LiveJournal? WTF?
OK, so I'm sure some of you are wondering if I've gone completely mad.
That remains to be seen.
But yea, after only a few months of trying out my "Blosxom weblog version 2," I am switching to LiveJournal.
Why? Here's five reasons:
1. First and foremost, I want to declare to the world exactly when my mood is "giggly."
Damn right I do. LiveJournal is undeniably the premiere web service for telling the world you are giggly. You cannot deny that.
2. I want to stop abusing Del.icio.us.
What I mean by that is that I want to stop just posting something simply cool/weird/interesting to what is supposed to be a bookmark/information storage service.
I'm not going to stop using del.icio.us by any means. If I find something that is of use, it will go there. But the things I am going to start posting to del.icio.us are going to be in the context of "will come back again." Meaning, I will only be posting bookmarks. Not announcements, not the meme of the day; a bookmark: a URL I want to save and maybe return to some day.
Therefore, everything else, aka those "WTF OMG check this out" links ,will be posted here instead, and furthermore be put into a little more context, which is something that del.icio.us cannot (understandably) provide (or isn't so great at providing). By context I mean things such as "via" links (yes, I am long overdue to give out some credit!), comments, and more descriptive text/commentary.
This way I will be able to more effectively use del.icio.us as the information source I believe it is supposed to be (I know some people would disagree), and my weblog will likewise be more fun and more interesting (hopefully).
I could do this with my Blosxom too, but LiveJournal has some good posting interfaces and such that will make posting said non-bookmark-like links just as easy as posting something to del.icio.us, and I like that.
3. I want to use weblogging software that is at least a little more robust than Blosxom, and I don't want to spend any time making it so.
Blosxom, despite its age, is capable of everything. Really, it is. But it takes plugins and hacking and unfortunately I just don't have time for that anymore. LiveJournal has, for the most part, the goods I need, and the LiveJournal team really does a good job keeping up with the latest and greatest. Things such as tagging, an API, and so forth. It's time to rock this shit.
4. I want to weblog in a social atmosphere.
This is probably the single reason that I chose LiveJournal over all that other great weblogging software that I could have just installed on my own server. It's one thing to run a weblog on your own server or hosted at a place like Blogger, and posting your life away for all to see, but its another thing to do all that plus have the added layering of true community features.
LiveJournal, for all the crap it gets for being your number-one source of emo whining, is really, really good at bringing-in that social context. This social context is kind of thing that makes my other favorite web services (Flickr, del.icio.us, and the like) so powerful and fun to use, and it seems silly to me these days not to bring weblogging into this realm.
5. I'm probably just a fickle geek that always wants to try something different and new.
Yep, probably.
So, here we go, on to a new experiment. Thanks for bearing with me. :)
That remains to be seen.
But yea, after only a few months of trying out my "Blosxom weblog version 2," I am switching to LiveJournal.
Why? Here's five reasons:
1. First and foremost, I want to declare to the world exactly when my mood is "giggly."
Damn right I do. LiveJournal is undeniably the premiere web service for telling the world you are giggly. You cannot deny that.
2. I want to stop abusing Del.icio.us.
What I mean by that is that I want to stop just posting something simply cool/weird/interesting to what is supposed to be a bookmark/information storage service.
I'm not going to stop using del.icio.us by any means. If I find something that is of use, it will go there. But the things I am going to start posting to del.icio.us are going to be in the context of "will come back again." Meaning, I will only be posting bookmarks. Not announcements, not the meme of the day; a bookmark: a URL I want to save and maybe return to some day.
Therefore, everything else, aka those "WTF OMG check this out" links ,will be posted here instead, and furthermore be put into a little more context, which is something that del.icio.us cannot (understandably) provide (or isn't so great at providing). By context I mean things such as "via" links (yes, I am long overdue to give out some credit!), comments, and more descriptive text/commentary.
This way I will be able to more effectively use del.icio.us as the information source I believe it is supposed to be (I know some people would disagree), and my weblog will likewise be more fun and more interesting (hopefully).
I could do this with my Blosxom too, but LiveJournal has some good posting interfaces and such that will make posting said non-bookmark-like links just as easy as posting something to del.icio.us, and I like that.
3. I want to use weblogging software that is at least a little more robust than Blosxom, and I don't want to spend any time making it so.
Blosxom, despite its age, is capable of everything. Really, it is. But it takes plugins and hacking and unfortunately I just don't have time for that anymore. LiveJournal has, for the most part, the goods I need, and the LiveJournal team really does a good job keeping up with the latest and greatest. Things such as tagging, an API, and so forth. It's time to rock this shit.
4. I want to weblog in a social atmosphere.
This is probably the single reason that I chose LiveJournal over all that other great weblogging software that I could have just installed on my own server. It's one thing to run a weblog on your own server or hosted at a place like Blogger, and posting your life away for all to see, but its another thing to do all that plus have the added layering of true community features.
LiveJournal, for all the crap it gets for being your number-one source of emo whining, is really, really good at bringing-in that social context. This social context is kind of thing that makes my other favorite web services (Flickr, del.icio.us, and the like) so powerful and fun to use, and it seems silly to me these days not to bring weblogging into this realm.
5. I'm probably just a fickle geek that always wants to try something different and new.
Yep, probably.
So, here we go, on to a new experiment. Thanks for bearing with me. :)