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

[sabotabby]

*fist in air*

[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.

[sabotabby]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

One of the several things I like about DW is the way it can be a hot backup for your LJ presence: with the DW crossposter, you just post there and tell it to crosspost here, and all your future entries are already backed up as you post them, in case anything ever happens to LJ. Or if you wait until the last minute, the DW importer will grab LJ entries and any comments posted to them as of the time DW imports your LJ journal (assuming you're doing that in case LJ dies, not after it already has, of course).

I'm not using the crossposter myself, because I stopped posting full entries to LJ in protest over some of their stupidity, but I did use the importer when I created my DW account, and a fair percentage of the folks I know on DW are using the crossposter to be simultaneously present on LJ and DW. (And through a different mechanism, I crosspost to other sites in case DW ever dies.)

[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.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

Yes - that's one of the things I find annoying about it. It's fine for posting little short snippets or observations, and for brief exchanges with others, but it really sucks for in-depth discussion. I've seen a few people try and use it for that anyway, but I find it so difficult to follow due to the flat comment structure and lack of notification.

I have one old friend on there who occasionally posts big, long notes about contentious topics in an attempt to stir up discussion (with a fair bit of success - a lot of people do seem to comment, though I have no idea how they keep track of the discussion - I certainly couldn't!). The first time or two I saw one of those I did comment, but it was frustrating not knowing if anyone had replied unless I remembered to go back to it and sift through a ton of comments to see if any of them referenced what I'd written. And then at one point he got mad at me because I mentioned that I had not read every single comment on one of his posts before writing mine. But there were 150 comments, and I have a life...

LJ's threaded discussions, with replies e-mailed to you, are about 1000% easier to follow, at least for me.

[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]

YES. This. Exactly this.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[lienne.livejournal.com]

how do you get on Diaspora?

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

It has a more Google+-like interaction model, but without all the "real name" crap. It allows one to crosspost to other platforms (if you want to), and it has this idea that there's no "one" Diaspora -- it's a collection of Pods that might be hosted by different orgs/groups.

It's still beta-ish.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

You can get an invite from someone who's already on it. LJ-mail me your email address, and I'll send an invite.

Uh... if you promise that you're not a troll or an axe-murderer or something like that.

[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?

[lienne.livejournal.com]

I am not a troll or an axe-murderer! Sabs can verify this; I have made pie with her many a time and it has never contained any axes. peahenironybath/gmail, thank you. :D

[sabotabby]

I can attest that lienne is an IRL person who has not yet axe-murdered me.

[lienne.livejournal.com]

yesssssssssssss.

PS: I love your sci-fi dick pictures



...

that could perhaps have been phrased better.

[lienne.livejournal.com]

♥

[sabotabby]

No, not really.