Our Hidden Lives: Publishing Everyday Diaries

I attended Wednesday's event organised by the University of Sussex's Centre for Life History Research, Our Hidden Lives: Publishing Everyday Diaries.
Bob Malcolmson, Professor of History at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario spoke on his work on the diaries in the Mass Observation diaries, in particular that which led to the publication of his  book co-edited with Peter Searby, Wartime Norfolk: the diary of Rachel Dhonau 1941-42 Norfolk Record Society 2004 and his forthcoming Malcolmson, Robert W. (ed): Love and War in London: a Woman's Diary 1939-1942, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004. He was utterly fascinating, describing the motivation of the diarists whose work he had read. He had a lot to say about the nature of diary writing, its immediacy, its transience and the way it can capture moods, which struck a chord with my perceptions of blogging. He was also interesting on the way that  diarists sometimes capture things not noticed or recorded anywhere else. He also described some of the problems involved in editing diaries for publication, the issues of selection, confidentiality
Simon Garfield: hugely entertaining, began with reading from his work on British professional wrestling, once a staple of Saturday afternoon commercial television, but apparently killed off by one Greg Dyke when head of ITV sport, who felt that the audience it attracted were insufficiently tempting to the advertisers. His new work, Our Hidden Lives: The Everyday Diaries of a Forgotten Britain  covers the post-war period. Simon wrote a piece on blogging in the Observer, which I commented on, long before I knew I was to appear on the same platform as him. I hope I was not too rude; looking back I think I may have been.
Who do diarists write for? One diarist in the audience said that she would be describing today's meeting in her diary, which was for her eyes only until after her death; this account on he other hand is published to the world 
My presentation seemed well-received. L'esprit de l'escalier struck though. I thought afterwards of several things that I had meant to say but forgot. I think the most important was some discussion of the things that are perhaps slightly peripheral to blogging, the way that blogs expand to include other sorts of media, for example photographs, and things like FOAF and other social networking tools.
I said something about the need to preserve and archive blogs for historians in years ahead. Some questioned the amount of time it takes to blog; no longer than keeping a paper diary I thought, and yes it does take time. I wonder what the psychological profile of the typical blogger or diarist is? Are we more neurotic and self-obsessed than the general population?