Correction and some Wired articles of interest

[foxfirefey]

anildash kindly corrects me on Vox having/not having communities in the future: "That being said, I'm not saying whether Vox will or won't have communities -- as far as I know, we haven't announced either way yet. My guess is we're going to just listen to the feedback people submit and judge by that, same as with everything else

Comments

[matgb]

Similar, but not the same. Can you imagine the havoc that would've been created if they'd introduced the Vox theming UI as an option on LJ?

It's far too quick, simple and easy to use, the LJ userbase would've hated it, compared it to MySpace (because they always do, even when it's so totally not similar) and set up another bloody petition.

The integration with Amazon et al? That's sponsorship, that's evil corporate interference, LJ has sold out and is the devil, etc. The small point that some of us want to integrate books we recommend onto our layout at times would be because we're corporate whores, etc. Because, y'know, plugging a book documenting govt hypocrisy and support for torture is really helping out The Man...

I think Vox is actually, for the target audience, pretty good. I just think it would have been better as LJ-lite, with a different UI and options, but allowing people to switch to a more complex styling/posting interface if they wanted to. But, well, what do I know.

I'm wanting to get my family onto LJ. I'm not, currently, because the UI, despite Horizon, is still awful, and the usability stinks. But if I wanted to, I could get them started on Vox right now. I just don't want to, that would mean wanting to use Vox myself. And quite simply, even posting an update pisses me off, why won't they let me hand code my html? I understand most users don't want it, but some of us do. Please?

But yeah, Vox for dummies, LJ for tech-literate and those that want to learn (as in, I learnt a lot from here). That's work. It's not what they're doing, but it'd work.

[foxfirefey]

The integration with Amazon et al? That's sponsorship, that's evil corporate interference, LJ has sold out and is the devil, etc. The small point that some of us want to integrate books we recommend onto our layout at times would be because we're corporate whores, etc.

I think people would be edgy and sensitive about that stuff because of the other commercialization stuff, assuming they would be--ie, their sensitivity levels have raised. (Mine probably have.) The complaints I heard about the YouTube integration were rarely ever about sponsorship.

[matgb]

I was basically rambling on the 'if they'd done this instead' thing, what the reactions would have been.

I don't recall many complaints about youtube integration, apart from lack of placeholders (which, y'know bother flashblocked me not at all, but there are people out there who don't use this extension. This bothers me, but...).

Also, YouTube isn't selling something directly, but any Amazon integration is by default trying to sell books, it's an advert, even if it is the good viral stuff that people actually like (because great books are great books, you gotta buy them from someone).

What was the gripe over YouTube I missed?

[foxfirefey]

I was basically rambling on the 'if they'd done this instead' thing, what the reactions would have been.

I think much of the discussion would have centered around the affiliate link stuff. Whether or not paid users would get to put their own affiliate links in as opposed to Six Apart's (like they do on Vox), etc. It's possible that at some point, we'll be able to test out these theories--if Amazon affiliate links prove a decent enough revenue stream on Vox, moving the ability over to LJ would become more attractive. I guess there might also be people who, being paid users, would consider the Amazon placements an advertisement and want to be exempt. And sure, you could say that the putting up of the Amazon book stuff was the user's choice and that their beef should really be with the user. But then again, that was always the argument about Basic users being exposed to ads on Plus users' journals, soooo.

As for YouTube, yeah, mostly about the lack of placeholders upon release; it was kind of short sighted to release the videos without them.

And when the placeholders came, they took up the same amount of space as the videos, which took away one of the advantages of image placeholders. There's reasons for that, yeah.

Some people didn't want YouTube embedded at all; they didn't see why people couldn't just link to the video on YouTube and didn't want people cluttering up their friends list with the embedded ones.

[ex_shattered767]

"Some people didn't want YouTube embedded at all; they didn't see why people couldn't just link to the video on YouTube and didn't want people cluttering up their friends list with the embedded ones."

YouTube imbedding is what caused me to install Flashblock. And I can't be the only person who did.

[ex_uniquewo]

"Similar, but not the same. Can you imagine the havoc that would've been created if they'd introduced the Vox theming UI as an option on LJ?

It's far too quick, simple and easy to use, the LJ userbase would've hated it, compared it to MySpace (because they always do, even when it's so totally not similar) and set up another bloody petition.

You're exaggerating and you know it. LJ theming UI when it comes to Expressive is not that hard to figure out. Harder than in Vox, yes but, to make that easy, you need to have fewer options, and that's what happens in Vox. Some people won't care, especially with a brand new blog but some people will start wanting something a little more... them instead of a duplicate of everybody else's blog. Vox can't give you that.

[matgb]

Oh, I agree completely, and yes, hyperbole on the user reaction, but at times the drama does get to me. The sky hasn't fallen.

It's just slowly collapsing.

[anildash]

I don't want to make a bigger promise than I should, but I think you've captured the vision of this whole thing pretty well. Now I just gotta figure out how we tell this whole story in a coherent way to people who don't know all our tools inside-and-out.

[matgb]

I think you've captured the vision of this whole thing pretty well

I am teh winnar?

I just gotta figure out how we tell this whole story in a coherent way to people

Um, shouldn't that have been figured out before the launch? Like I said above, complementary systems make sense, and if they were integrated properly in a way I could sign my family up to the easy to use Vox and they could read my LJ entries easily, I'd be happier.

As it is, LJs UI still sucks, it's not at all new person friendly and Vox annoys me completely as it's not for someone like me. Of course, I'd rather the UI for LJ were fixed and a decent 'getting started' section were there, for those that aren't introduced directly by friends, but there y'go...

[foxfirefey]

Oh oh oh oh, I think chasethestars might have shown me this WP plugin, but it doesn the Amazon integration, I think, and I figured I'd mention it just in case you haven't seen it! Which you probably have. But just in case.

Now Reading.

[matgb]

Now THAT, I like. I may have to do a test install on a spare subdomain just to see what I can do with it, been planning to for awhile anyway.

[foxfirefey]

Me, I need to work out a better solution for importing an LJ with comments that doesn't require shell access to hosting!

I've been adoring Gregarius for the past few days, though, especially since LJ's RSS can be so finicky.