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cosOne 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?
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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?
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?
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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.