But really, I think most LJ behavior isn't new at all. It's a substitute, unbound by space and time constraints, for getting together with friends and chatting, or for gossip, or for ranting in public. People chatting in cyberspace rather than around the village well. You and I conversing this way, rather than walking two blocks to visit or go for drinks. :) Of course, you also get to converse with friends in Ohio, and I get to trawl Wikipedia in the middle of a discussion. But the basic drive is yakking with people.

For wider distribution of information, there were scriptoria, pre-printing publishing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptorium

Now I should be off and meet with people to yak^Wrun Buffy board games.