Comments | fub: Wanna escape?

fub

Wanna escape?

Jan 14, 2009 19:24

When LiveJournal Inc. laid off ten people recently, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth -- once again, the End of LJ was imminent! (Just like it was when it was bought by 6A and SUP and when 'Strikethrough' happened ( Read more... )

google, lj

Comments 10

merle_ January 14 2009, 19:02:52 UTC

The obvious extension of this is that by altering the code to do incremental extracts and uploads, you could mirror your blog to several different places in close-enough-to-realtime: post once and it appears on all your blogs.

I don't know that I would want to try to handle that (comment threads would be bizarre), but it would be an interesting experiment.

breyten January 14 2009, 21:26:48 UTC

Interesting indeed, although I think things like MetaWeblog api and AtomPub are better examples for that :)

But incremental backups would be neato.

merle_ January 14 2009, 21:36:35 UTC

An actual universal API that all the blogging sites allowed access to would definitely be better. I'm not sure what incentive they have to support things like that, though. It's like the cable companies allowing other companies to use their wiring. Why make it easy for your customer base to desert you?

It'll probably happen one of these days.

breyten January 14 2009, 21:42:30 UTC

Because the cost of switching blogging software is very high -- People grow attached to their blog software (that's why we like LJ so much!), and are therefore reluctant to try other software. So, you can also *get* new customers by opening up your "walled garden". Now the trick is of course to get more than you lose :)

Thread 8

nathreee January 14 2009, 19:38:51 UTC

Well of course the end is not imminent. People always get worked up over nothing.

I'm sure it's not nothing for the people who got laid off, but I don't think the average blogger is going to notice.

damanique January 14 2009, 23:12:31 UTC

I kind of feel there's a difference between the 'Strikethrough' thing and the recent layoffs. (I haven't made up my mind about the 6A or SUP things.) Strikethrough was something that directly affected the journals of many users without warning and without communication. Typically when your journal contains content that is illegal per the TOS, you get a warning. These users didn't get warned, they just got suspended right off the bat because LJ got their panties in a bunch, scared because of threats from an angry-mom-anti-pedophile website. LJ overreacted, users overreacted right back, it was all a lot of drama. I still believe LJ didn't take the right course of action and then used flimsy excuses to cover their asses. The 'Strikethrough' - quick mass deletion of journals - was not a business decision from LJ. It was something they did when they panicked, afraid of being called a pedophile site. If you're paying for a service and are treated that way as a customer, I believe you have a right to complain ( ... )