LJ has elements of a social networking site; it's primarily a blogging platform but the appeal for me is the combination of the two.
But in order to succeed, LJ needed to pick up those that wanted a social networking site; a lot of my earliest LJ usage was simply keeping touch with existing friends, something I can do on Facebook much easier.
The problem isn't that Facebook has taken over from LJ, the problem is that Facebook is taking on the new users that would have come to LJ; some of them would have remained as simply low usage networking types, reading their friends entries and commenting—those people now use Facebook walls to do that, etc.
Of my friends of university and new graduate age on LJ, all were on it before Facebook signed up; I rarely encounter 'new' LJ users the way I used to all the time.
To some people (those of us that don't "blog"), Facebook does what they wanted from LJ, and does it better. The quality of the people I meet thorugh LJ remaind better, but the quantity of useful contacts is dropping off; they've moved to Fb.
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Date: 2007-Aug-08, Wednesday 09:04 (UTC)But in order to succeed, LJ needed to pick up those that wanted a social networking site; a lot of my earliest LJ usage was simply keeping touch with existing friends, something I can do on Facebook much easier.
The problem isn't that Facebook has taken over from LJ, the problem is that Facebook is taking on the new users that would have come to LJ; some of them would have remained as simply low usage networking types, reading their friends entries and commenting—those people now use Facebook walls to do that, etc.
Of my friends of university and new graduate age on LJ, all were on it before Facebook signed up; I rarely encounter 'new' LJ users the way I used to all the time.
To some people (those of us that don't "blog"), Facebook does what they wanted from LJ, and does it better. The quality of the people I meet thorugh LJ remaind better, but the quantity of useful contacts is dropping off; they've moved to Fb.