Livejournal vs 'real' blogging

[matgb]

Yeah yeah, I know, "Mat's going off on one again". Well, sort of. Recent discussions, mostly via Livejournal, about the "snobby" attitude of some bloggers regarding Livejournal and similar, personal-style blogging sites got me thinking. Y'see, I'd been commenting on blogs all over the place for ages, with my livejournal id. But the day I set up a free blogspot blog, people started linking to there. Even when I was, until then, writing about politics and suchlike here.

Despite my interest in political blogs, the majority of blogspot, wordpress.com, typepad and similar blogs are personal blogs, in a very similar vein to your avarage livejournal. For example, Everything is Electric is a fun personal blog by a London based lawyer, and Girl with a one tracked mind is very similar to some of the journals I've come across in my wonders. She's an award nominated "sex blog", yet an LJ isn't a "proper" blog. So, I have an idea. I dislike the owners of Livejournal, and I dislike certain aspects of the fans of Livejournal (the "Brad can do no wrong", attitude that you find in comments to news posts, etc ). But I do love the community overall, and LJ is a great way to keep in touch with friends, and even make new ones.

Which brings me to this weeks Britblog roundup. I try to nominate something good every week, and have on occasions nominated LJ posts (typically by jonnynexus but sometimes by others). Most of my nominations have been included thus far. Tim takes nomination by email (britblog AT gmail DOT com) and is looking for anything that's well written and interesting, regardless of topic, as long as it's about Britain, by a Brit or by someone in Britain. That includes posts made on LiveJournal or even (shudder) MySpace. Most of us read non-real-life-friends journals, right? If someone, anyone, makes a public post that's interesting, amusing and well written, nominate it.

It won't, by itself, dispell the anti-LJ snobbery amongst "real" bloggers, but it may help. Besides which, it's fun. Tim's book 2005 Blogged may get a follow up for 2006. Wouldn't it be cool to see something you nominated get into print?

Comments

[doctorvee.livejournal.com]

But I do love the community overall, and LJ is a great way to keep in touch with friends, and even make new ones.

I think that is the key. I don't know if many bloggers look down their noses at LiveJournal. The reason it's sidelined, though, is that it's not quite the same as blogging. LJ is more of a community thing where you can form friendship networks and suchlike. You can't 'friend' somebody on Blogspot.

There is surely some great writing going on on LJ, and I wouldn't be reluctant to link to a good LJ post from my blog. But sometimes when I'm reading an LJ I think that he's writing for his friends rather than the general public.

I know a lot of bloggers who have both a 'real' blog and an LJ -- and I'm one of them. LJs always feel to me more like a personal thing, which is why my LiveJournal turns out the way it is, and why my 'real' blog turns out the way it is.

[matgb]

Oh, I agree, it is different, but there are a number of LJ users who are mostly using it as a blog, jonny is one, but there are others I read regularly. Then there are those who mix public and private posts, etc.

But overall, most public posts may be writted for friends, but if you're making it public, you're either taking into account LJ's random post displaying and the main feeds or, well, you're an idiot who isn't paying attention.

If I talk work, or personal things that should be treated with some discression, it's f-locked. Public is public, and I've had people comment that found the journal via google, technorati and similar, even on just random aside posts.

There's not been as much personal stuff on here recently, msotly because there's not been much going on, but it's still my journal, and it's aimed at my friends. But it's also accounting for people that may just randomly find it if it's public.

But there is a snobbery; it may not be intended, it's probably not conscious, but it's there. The thing I love about LJ is the friends list and aggregation aspects, a built in bloglines, but there's no reason it can't be inward looking and outward looking at times.

[rho]

It works both ways. I know a lot of LiveJournal users who look down their noses at "real" bloggers, on the grounds that they tend to takwe themselves far too seriously and spend a disproportionate ammount of time in meta-discussions, actually talking about blogging itself*.

Speaking purely for myself, I tend to be very wary about self-professed 'blogs' for precisely that reason, but if ever I do read one I always try to go in with an open mind and judge it based on its merits rather than any preconceived notion.

One other thing is the comments. I like the comments system on LiveJournal better than pretty much anywhere else. Threaded comments are hugely useful for keeping track of what;s going on in any lengthy debate. (Though equally, the LiveJournal comment system has its own faults, notably the one where it's impossible to provide a name/email address if you aren't an LJ user, and how if you disable anonymous comments it also disables openid comments.)

* Though of course, this sort of behaviour is not exactly rare on LiveJournal either.

[matgb]

Oh, the first is certainly true, and in many cases justifiably, the more I get into blogging in general (and I started with LJ), the more tempting it is at times to write more about blogging rather than the subject; that's one of the reasons I limited the topics for NLE quite tightly, make sure we stay on topic (mostly).

The danger of taking yourself too seriously is very apparent, but mostly the political blogs I like in Britain don't do this; some do, but most are very aware of the limitations and the low readership.

Definately agree with the comments system, a few blogs copy it, but even then notification is an arse. Annoying about openid being treated as anonymous; not that it matters to me personally currently, but I may start promoting OID a bit more at some point given TypeKey is supported.

And thee and me talking Livejournal a bit too often is definately a fault I keep meaning to fix; I've had an 'update' window open for ages to write about my weekend, but keep opening new links to read instead...

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

OMGLJ-CUTFTW!!!

I'm putting off doing some work, can you tell?

[matgb]

I'm not sure. I'm always particulaly confused by all caps abbreviations.

Oh my god LJ-cut for the win?

You approve of the way I cut the above? If so, good, took some effort but was rather effective I thought.

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

That's the correct translation, yes. It was more of a "got enough cuts there?" sort of thing. It's clever, to be sure, but...

Why?

(that's my lazy side coming out)

[matgb]

Because I like the effect, and it gets the point of the post across without the details.

Plus, y'know, LJ hook on Fx. Highlight, right click, done.

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting that I have that.

Doh.

[fearmeforiampink]

I dislike the owners of Livejournal

Old, new, or both?

[matgb]

New; Brad strikes me as an idealistic geeky type who still can't believe how well his idea has taken off, but SixApart are running it like a business, and some of the recent 'sales' based decisions seem dodgy in the extreme.

[fearmeforiampink]

Which ones?

[matgb]

Um, the ones I've written about?
http://matgb.livejournal.com/tag/livejournal

Especially gifts and adverts. Also, the way they've handled problems, and the datacentre move which they botched completely.