Why Blogspot When I Have Livejournal and Dreamwidth, etc?
Originally published at Caramel Toffee. You can comment here or there.
Friend A: Why aren't your journals on Blogspot?
Friend B: What's Livejournal?
They're so internet savvy, so it appals me that they don't know about Livejournal. I can be sure they have no ideas about the LJ Strikethrough that shook the blogosphere or the recent development and emergence of Dreamwidth. If you ask me to compare Blogspot with Wordpress, Livejournal and most recently Dreamwidth, I'd say Blogspot is MOST DEFINITELY on the bottom of my list. Heck, even Vox is at least ten times better.
Purpose of A Blog, and Privacy Level
Is it personal or commercial? Why are blogs suddenly popular after a few years of it's initial existence? Why do everybody have blogs now? Some keep blogs for commercial purposes, but some wants it to be personal. It makes me wonder why personal blogs are kept on Blogspot, which offers no post privacy filters. If I want to keep it personal, and allow only a few to read my entries, or even keep the blog entries to myself, I would choose a blog provider which allows me to control 'who can certain entries'. It's more effective than making the entire blog private. Sometimes, you want to share your entries with select friends. Sometimes, you just want to keep them to yourselves. Sometimes, you want to share your entries with anyone at all.
This is why I love Livejournal (LJ) and Dreamwidth (DW) so damn much. Of course, I love InsaneJournal, Greatestjournal, JournalFen (IJ, GJ and JF respectively) and other LJ-based providers too, but my best experience had been with LJ and recently DW. I can make it so that my blog entries can only be read by friends who also have accounts there. I can make it so everyone in the WWW can read them. I have that freedom.
The new development of Dreamwidth (currently in open beta) is even more wonderful. New privacy options let me have greater control of my journal entries. If you were to have a look at my DW now (http://adlina.dreamwidth.org), you can only see one entry when I actually have a total of 5 entries. Same with my Livejournal. Out of 325 journal entries (I've been using LJ for six years~ 325 is a small number, sadly.), the public eye can only read 160 of them. The rest are either private or shared with friends, who are DW/LJ users.
Ongoing Conversation and Meaningful Discussions
LJ and DW makes me feel alive. You write something, someone clicks reply, and you can click reply on the person's comment. In other words, the wonders of threaded comments (like Wordpress, but we all know WP is a bit slow to implement this features). Have a look at a sample comment thread from my LJ:
It's an ongoing conversation, people. It looks alive. If you have something you disagree with, you can always argue. The arguments can continue. Other people can also join in the discussion. The thread doesn't have to be between two people.
If you want to one person's comments invisible to other commenters, you can screen the comments. This way, no one knows about your private discussion with the other person. You can also delete their comments if you want to.
Sense of Community
You can join and create communities with LJ-based journals. What's the point of keeping your short stories or poetry or even songs to yourselves? Joining specific communities can help promote your artistic pieces. Share them with other people and get into discussions about them. It's your chance to get feedbacks and even constructive criticisms. The latter is hard to come by these days. Comments of "Wow, it's cool!" is getting so old and lame and bleh.
One of the communities I'm in helps me with my language learning. It's very useful when you have native speakers correcting your works and help you improve. Information exchange, file sharing - you name it. We have it all.
Friends Page / Reading Page
You don't have to individually open each blog to read your friends' newest entries. You don't even have to subscribe to their RSS feeds if you don't feel like it. Just click on your friends page, without the apostrophe, (or 'reading page' in DW) and then you can read the entries of everyone you have access to. If you want to comment, just click on comment straight away. Easy as that. Your friends page will also show newest posts in communities you subscribe to if you don't filter them out. I usually filter communities and individuals
You can always go to your profile and click on 'view entries' for friends or communities. Instant filter ;)
Conclusion to Friend A: No, I will never have a working journal on Blogspot.
To Friend B: I hope you have a clear idea now.
