Not About Promoting LiveJournal... But Sort Of

[penpusher]

I'm thinking of the people on my friendslist that don't post anymore. I'm wondering if they ever even think about their LiveJournal accounts, if they ever visit them, ever sneak a peek at their friendslists, ever even read back through their LJs.

I love reading my archives. There's so much great stuff there, partially because of all the great people that commented. That's why I said I would never delete this journal. When others post to it, it's no longer just "mine."

But I'm wondering if there is anything that might get these great people back to at least poke around.

Really, the issue with LJ is it's something you shouldn't have to be "forced" or "coerced" into performing. That's very counter-intuitive when it comes to the process.

And as ravenfeather recently pointed out in my most recent "LJ Promotion" post, by placing a comic in the comments, some people associate LJ with their High School years and they've outgrown that.

I guess if you came to El Jay after that time, the stigma isn't there, but the question remains:

If you weren't on LiveJournal, what sort of stuff might bring you back... and maybe as the true first question: what keeps you here now? What are you getting from LJ that makes you still use it?

Comments

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

Long format support without weird shift-return nonsense required to put in carriage returns
Chronologically ordered posts
Automatically aggregated friends list feed (customizable)
Threaded comments
Multiple hyperlink and html support
No ads (I view only via my friends list and clicking through to individual posts to comment. I never see any ads via my basic account, though I am told this is odd)
Continuity of archives (ljArchive is AWESOME for providing searchability in my own back catalog)

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

You make it sound so sexy! ;)

But yes! All of that is why LJ works so well. And it really does work well - better than any other social media site. If you either want to be completely open to have anonymous comments or totally locked, or any level in-between... you can make your LJ experience exactly what you want it to be. You can always avoid the bad stuff here at good ol' El Jay!

Now, you could go to InsaneJournal and purchase a permanent account there for 50 bucks and get pretty much all that stuff you listed. So, is there anything about LiveJournal beyond the open source code that makes it worthwhile, more useful, better?

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Do they allow syndication of RSS feeds (I have friends w/ paid accounts do it for me all the time) so I can do all my reading in one place?

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Not sure what the status of RSS is, even when it comes to LJ. It seems like these sites are trying to move away from it, for whatever reason? Or maybe it's just people aren't using those feeds nearly as much because they're fine with going to the various sites/sources.

Which is my way of saying, it's a reasonable question that I have no answer for!

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

LJ is the only RSS aggregator I've ever used. The syndicated feed function rocks. All my stuff in one place, with a format/visual style I can control.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

I actually don't post anymore for the most part, but I do read.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I noticed you aren't posting. And I would hesitate to say that the reasons you don't post are the same as why other people aren't here. Of course, they might very well be! But at least you're reading and contributing where you would like, so you are still an active member of the community - even if you were just reading and never commenting. I'm very thankful you're still around these here parts.

I think, similar to the whole "liking" process on facebook or the "favoriting" on twitter or the "reblogging" on tumblr or the comments here on LJ help to keep people interested. But the reason LiveJournal is the real jolt is that people have to form sentences. There's always thought involved in pretty much everything to do with LJ. That automatically lifts it higher than the rest of those services, that pretty much all dumb it down.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

You're right. My reasons are unlikely to be the common ones. I find it exhausting to have to leave out huge chunks of any given story, so I don't post anything.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Short answer. The people.

When we rely on social interaction via meat space only, we don't really have much control over the TYPE of people who surround us. I came here in my 30's so there is no childhood stigma... although I will point out that just about ALL of my HS friends are on FB, and THAT seems childish to me. I came to lj as I have said before when I was diagnosed with cancer, I was alone and sole support of my daughter, and there was a LOT of anxiety. This place helped relieve that. As I built my flist, I found... GOOD people. Something that was missing in my meat space life, something that I thought was rare in the average human being. I was wrong, here was a place with decent, caring open minded people with very interesting thoughts and ideas, and willing to SHARE them with others. Yes, there are those that do not fit into those categories, but they are easy enough to ignore here.

The wonderful people keep me here. Oh, and the format that lets me type lots of words. *grin*

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Aha!

Well, you see... this is the intangible. The userbase is really what we're talking about. But, we really can't dictate who uses this service.

We can gear it to the people we think might like it. We can remind them of what is positive about it and hope they return. But, yes. It's like a little island we have here, our global LJ community. And who is here certainly does have bearing on who else might be here.

That's kinda why I initially started focusing on celebrities, since they are the people who influence the masses in what's "cool." But really, it's in regular users that post regularly that people want to check in with that might be more important in the long run.

And that's also the advantage to LJ, certainly more than any of the "likes" on Facebook - we do connect on a deeper, more personal and more kind level. And that's partially because of the design of the site but just as much a part of the people who use it.