A Good, Old-Fashioned, LiveJournal Update

[kmo]

In this age of Facebook and Twitter (of course, I have accounts on each of those platforms), I've let my LiveJournal account go to seed. I maintain my paid status. Why? Do I anticipate or even hold out hope for a LiveJournal revival?

There are services that will turn your LJ into a printed book, or at least there used to be. Somewhere in the

Comments

[saint_monkey]

LJ still rocks, although the Russians shut it down from time to time.

I avoided facebook forever, and am giving it a trial run. It seems to have people to talk to, but little else.

My problem isn't that LJ is a graveyard. I am on communities that are very active, all I'd have to do to get readers is friend the people that are still here.

My problem is that I'm not doing much social blogging of any type, except twitter, because I don't have the time. I have an engaging an interesting job that eats up most of the actual day, and at home at night, I cook our dinner and talk to my wife. I don't have much time for art anymore either, and that's a shame, and something I should change.

Maybe that's what's going on... us gen X'ers who actually wrote out our english comp assignments on paper, we have an idea of a structured form of communication that is driven by one person, a blog initiating discussion. The model is Post> Comment > Counter Comment

[katuah]

*looks confused* Which is more like a conversation

Now, where's that "like" button.

[kmo]

I like what you wrote. What? I have to type that out in order to communicate my approval? That is SO 20th Century.

Re: Now, where's that "like" button.

[katuah]

I guess I will be a product of 20th century life forever.

That said, I'm sure you listened to Eben Moglen's talk over on the Psychedelic Salon. I'm pleased because I think Lorenzo does "get it" - closed source proprietary software, closed systems like FB, closed hardware like Apple products, all are ways to close out the individual from being able to manipulate whateveritis in their own way. Raising the barriers to entry: Pay us an exorbitant sum or you can't play.

FB is rather the new model of that: You aren't openly paying, but be sure you are "paying" in other ways: selling your data for marketing, luring you to targeted advertising, sucking in retailers by being the "only" way to reach full market potential, etc. What if FB decided to start charging a monthly fee next month? Bet you they'd make billions, because so many people can't imagine being without it now. It's like... digital gasoline.

yes!

[raccoonsounds]

So i am too fearful to post anything in facebook world for fear of my 80 year old grandmother (who has an iphone) will know for certain that i'm a freak. So I really only ever post to the C-realm group on facebook.

I am very guilty, I must say, of enjoying having my dopemine receptors lite up and be activated, when someone approves of my contribution to the "FOTCRGOFB and I see the little red notification light.

Didn't they put people in brain scan tubes too figure that out? Because my recovering alcoholic father can't turn away. Even as we joke that he needs to start working the 12 steps all over again on account of this new demonic presense in his life he is powerless over.

Yikes! I enjoy this medium over reddit. Thanks Ya'll

[lolotehe]

I was talking to a buddy about the flight from LJ to places like DreamWidth after the first round of mafia attacks. It felt like there was an entire summer where you couldn't get to the site. That's when I really noticed a drop-off in LJ posting.

Also, I think Twitter played a hand in moving people from long, thought-out posts to quick observations (although, I do know one guy who only tweets links to his blogger site). I'm also seeing people turn to tumblr for any thought requiring more than 140 characters to express.

I can't stand Facebook, how it's laid out, or how they operate in general. Once Goldman-Sachs got involved, I shut mine down.

[mat_defiler]

katuah sent me to this post as i have been recently re-blogging on lj as a response to some of the very same sentiments discussed in this post and on this thread. Good comments, i'm nodding my head quite a bit as i read almost everyone's contribution to this conversation. I'm definitely hoping that an increase in sentiments like this means there's potential for some sort of revival or new platform which can host more in depth and nuanced conversations. Because facebook ain't it.

I also sometimes worry that, as much as i complained about the social media revolution when it first hit, we were privy to a moment when all things were expansive and user driven and exciting. A generation down, will the internet be just on more impenetrable proprietary mess, a la Clear Channel Radio? I am too much of a post-luddite to understand or be able to pose any counter-action to that phenomenon, but it's something i wonder about.