Facebook vs Myspace vs LJ vs Blogger

[annwfyn]

An interesting quote from here about a recent article on class divides between different social networking sites.

Still it could be argued that perception of users-wise, LJ is to Blogger what MySpace is to Facebook

I'd read about the apparent class gap between facebook and myspace (and then definitely felt guilty for being on facebook, and really avoiding myspace) and had been wondering where the other sites fit in.

I don't know if I entirely agree - I always vaguely thought that the difference between blogger and LJ was the difference between the public and the personal. Blogger doesn't allow for limited viewing options - what you say on blogger, you say to the world, and I don't think I've ever been entirely comfortable with the idea for myself. Blogger seems to me to collect more people who want to pretend they are writing a column for the Guardian, whereas LJ is, essentially, a very personal medium.

I am, however, quite happy to admit that I might be wrong, and furthermore I am now pondering the way livejournal is perceived.

Opinions?

Comments

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I dunno about LJ vs. blogger, but I think the description of the divide between MySpace and FaceBook, albeit rather American, is spot-on. I have both, but am much more inclined to check/update my FB than my MS. I only have a 'Space cos of the bands I listen to/have been in, really.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

I agree with your point about Blogger being (what I've seen of it, anyway) preferred by people who write in a newspaper columnar style. LJ feels more relaxed & friendly.

I *think* (without prodding my brain too much) I agree with her point about the cultural divide in MySpace v Facebook, as well. I wonder how much of it is due to the fact that you can't particularly customise Facebook - everyone's page looks pretty much the same, with the only differences being in what applications you choose to have showing. Everyone looks similar, much as the common idea of "preppy" teenagers do. In comparison, MySpace can be made as outlandish and unique as you like, be set to play your favourite music automatically, and can express your "individuality" much more - just as the alternative crowd likes to do.

[adze.livejournal.com]

From the little I've heard/seen, there seems to be a kind of classist thing between the likes of LJ and the likes of Blogger. LJ is seen as a kind of amateur/unprofessional/almost immature thing to use, whereas the implication is that when you grow up, you move on to things like Blogger, for having a 'proper blog'.

I'm now wondering if there's a divide between blogs and journals. To my mind, journals are much more personal - just looking as I'm typing this, you've got your own style set up, this huge supply of icons, and it generally feels fun to use. Blog sites, feel more clinical, and self-important.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

It's in the name, really. Blogger (which I would argue is one of the less-respected blogging sites these days - Wordpress or whatever are more hard-core) is a blogging tool. Livejournal is, well, a journal.

For most people, they're fundementally different things. A successful blog is a media entity - it's run primarily for the benefit of its readers, because someone who wants to write about a specific topic does so. It's normally topic-focussed and advertised via word of mouth at least.

LJ's a journal. It's used, to my mind, in the same way as MySpace or Facebook, and belongs in the same category - it's a social networking tool. You don't read my journal because you're interested in Machinima, or politics, or cooking, or sex, or martial arts - you read it because you know me and are interested in what I'm doing and thinking.

And I'm a hugely atypical LJ user, in that I'm very rarely talking about my life. Really I should probably be blogging, but the problem is that my writing's so diverse that I'd need about five different blogs, and they'd get updated once an aeon.

LJ != blogging. A few freaks use it for that purpose, because it can also be quite a good blogging tool. But it's really a social networking site.

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

I think blogger offers a sort of password protect function these days, so you can give family and friends access to stuff that the general public/employers can't see, at least if you're publishing to their blogspot service.

I know I tend to perceive people who attempt to promote their work via a personal LJ rather than a blog much less seriously - it like they couldn't be bothered to present themselves in a professional manner. (Copying stuff to an LJ is fine, but it shouldn't be your main URL or publishing engine.) Mind you, I feel the same way about blogspot URLs. Domain name and hosting account of your own, or nothing, say I.

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

>>>Really I should probably be blogging, but the problem is that my writing's so diverse that I'd need about five different blogs, and they'd get updated once an aeon.<<<

This is part of the problem I have, but I solved it by getting ala.sda.ir, and using the disparate feeds to power one blog (and in fact, x-posting them to LJ, too). So it doesn't matter that black-ink.org keeps changing purpose, and still only ever gets updated about five times a year, and that I *still* haven't gotten around to the new dead-air.org project.

So I've got sites for content-in-context, and sites for people who are reading the lot because they know me.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Is LJ a social networking site? I kinda have it down in my head as being closer to blogger/typepad etc than facebook et al, mostly because it's primary interface is geared towards writing. Facebook isn't set up to write anything longer than a single paragraph really. LJ, on the other hand, isn't designed to do much more than write blocks of text, interspersed with pictures, set up as you like.

The LJ communities as well are very much single issue/discussion sites which have very little in common with the facebook groups.

However, I do see what you mean about blogger being different in terms of its purpose. You are writing to the world - it's almost a self publishing tool?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think I agree on the professional stuff. Livejournal isn't really designed for that purpose - just look at the assorted pretty icons, interests etc.

I am, however, now remembering my assorted abortive attempts to get a domain name and hosting account of my own and the miserable hassle and pain that has caused over the years. It's why I now stick to LJ for writing tat online, photobucket/flickr for photos and gmail for my e mail. I'm fair too incompetent to manage anything more complex!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

It must be said, I've now just started poking around myspace again and have been very impressed by their use of music and video. Myspace also just told me that one of my favourite bands is playing in London next Friday, so maybe it's not as bad as I've thought.

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

Heya,
I think Alasdair is right I noticed a few months back that Blogger has now started to allow you to make certain entries private to friends and family. If only that function had been available at the time we got all that crap!

