[11] The article describes the demographics of the site as 75% female, with more than half of all diarists being 21 years old or younger.

The most popular circles include "Depression", "Relationships", "Poetry", "Love & Passion", and "Advice Wanted".

[13] Two diarists posted entries while on assignment at McMurdo Station, Antarctica[14] during 2001 – possibly making Open Diary the first online community to have people writing from all seven continents.

[21] A Lifetime Membership level of paid subscription was added in February, 2006, granting Open Diary Plus privileges for the life of the site for a price of $100 USD (raised to $150 in 2009).

[22] A need for additional revenues to cover server and security costs resulting from the 2004 hacking attack was cited as the reason for adding this option.

[23] Also in 2006, the OD Boards were added to the site, a set of community forums that were moderated by volunteer Open Diary members.

[24] In February 2008, new administrative volunteers were added to the staff to help with technical support, rules monitoring, and communications with the users.

[27] This version included a new interface, new navigation, picture storage for Plus users, entry tagging, and several more new features.

[28] As of spring 2012, the site's helpdesk software was taken down due to lack of funds, leaving the administrators fewer tools to communicate with users and provide service.

On October 19, 2017, the Open Diary Outage Board (ODOB)[29] posted that the site went into testing mode for a new service.

[24] Entries recommended by Open Diary users were listed on the Reader's Choice page.

Bruce Ableson offered a cash bounty for information leading to the arrest of the hacker, and the FBI was involved in the investigation.

[22] Lifetime members were told they would be given extra features, communication, and consideration beyond the OD Plus level.

Ableson took the site offline, with a message on the front page stating that there had been a security breach and the email addresses and passwords of some users had been compromised, but that no diary content had been lost.