Several mini blogging websites have appeared recently, and I decided to finally write something about them even though I'm weeks behind all the cool internet nerds. 

Twitter is the big one, and it's been getting a lot of press lately.  It asks one simple question:  "What are you doing?"  Users can either use the form on the website or send a text message with their phone.  Each entry has it's own permalink, but there's no commenting functionality.  A big focus of the site is building community.  I'm not much of a fan of that idea, and I'm not too fond of the fact that I always feel compelled to simply answer the question, which more often than not consists of something like "Writing this dumb entry."  I guess I'm missing the point. 
My rating:  1/5 stars

Tumblr is a pretty cool thing that goes for the idea of a Tumblelog, or a stripped-down stream-of-consciousness blog.  It has different methods for entering different types of posts (normal, link, quote, conversation, etc.), and each entry has its own permalink.  An added benefit is that Tumblr entries can be hosted on your own domain, and it's apparently a pretty easy thing to set up.  Like Twitter, there's no functionality for commenting, which in my opinion kind of takes away from the whole point.  I mean, I'm all about voicing my opinions to the world without any thought of ever listening to responses.  But comments are open on my website, so I at least have the appearance of an open mind. 
My rating:  4/5 stars

Jaiku is the least known of the three.  It has most of the same features, with the added benefit of being able to comment on entries.  The rest of the site seems more like Twitter, where entries are intended to be text message length and answer the question of where you are or what you're doing at the moment. 
My rating:  4/5 stars #technology