LJ is still a little relevant

[sabotabby]

I'm consciously avoiding Facebook these days. I don't even want to look at it. I gather there are probably some features on it that I need to disable.

Facebook's effect on social networking reminds me of what happened with Chapters-Indigo in Canada. All of the small publishers and bookstores went out of business, and everyone had to go to Chindigo, and then Chindigo realized that it was much more profitable to sell a small number of popular books and lots of diaries and scented candles. So everyone ditched and started buying books on Amazon. I don't know what the SNS equivalent of Amazon is.

I'm avoiding G+ because nymwars have resulted in practically no one I know using it for anything other than posting about nymwars.

I'm trying to like Tumblr but there is not a convenient way to comment. It doesn't feel very social or interactive to just click a heart. And I'm not sure that there is a big audience for pictures of pulp sci-fi covers that look like they have dicks on them, which appears to be the theme I've fallen into.

So I'm glad LJ is still here.

And also because I love you guys.

Comments

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

Me too.

If i knock out a hooker, i cant really post about it on facebook.

Not with my mom and neice on there!

[sabotabby]

You friended your mom on FB?

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're still posting. I'm kind of trying to think of ways to get back in the habit, since I still read LJ every day. I would miss you quite a lot if either of us stopped using LJ.

[sabotabby]

Ah, just post well-written, in-depth political analysis about overlooked human rights issues.

Then every so often post about pink beer for women so that you get a lot of comments.

(I would miss you too! I mean, there are other ways to keep in touch, but like I said, most of them are lacking a certain something.)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

LJ is still my main place for a lot of interaction and content. I hate FB and am mostly on twitter for microblogging.

All the people I care about irl are either on email or phone. I find FB less and less relevant to my life.

Yay for old "obsolete" blogging platforms!

[sabotabby]

See, I have that phone handicap, so FB can be useful in that way. But basically I go on, and it's either people posting about how happy they are (which, when one is not in a happy space, is not wonderful), or people writing these long political diatribes that get excerpted to two sentences on my newsfeed. I feel guilty not reading them, so now I'm avoiding my news feed.

[twiin.livejournal.com]

FB isn't trying to eat Twitter's lunch at all with Timeline, they're trying to do the opposite: A comprehensive look at what you're doing, what you've done, and who you are.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

For me Facebook is basically a second email and repository for event invites.

Even before the update, the news feed being a single dynamic page of brief frequent updates means it wasn't scalable. When I had 10 or less connections, it felt useful, but now that I've got a big list, it's fragmented at best and I lost interest.

Plus it's harder to have a full on flamewar meltdown when no one post has any weight.

[sabotabby]

And you can't find posts again, unless FB wants you to find it. Ultimately, you can't post a permalink to an epic flamewar and know that everyone will see it and join in.

Also, one of my dear friends will seriously go on FB for hours and post weird stories from some Chinese news site, and hence my feed is 90% stories of two-headed goats in rural China.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

About 5ish years ago when LJ was having one of those sales, I bought a permanent account for myself. I'm so glad I did, because it really keeps me coming back here, permanently. I still love fb for sharing articles and links, and for checking in on the THOUSAND or so of my friends who aren't on LJ, but LJ will always be my long-form home.

[sabotabby]

FB is good for some things. Thoughtful discussion isn't one of them.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

LJ is, still, my favourite online social/blogging site. I tolerate FB. I've been uninspired by G+. I see Dreamwidth as a desperate retreat if LJ dies.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, I keep a DW for if LJ dies or if DW gets a critical mass of people over LJ. I had hopes for G+ but so far I'm disappointed.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Yeah I wanna delete my fb account with what I've heard with all the new changes, but now that that's the only place I have online that my sister has (and i refuse to remind her of my LJ and how to get here/read my shit) - I only check G+ once every few days, and that's about it.

Goddamnit, I <3 LJ. Tumblr, I always forget about. Seems to be not worth my time, either. Bah.

Yes, LJ is good. Very good.

And we all love you sabs! :)

[sabotabby]

<3 <3 <3

There are things I need FB for; without it, I'd never get invited to demos, shows, or parties. I find the event function really useful. But LJ is what I like using teh intertubes for.

[twiin.livejournal.com]

There is for sure a big audience for pictures of pulp sci-fi covers that look like they have dicks on them, but where's the narrative?

LJ is nice. I syndicate to it from my own website, and I syndicate to Facebook from that. My own website is where the content lives, though.

Wordpress is probably the new Livejournal. Or Posterous. Community content oriented.

[sabotabby]

I occasionally write a synopsis. :)

I'd syndicate but there's too much RL in my FB now. There's RL in my LJ too, but no work or family crossover.

The thing I don't like about Wordpress is the lack of threaded comments. If they fixed that, and there was more cross-linking and community stuff going on, I'd maybe start one.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I am the odd man out on this issue. I like fb, despite many things. I'm superficially in touch with some people I like but would never really email with. The small comment format is suited to my gnatlike attention span. Etc. I like it.

[sabotabby]

I have a gnatlike attention span as well lately, but that usually leads to me not doing much online at all, and instead watching the telly.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

Facebook has its uses, but overall LJ still feels like home. The main reason I'm on Facebook is, as you note, event invites. And also the fact that so many people I know are on there but not here.

