Various

[danceswithwords]

I made the most amazing salad in the world two Thursdays ago, and want to post the recipe here. I already posted it to Omnomnom, which has some fabulous recipes. *tips hat to cofax7 for the recommendation*

Comments

[rdphantom]

"I plan to maintain an active presence on both LJ and DW; DW makes it very easy to do so. I can also see that I'll be using the sites in somewhat different ways. It will be interesting to see how that works; I'm actually pretty excited about that prospect."
I'm curious to know what you might do differently in Dreamwidth. I've been thinking about trying to get an invite code since I've been seing them for offer here and there, but I wasn't really sure I wanted to mess around with it if it was going to be essentially the same as LJ. Does Dreamwidth allow your DW posts to be automatically posted to LJ also? That would be a really cool and easy way to keep both active without having to post everything twice.

RD

[danceswithwords]

DW does have a cross-posting feature that allows you to cross-post to LJ and other LJ-like sites from DW; you can also insert automated text to direct people to your DW entry if you want to direct comments there, or you can keep comments open on all of the posts. And it updates them all when you edit them, which is very handy.

I already have a somewhat different reading list on DW (one of the selling points is that it divides the friends category into people you read and people you grant access to your locked posts), and some of my flist is posting different content there. I'm also participating in a great food community there; I was long ago driven away from the food communities on LJ by what I consider to be the high volume of newbie question or junk posts. And if you follow things like RaceFail and its successor, MammothFail, the link roundup community is on DW, and a lot of the discussion is there too.

I still have a few invites, so I can give you one if you're interested.

[rdphantom]

The cross-posting feature looks really cool. The seperated reading list sounds interesting too. Is there any way to filter your reading list by tags for specific posts, or anything like that? I don't know what Race Fail or MammothFail are, but there are some Star Trek XI fic communities on DW that I'd like to keep up with.

I would love an invite code, thank you so much for offering.

[danceswithwords]

I think they're still working on reading list filters, though they have posting filters in place so that if you import your LJ to DW, all of the filters will be intact. I also think they have filtering by tag on the roadmap; in general, they seem to have a much better sense of what features LJ users like us want than SUP, which is trying to make LJ more like Facebook.

Let me know what email address to send the invitation to. If you don't want to post it publicly, you can send it to [myusername] [at] [livejournal.com].

[rdphantom]

Make LJ like Facebook? I like Facebook for what it is, but I already have a Facebook. I don't want another one. That would really take away from the in-depth nature of fannish posts. Do you think it helps that Synecdochic is in fandom, so that she can direct it towards features we want? Like Dreamwidth is the fannish blog version of OTW.

Do you think fandom in general will move to DW? I've been contemplating whether or not it will, and as a result whether or not I would get a DW account. I think DW will be a more stable environment for fandom because there won't be advertising dollars to appease, and because they have said they will be fan-friendly. Even if all of fandom doesn't migrate I still think it's worth jumping in.

I've emailed you; let me know if you don't get it.

[danceswithwords]

I think that more than anything, synechdochic's experience at LJ gives her a pretty good handle on what people want and don't want from a journaling service. I don't have the link, but she did a very good post on the difference between LJ-type sites and social networking sites like FB, so I think she gets it. I'm pretty sure SUP doesn't; for example, they recently introduced a "find your friends via email" feature that most fandom users either don't want or are actively alarmed about, since most fandom users are pseudonymous for a reason, and either already have separate fannish emails or don't want their real email addresses connected with their fannish LJs

[rdphantom]

I totally understand about the email thing. Anonymity is very important to fandom as a whole, and I can see some problems arising from that for individuals. Hopefully there is a way to opt out of being found...

What you said about FB selling their information is really not cool... I should have the right to expect some privacy. Do ads really not make them money? I think it's interesting to hear about this stuff from someone who has a clue about it. I'll have to friend Synechdochic to find her posts.

I think you are right that LJ doing another Strikethrough will tip the balance. But who knows if they will, maybe they've learned. I guess we'll see, right?

I've just set up my DW account and friended you! Now to see about moving all my posts over...

[danceswithwords]

Hopefully there is a way to opt out of being found...They originally made it opt-in by default, but made opt-out the default after a huge outcry, like so many of their other new features, which to me shows they have a poor grip on who their users are. I also have a friend who interviewed for a marketing analytics position at 6Apart before it sold LJ to SUP, and he told me about the interview; they had a wildly erroneous idea of their userbase and not a lot of good ways to measure it objectively, and I suspect the SUP sale was based on some really bad information

[rdphantom]

"they had a wildly erroneous idea of their userbase and not a lot of good ways to measure it objectively" That doesn't sound good. How could they be so off base? LJ seems to have prospered just the way it is, why would they want to go and change the basic way it functions? I read one of synechdochic's posts about the various levels of server space a site like Dreamwidth uses and it was extremely in-depth and competently written. Of course I don't know very much about it, but she seemed very knowledgeable and presented it in a way I sort of understood. That, along with DW's FAQ and mission statement, gives me confidence in Dreamwidth

[danceswithwords]

LJ seems to have prospered just the way it is, why would they want to go and change the basic way it functions?

It depends on how you define "prospered." If you mean an increase in user base, then yes, but that has plateaued recently. And LJ has not actually made any money. The original developer, and the company that bought it (6Apart), have been able to make money off those sales. The last purchaser (SUP), though, is depending on current revenue.

Any site that hosts photos, that allows real-time commenting, etc., is spending a lot of money on backend databases and bandwidth. And ad revenues are usually really, really small. (Again, synecdochic has a series of very good posts--which match my observations--about revenue and the actual cost of a LJ-type site. I wish I had links, but I didn't save them, but they should be easy to find on her LJ.) So to me, the success of a site is measured by its revenue, not by its number of users, which could actually be a black hole of monetary suck if they're not somehow paying for the resources they

[rdphantom]

Yes, I did mean 'prospered' as an increase in user base; bad word choice there, but at least it means people are using the site. I didn't know that it had plateaued recently. And it's funny to me to think that such a popular site wouldn't be making money. I've just read through synecdochic's posts about advertising making money for social network sites (under her web 2.0 tag http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/tag/web+2.0). What a lot of info! It's changed the way I look at sites like LiveJournal, and made me (yet again) extremely grateful to the OTW for being a non-profit. Adding the pressure of dealing with advertising to the potential threat of legal action would be a big burden to the OTW, I think. Synecdochic must be in it for the long run, not to sell it for a quick buck, and of course I like that. I hope she figures out a way to sustain the site long term without compromising her values