LiveJournal's redemption, and my conversion

[vovat]

I first got a blog back in September 2000, shortly before starting graduate school. I'm not sure if LiveJournal even existed at that point. I know I chose Blogger over Diaryland (Anyone else remember Diaryland? {g}) because I preferred seeing multiple entries on one page. When LiveJournal came around, they struck me as awfully elitist. You either had to pay for an account, or know someone who was. The whole "you have to have money or know somebody" thing comes up so often in life, and I was not at all pleased to see it spread to the Internet. There was something on their main page about how anybody who wanted an account had to contribute something, which I guess kind of makes sense, but it still struck me as kind of a ridiculous attitude to take when there were other online journal services that you could use without contributing anything. The livejournal "community" was fairly insular at that point. An outsider couldn't comment on another person's journal unless they did it anonymously, and some users didn't even allow that. So I was pretty down on LJ at that point. Since they decided to allow people to get free accounts without knowing anybody, though, I guess I've become a convert. The comment system is a lot more convenient than any of the comment services you can use with Blogger. I like the fact that you can receive e-mails to alert you when you've received a comment. Honestly, I think the system should go farther. If you leave a comment on someone else's journal, it will tell you if someone replies to that comment, but not if someone replies to that reply. I think it should notify you of any comments in the same thread. But I digress. The "non-LJ-users have to comment anonymously" thing still exists, but, since it's free to get a journal, there's no reason why you should have to be anonymous. A good commenting system is important to me, since I love getting attention. I have a fear of being ignored or seen as boring, and, if people are commenting, I know that they're at least somewhat interested in what I have to say. Besides, I like a good dialogue, which is difficult to do with Blogger. I'm not really as interested in keeping a journal per se as I am with sharing my thoughts with the world, and LJ strikes me as more of an open forum. Along those lines, I also like the friends page, communities, and the fact that it's easier to stumble across other people's journals. It seems to be more open than Blogger. I know some people prefer Blogger because you can do more template customization and graphic design stuff, but I know nothing about design, and I find changing templates to be rather frustrating. Therefore, that's not a factor for me.

Of course, the main reason I'm considering switching over is because I actually get comments on LJ. If I constantly got comments on my blog and none of my LJ, then I'd probably make my blog my main posting place. The other factors are secondary, but I thought they were worth mentioning anyway.

In non-journal-related news, bethje and I went out to eat at Denny's last night, and found that her cousins Dorothea and Alyssa were already there. That was pretty cool. Less cool was that they had discontinued the Breakfast Dagwood, which is what I usually get there. I guess I'll just stick with the Moons Over My Hammy from now on, even though that's not as filling.

I believe today will mark the fortieth anniversary broadcast of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I'll be at work when they're actually showing it, but Beth does have Rudolph on tape, so I suppose I can watch it later.

Comments

[aliste.livejournal.com]

Livejournal was never strictly pay only, it was just much more difficult to get one unless you paid. But there were always people and communities that gave away free codes, and once you had a code the LJ was free and permanent. I originally got my free account through an anonymous code donation in alt.music.tmbg, actually.

Anyway I totally agree with you about the comments and communities—the best thing about LJ for me is meeting (well, "meeting") people.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know people who got their journals through codes, but I never got one. If someone had given me a code, I probably would have gone ahead and set up a journal. The whole "you have to know someone" kind of bugged me, though, because it just seemed so close to the the idea of people getting things through connections. As someone without connections, I'm not too fond of the concept.

[twobitme.livejournal.com]

You actually describe the same reasons I stayed away from LJ for so long. When I first looked here they were doing that "you must contribute to the community" thing, and I had absolutely no coding skills or any urge to help out a web community. So I passed.

But, I ultimately came back once I realized that they had a better setup for communities and commenting. No one would say a damn thing on my blogger journal. I may only have 40 people who read my journal now, but that's still a better sense of community than I ever got on Blogger.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

There's really more of a captive audience on LJ. I mean, you don't HAVE to read all of the entries on your friends page (and I suspect that some of the people who list me as a friend don't always read my entries), but you don't have to remember to check someone's blog, and then try to figure out where you left off last time you read it. It's all right there for you.

[optissima.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who refuses to order Moons Over My Hammy (or other similar stupidly named things) because of how dumb its name is?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

So I take it you've never ordered the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity Breakfast at IHOP, either? {g} (Neither have I, actually, although I'd probably like it.)

For what it's worth, I don't mind ordering food items with silly names.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I've got a friend with a really great Radio-Announcer type voice (oddly enough, not one of the actual Radio Announcers I know, though he was the Voice of our college radio station), and it would amuse me when we'd go to Denny's, because he dug the Moons Over My Hammy. So it was kind of funny to hear him all serious-like say "Ah, yes, I'll have the Moons Over My Hammy."

IIRC, sometimes he would sigh before saying it.