Arisia: Why LiveJournal?
One of the panel members has just complained that people on his friendslist are constantly subjecting him to photos of their cats, and they don't have dedicated icons to give some warning that these are posts over which he should skip.
As you can see, thanks to foomanchoo, this is not a problem for people with ME on their friendslists.
I would also note that on the drive to Boston, aardvark_gumbo was remarking to me that a person on his friendslist posts photos fairly regularly, but that these photos are always of a bag or container of some kind, with its contents arrayed neatly at its side. He was very perplexed by this, but this was nothing compared to his total bewilderment when I informed him that there are special communities for photos like this. "whatsinmybag" or whatever. As another panel member remarks in her closing comments, you can post pictures of pretty much anything and find people who will be interested.
Someone else is wondering why NOT LiveJournal. I would say: because they think that LJ is for 15-year-old goth girls who can't spell but write poetry anyway. LJ is, to a large degree, a young female ghetto in virtual space. Sites like, say, blogger.com, are much more male-dominated, and there are plenty of people who think that masculine spaces are better, more serious, more important spaces. Of course, three members of this five-person panel are men, so they're not exactly representative--I think the last numbers I saw had LJ about 2/3 female.
ETA: A panel member suggests that MySpace has made LJ okay again. Haha. This might be a legitimate point. The person sitting next to me and I commiserate about how horrible the MySpace interface is. Another panel member says in his closing that LJ does something with social networks and MySpace does nothing except keep the teenyboppers off LJ, which I think is not true--at the very least, MySpace does a lot for musicians and artists, and user bulletins can spread like wildfire. However, it is the social networking component of LJ that appeals to me over pretty much every other blogging site.
...Audience member: apparently Massachusetts has the highest number of LJs per capita of any state in the country, with about 4.8% of the state population, roughly double of the #2 state, California. (Yes, he figured this out himself.) Someone else estimates that at a con like this one, 2/3 of the people would have them. This seems a little high to me, but who knows. Clearly a panel about LJ is not the place to take a representative sample.
However, at least 2/3 of THIS room has more than one blog per person. It's not just me, foomanchoo!
As you can see, thanks to foomanchoo, this is not a problem for people with ME on their friendslists.
I would also note that on the drive to Boston, aardvark_gumbo was remarking to me that a person on his friendslist posts photos fairly regularly, but that these photos are always of a bag or container of some kind, with its contents arrayed neatly at its side. He was very perplexed by this, but this was nothing compared to his total bewilderment when I informed him that there are special communities for photos like this. "whatsinmybag" or whatever. As another panel member remarks in her closing comments, you can post pictures of pretty much anything and find people who will be interested.
Someone else is wondering why NOT LiveJournal. I would say: because they think that LJ is for 15-year-old goth girls who can't spell but write poetry anyway. LJ is, to a large degree, a young female ghetto in virtual space. Sites like, say, blogger.com, are much more male-dominated, and there are plenty of people who think that masculine spaces are better, more serious, more important spaces. Of course, three members of this five-person panel are men, so they're not exactly representative--I think the last numbers I saw had LJ about 2/3 female.
ETA: A panel member suggests that MySpace has made LJ okay again. Haha. This might be a legitimate point. The person sitting next to me and I commiserate about how horrible the MySpace interface is. Another panel member says in his closing that LJ does something with social networks and MySpace does nothing except keep the teenyboppers off LJ, which I think is not true--at the very least, MySpace does a lot for musicians and artists, and user bulletins can spread like wildfire. However, it is the social networking component of LJ that appeals to me over pretty much every other blogging site.
...Audience member: apparently Massachusetts has the highest number of LJs per capita of any state in the country, with about 4.8% of the state population, roughly double of the #2 state, California. (Yes, he figured this out himself.) Someone else estimates that at a con like this one, 2/3 of the people would have them. This seems a little high to me, but who knows. Clearly a panel about LJ is not the place to take a representative sample.
However, at least 2/3 of THIS room has more than one blog per person. It's not just me, foomanchoo!