 25,000 character limit might be something to keep in mind.

STEP 4. Modify the layout to suit your needs including adding links to other blogs of interest.

STEP 5. Share your RSS and/or Atom feed with others. AOL creates either RSS or Atom (nice move there to satisfy both camps). The RSS feed will be in the following format:

http://journals.aol.com/AIM_NAME/BLOG_NAME/rss.xml < -- RSS
http://journals.aol.com/AIM_NAME/BLOG_NAME/atom.xml <-- Atom

There are specific links on your blog home page. You can see my AOL blog here

Happy AOL Journaling to you!

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