Dreamwidth
I just received a code for Dreamwidth's Open Beta and I've started an account, also named flit.
As I said before, I'm not planning on jumping ship from LiveJournal unless LiveJournal has some far more serious problems than it's had already. While I'm not sanguine with all of the choices LiveJournal has made, it's still a functional site and it's been my journal home since I started keeping an online journal. I have a lot of friends and a permanent account on LiveJournal (which has actually been worth every penny) and so I am in for the long haul.
That said, the crossposting feature on Dreamwidth rocks. In a scenario where I did switch to Dreamwidth while LiveJournal was actually still up and running (i.e. for policy reasons rather than functionality reasons), it would be quite transparent to LiveJournal users -- except for the bifurcation of comments. Comments are a major part of LiveJournal for me, though, so it's one of the major reasons not to switch.
If I *am* going to switch, though, Dreamwidth seems like an excellent safe harbor. I love their commitment to remaining ad-free. I love their commitment to diversity. I admit that I have no interest in a lot of those other communities, but I feel that they have a right to exist. LiveJournal got too cautious and monetized and these things fell by the wayside. Dreamwidth feels like LiveJournal before it got sold, really. Hence my motivation to kick the tires and build a little nest away from home here.
One of the things I've seen a lot of with LiveJournal, for good or bad, is a tendency to spawn off special-purpose, focused, blogs, and then crosspost those to LiveJournal. I actually like that a lot about LiveJournal; I like seeing people's "serious business" crossposts along with their less structured posts, including one-liners, memes, and yes, even twitter posts. It lets people give out their blog address to interested people without necessarily giving their LiveJournal account out, letting them keep the hair-down, casual feel of LiveJournal. LiveJournal is the t-shirts and sweat pants we laze around in on weekends and evenings, and those blogs are the button down shirts and suit jackets.
I've been thinking of at least tagging my longer and more meaty posts (there are a few!) so it's possible to read only "the good parts". So that might be one use for my Dreamwidth account, which would allow me to participate fully in the beta without actually moving. I could treat it as one of those special purpose blogs and write my longer posts here, then have them crossposted to LiveJournal. Let's see how that goes.
You special-purpose bloggers, any insights into this?
As I said before, I'm not planning on jumping ship from LiveJournal unless LiveJournal has some far more serious problems than it's had already. While I'm not sanguine with all of the choices LiveJournal has made, it's still a functional site and it's been my journal home since I started keeping an online journal. I have a lot of friends and a permanent account on LiveJournal (which has actually been worth every penny) and so I am in for the long haul.
That said, the crossposting feature on Dreamwidth rocks. In a scenario where I did switch to Dreamwidth while LiveJournal was actually still up and running (i.e. for policy reasons rather than functionality reasons), it would be quite transparent to LiveJournal users -- except for the bifurcation of comments. Comments are a major part of LiveJournal for me, though, so it's one of the major reasons not to switch.
If I *am* going to switch, though, Dreamwidth seems like an excellent safe harbor. I love their commitment to remaining ad-free. I love their commitment to diversity. I admit that I have no interest in a lot of those other communities, but I feel that they have a right to exist. LiveJournal got too cautious and monetized and these things fell by the wayside. Dreamwidth feels like LiveJournal before it got sold, really. Hence my motivation to kick the tires and build a little nest away from home here.
One of the things I've seen a lot of with LiveJournal, for good or bad, is a tendency to spawn off special-purpose, focused, blogs, and then crosspost those to LiveJournal. I actually like that a lot about LiveJournal; I like seeing people's "serious business" crossposts along with their less structured posts, including one-liners, memes, and yes, even twitter posts. It lets people give out their blog address to interested people without necessarily giving their LiveJournal account out, letting them keep the hair-down, casual feel of LiveJournal. LiveJournal is the t-shirts and sweat pants we laze around in on weekends and evenings, and those blogs are the button down shirts and suit jackets.
I've been thinking of at least tagging my longer and more meaty posts (there are a few!) so it's possible to read only "the good parts". So that might be one use for my Dreamwidth account, which would allow me to participate fully in the beta without actually moving. I could treat it as one of those special purpose blogs and write my longer posts here, then have them crossposted to LiveJournal. Let's see how that goes.
You special-purpose bloggers, any insights into this?