Jason Murphy

Website Producer

Remember back in the early days of blogging when people used blogs to write down their feelings, their successes, their deepest secrets, and their plain ol’ thoughts? Somehow, and I wish I knew how, a recent free blogging service has gotten their users to bring back the dirty ol’ web.

Thoughts.com doesn’t pretend to be the latest tumblr or pownce flavor. It doesn’t give users pretty templates to choose from. It doesn’t even provide users with their own subdomain to build a brand around.

What it does do is give users a voice, anonymous or not, to share their thoughts. Plain and simple. This is the closest thing we’ve had to true online diaries since LiveJournal.

I stumbled upon Thoughts.com in an advertiser directory. They were declaring their service as a new free blogging service. Of course, as an SEO I had to check out what they had to offer. I went for the software. But it was the content that brought me back.

From what I’ve seen, the users of Thoughts aren’t there to blog about the latest celebrity gossip or what new iphone app they just installed. They are there to talk about their relationships, daily strifes, sex, depression, religion, etc. They actually share true feelings. Imagine that.

Who are these people? And how long until they realize that they can sell out and offer their “feelings” to the highest ad-spot bidder?

I’m a people watcher by nature. I love characters. I love uniqueness. I love “we are all so different we are the same” theories. Reading through posts made by Thoughts users has given me enough inspiration to supply character descriptions to several novels.

There’s the Latin-American in Virginia who just found out she is pregnant and the boyfriend who thinks she set him up; the mom in Pennsylvania who was told she was beautiful for the first time in her life, ever, and it wasn’t from her husband; the New England teenager who found her drunken mom sobbing with a .45 next to her; the east coast freshman who’s biggest worry is if he’ll get in a frat; a recently divorced man in San Diego who’s struggling with getting back in the game; a lonely teenager who shares an insiders perspective to being bipolar.

These are all very real people sharing very intimate thoughts. At first I almost felt guilty reading some of the entries. But then I realized that this was a public site and these people are sharing their thoughts with the public. The emotions I felt while reading these confessions from strangers ranged from pity to empathy, from apathy to joy. It is very odd feeling a sense of joy for a total stranger.

Now what amazes me is how Thoughts.com could have been just another MySpace, Facebook, or Tumblr. They could have said “here, sign up to our service and make friends” like everyone else does. But instead, they offer one catchphrase “Share your thoughts.” and it works! People come to the site, sign-up, and actually share their thoughts.

I’m thinking about starting an account to vent off some of my daily drama’s there. So if you see a man from Nevada complaining about lack of motivation, well then you may have just found me.

P.S. - If I offered awards from my site, I’d give Thoughts.com the “Guilty Pleasure of the Year Award”

•  Today is Day 12 out of 30 for My Own Thirty Day Challenge.