I do find that the ease of posting short little tidbits on FB can be seductive. But when all online social interaction gets reduced to those, we lose a lot of real connection. You can't really express anything very complex or challenging in the textual equivalent of a TV sound-bite...

[sabotabby]

For awhile, I've had a rule of either saving up the links I want to share and then posting them all at once on LJ, or making sure I've attached commentary to the links I post. If I don't have much to add, I post it to FB.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to play with Diaspora, but it's still pretty quiet. And Dreamwidth is more my home than LJ.

[sabotabby]

What's the advantage of Diaspora?

[lienne.livejournal.com]

<333

I love you too!

Facebook is the ninth circle of hell and I am only on G+ in the hopes that if everyone gets on G+ it will start being relevant. And if they don't like my nym they can blow me. As for tumblr, no comments = no Pyth.

[sabotabby]

Though, I just figured out how to put comments on. I still don't care for it as a platform.

Do you want I should bring my harddrive today with a vast collection of torrented telly and movies?

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

I still like LJ! I pretty much only have 10 or so people reading and posting on my friends list, vs 100+ active people on facebook, which kind of bums me out. I'd ditch it right away if I didn't think it would make me lose touch with extended family and friends who don't live near me..

[sabotabby]

Yeah, my friends list is definitely smaller and less active than it was. But my lifestyle is also busier than it once was, so that's actually okay.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

I really like Tumlbr (mostly for the crack-tacular fan art), but I agree that its comment system is awkward. My other issue with it is that there's no filter system that I've figured out yet. As one person noted, "Tumblr can go from kittens to orgies in two posts". I think you can block certain tags, but that only works if the poster bothered to tag it in the first place.

It seems most of my fb time is spent gaming. Stupid games...

[sabotabby]

It's not like I check it at work, so kittens to orgies isn't a huge problem for anything other than my eyeballs.

I've managed to completely avoid FB games. It's not even a thing to me. After the official Scrabble game went down years ago, I had no interest in the stuff.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'm really confused at how many people on my flist talk about no longer being around as much because they've been sucked in by tumblr or twitter, and apparently a lot of fandom has moved there? I guess I just find it bizarre that they should even affect LJ as they're such different platforms and obv for quick comments and reblogging art. Doesn't anyone want long discussion any more :/

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

fuck a facebook.
i love me some tumblr, but it took me a while to find a sort of groove with it.
basically, my friends and i have mostly retreated back to emailing, chatting, and secret spaces behind closed doors.

[nichtsda.livejournal.com]

Tumblr was a big distraction for me, so for my own sake, I stopped using it. I have learned much about advances in creative manicures, but I can only devote so much time in a day to scrolling through photos of people's craftily painted fingernails. My posts were mostly pictures of shoes, anyhow, so it's not like I was using it to discuss things that matter to me.

Livejournal is a more controlled audience, the filters (so far) continue to work as they always have (unlike Facebook changing its default privacy levels and making you have to see what you have showing to whom), and I've had the same people on my list for a long enough time that I know who I can trust with what level of information. As long as I have personal concerns to write about, I'll have a need for Livejournal.

I limit most of my Facebook adds and activities because that account is largely for job-related posts and networking. Anyone I don't want to add on Facebook will get added on G+ for the rare times when I want to share something cool I saw on Youtube.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

The one thing I would like from G+ is the ability to +1 your Eldritch/Morrison icon! <3

[purveyorofchaos.livejournal.com]

I have a soft spot for LJ, to me it offers something that none of the other social networking sites offer, which is the opportunity to post things in long form, filter your content sharing, use pseudonyms as the internet gods intended, and have discussions. All of that in one place is lacking in FB, g+, twitter, etc.

[ironed_orchid]

Me too.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

My brother keeps getting in fights with our right-wing relatives. I can only smile offer sympathy.

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

The ironic thing about Facebook is that one major complaint about the site was the word limit on status updates. They recently increased it to blog-sized proportions. (True, people can use the note feature to write longer rants, but hardly anyone FBers ever do that!)

The recent FB changes have been making the news, and the complaints are getting even louder than the last time. I'm sure, given the way the FB bigwigs are and have been wrangling things over the years, that eventually they're going to do something that will alienate their vast number of users to the point where FB will become MySpace part II.

In my daydreams LJ experiences a resurgence. But evenif it doesn't, I think it'll hang around for a while.

[erikthedane.livejournal.com]

LJ has always been a sane place to retreat to for me. This was my first blogging platform, and I'll be here when the lights go out. FB I use for communication with the multiple circles I run in. And quite honestly...I get tired of politics. Even with those whose opinions I agree with. Here there is sanctuary. I work 6 days a week right now, and that cuts into time for...well...anything. I feel like me and LJ are kind of estranged since I haven't been posting here.

*EDIT* Just now, Willie Nelson's "You Were Always On My Mind" just came up on my Spotify shuffle.

Anyhow, I'm happy to get here when I can. Even happier to post.




Here's where people can find me:

Diaspora
Posterous
FB
Twitter
Tumblr
Dreamwidth

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

I'll just add my voice to the choir of "Glad you're posting here," and leave it at that.