Using LJ

[cos]

One day last year, a friend asked me if I were going to her party that weekend. What party, I asked? It seems she'd posted about it on her LJ, twice. I read her LJ regularly, but had missed both of those posts, and she hadn't sent out email invitations, but was surprised I didn't know about the party.

Another person on my friends list (several, actually) sometimes posts on LJ to call a Dim Sum outing. He just wants some people to come, not any specific individuals, and expects to sometimes be surprised by people he wouldn't have expected to respond. LJ is the perfect tool for that.

People write on LJ for a mostly consistent readership they expect to know, so unlike with most blogs, LJ writers often don't think about newcomers or casual surfers when they write. This can fail, too, because even the people you know haven't been there for every post since the beginning, usually. There are some people on my friendslist who sometimes talk about "BPAL". Presumably, at some point, this abbreviation was defined, but I've never seen it in the year or so since I've seen it being used. On most non-LJ blogs, an abbreviation like that would be explained in each post it's used in, but on LJ, how long do you go before filling your new readers in?

barmaidblog is a well-done hybrid: she writes in LJ style, but with a "typical" blog audience in mind. One of her adaptations for that audience is that every reference to a person or event she expects her readers to be familiar with, is a link the first time it appears in a post. Links lead back to earlier posts so new readers can drill back as far as they need to build up as much context as they want at the time.

( ... and then there's the classic case of "breakup via LJ" - I've seen a few of those ...)

What are some ways people you read use LiveJournal that don't quite work? Or that do work, in LJ-specific and interesting ways?

Comments

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

What are some ways people you read use LiveJournal that don't quite work?

That's not a very meaningful question. Something "works" if it accomplishes what the writer wanted to accomplish, period; it's not defined by a reader's opinion, not even a little bit. Not every LJ user is writing for a readership; of those who are, they're writing for different audiences. Some are trying to convince, some are trying to express, some are trying to inform (in the simple sense), some are venting, some are seeking feedback.

In general, though...I'd guess that LJ doesn't work as well as a general-purpose blog for people who want to mostly write on a certain subject or theme, develop a readership, and prompt discussion based on their writings. The reason why is that the potential readership isn't going to find it, where a google search will find a non-LJ blog. Play the role of an interested would-be reader: do a google search on yankees baseball blog, or progressive christian blog, or foreign policy blog, or harry potter blog, and you'll find plenty. You won't find them in livejournal, though.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of starting just such a blog, at least initially as an LJ community. And you raise a good point. But I wonder if I customize so that it's titled as a blog, it will show up in searches. It'll depend in part, of course, on whether oters link to it.

[cos]

I don't understand why that makes it not meanigful. Even if you assume that "works" applies to posters only, not readers... aren't I asking a bunch of people who post as well as read?

I do find LJs on google (including sometimes my own), though it's certainly true that having your own domain is better for getting search engine traffic than being a subdomain of a more general hosting service - be it livejournal, blogspot, typepad, or whatever.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why that makes it not meanigful. Even if you assume that "works" applies to posters only, not readers... aren't I asking a bunch of people who post as well as read?

Perhaps, but that's not the question you asked. It isn't meaningful to ask readers if a writer's medium "works" unless you can definitively state what it is the writer is trying to accomplish, and in this case you can't do that.

I think you do need to step back and look at your question. What is it that you're really trying to find out, here?

[cos]

I noted that the people I'm asking are writers, not just readers... and you say "It isn't meaningful to ask readers if a writer's medium ..."

LJ is both a readers' and writers' medium, and people tend to know who they're writing for as well as who they're reading. Typically, most people here relate in both directions, reading each others' posts and commenting in them. In the example I started with, I was the reader, but what I found out was that the writer used LJ in a way that didn't work the way she intended - she assumed she had invited me, but she hadn't. Sometimes writers don't know whether they're achieving what they intend, but LJ is a medium that makes that easy to discover because of how tightly knit readers & writers are, and because we relate in both directions.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

I noted that the people I'm asking are writers, not just readers... and you say "It isn't meaningful to ask readers if a writer's medium ..."

I don't think you're paying any attention at all to what I'm saying, which makes me wonder why you asked the question. Were you really looking for feedback? Or are you just going to pummel the responses you get into supporting your predermined conclusion? I'm not criticizing you for having an opinion on this, but if you didn't want to hear differing opinions, why did you ask?

In case you are interested in other opinions, I'll state it again, or restate it, rather: people are using LJ for different things. Furthermore, it's waaaaay too simplistic to say, "Oh, of course they are, they're using it as writers and as readers!" You keep saying that, but you're missing the point I made in my original response: people who write on LJ are using it for different kinds of writing. This means that person A may be using it as a traditional journal -- "today I ironed the cat, weather sunny, the dust bunnies are takiing over the house" -- person B may be writing humorous anecdotes about work, person C may be writing small essays on the subject of sustainable communities, and person D may be sending out party invitations. Those are obvious different types of writing, but it goes beyond that: people may be doing the same type of writing for very different purposes. Person C, for example, could be using LJ as a kind of notepad to work out ideas, and neither want nor need any feedback; he/she could be trying to develop a readership and become a world-famous blogger on the subject; he/she could be trying to promote discussion with others of like mind; or none of the above. Therefore, how can a reader state whether LJ "works" or not? You don't know what the intention is...and the whole business about "tightly knit"? Sporadic and illusory, as with most so-called online "communities". Pfah. If I had a nickel for every time the word "community" has been misapplied to a gaggle of online geese, I'd be a rich woman. Most "models" about online interactions have as their premise a consensus and cooperation that does not exist.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I noted that the people I'm asking are writers, not just readers...

That may have been what you meant but it isn't actually what you wrote:

What are some ways people you read use LiveJournal that don't quite work?

To me that sentence appears to be asking for people's opinions as readers and not as writers.