I saw a letter in Metro yesterday where someone was saying that a blog is intended to be a personal journal, rambles, thoughts and feelings and I agree. Those who pretend to be (political) columnists have just taken over the medium for their own use. That's not necessarily wrong but they shouldn't criticise us more personal writers either.

I think that's why I was shocked when we wrote a personal diary style blog on Blogger and then got a load of flack for it, including that no one was interested in our personal lives, especially not our marriage, from our own political community.

I never actually got that point at all. If you're not interested in someone don't read their blog. I only read blogs of people I'm interested in, like you. I certainly wouldn't feel it was my place to throw insults at the writer of a blog I was not interested in that were highly personal and effectively a form of online bullying.

We still maintain our public site on blogger, under our real names but in a very minimal way. I now see it as our public url/website for only very important news in our life and a link to our photo albums for anyone who googles us. I still get loads of googles on my name about 13 in the last month including, interestingly, from Lib Dem HQ and the Houses of Parliament still! I know because they still check our public blogger site. All it has on there at the moment is about my pregnancy announcement, sort of more a press release for old friends searching for us on the web I guess.

I love livejournal and I love our anonymous livejournal. At first it annoyed me that I should have to remove my identity to be able to write freely and prevent the political antagonists from finding us - and so far they haven't succeeded although the google searches on our name + blog are quite creative in their attempts to find it!

But now I love it. Our blog has since become more honest and more personal than it was in its Blogger days. As a result, I am extremely protective of it. If anyone I didn't trust got hold of it I would definitely move it. I feel like it's as personal as my underwear drawer!

I know of people who would like us to feed our blog through Facebook but I never will because much as I do love my Facebook friends list I'm not sure all of them are 100% trustworthy (there being 4 Lib Dems - not Ms Rodger though! -on there who certainly didn't come out to support us during the whole blog scandal).

...

[reindeerflotila.livejournal.com]

LJ - For yourself and for your friends/family, an informal forum with a lot less po-faced literati writing for the plaudits their readership bestow. Blogger has more of a professional writer feel to it. It has an agenda.

That said of course, LJ does have a bad case of the Weeping Emoes.

Myspace Vs FB - as I have said before, FB was originally only available to students. Myspace was open from inception, and had a very different target audience/remit.

I love my myspace for the music, and my facebook for the fact that people I miss hugely have found me on it and are back in my life. Even people I woul not have thought missed me have proven me wrong, and for that positive effect on my life I am grateful.

I am LESS grateful for the constant influx of Vampire/Werewolf (naughty jedi blatting me with the force) Compare ME! COMPARE ME NOOOWWW! requests.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I really like your LJ. It is much more reflective of the real you - I sometimes felt like all the crap you got with your old blog meant that you weren't able to relax and just be yourselves. I liked your old blog, but I enjoy reading your LJ lots more.

I must say, I never quite understood why folk found a personal blog so obnoxious. It's kinda shaped my view of blogger, and did send me into a frenzy of making many of my personal LJ entries 'friends only' for a while. Maybe it isn't so much the culture of blogger, but more that you were writing your blog whilst surrounded by people who had a very clear idea of how they thought blogger should be and wanted to enforce it on the rest of the world.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Blogging is self-publishing. This is keeping up with your friends.

It's just that the way you keep up with your friends happens to look confusingly like a blog, and it's possible to use it for blogging.

I'd have said that a lot of the Facebook groups were very similar to the LJ communities - perhaps we're on very different groups!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Currently the facebook groups that I've seen have names like 'if 100,000 people sign up to this, my wife says we can name our next kid spiderpig'. The LJ communities that I read have a lot more coherent discussion, interesting links, and academic content. Maybe I'm missing this on facebook and they are out there somewhere?

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Look at some of my Facebook groups. I've got the "Machinima Europe" group, the "Machinima" group, the "Creative Coffee" group, which is a nascent organisation, and the "Dawn Duellists" group. All pretty focussed.

LJ

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

oops Annwfyn am behind with LJ comments cos they are not feeding through to our M&C email anymore which sits on Chutney's Mac not my PC, will have to sort this! I think you're right....although I came across a blog written by a Conservative couple where they would talk about canvassing one day and DIY the next, having a baby the next and I thought how is this any different to how ours was. How? How? How any the less "tedious"? Why no one hated them?

I am more relaxed on LJ though still cautious. It is very true the minute someone sends you messages saying that you look a right state and are fat in a photor or no one would look at you except in horror you feel you can't ever say you feel fat or low or down or ugly because as soon as you write that they will be there, ready waiting to write with great delight 'yes, that's because you are.'.

So I think they spoilt blogger for us. I also think that particular community is keen to shut certain people out - people who don't quite fit the mould. I've heard this happens in web communities and think it did in that one.

I prefer writing in a forum where I know the people who read it daily or every couple of days and I know that they won't mind if I put a bit of extra detail in on my personal life, either they won't find it tedious or if they do they'll just skip it and read the other bits not write to tell me I'm tedious.

I remember the New Statesman said our blog was a blog in the way that the online God intended. I think this recognised that our blog was actually the traditional online personal diary use of the media, encompassing our political activities, the political journalist style blogs were not though have grown up anyway.

The comment that got to me a lot during the blog episode was when VR wrote that she enjoyed reading our blog the same way a Guardian journalist enjoys watching Big Brother. I love this assumption that because you have a personal life to write about and don't write "Guardian" columns you must be dumb. In actual fact she and I have the very same degree so what gives?.!

Re: LJ

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

The comment that got to me a lot during the blog episode was when VR wrote that she enjoyed reading our blog the same way a Guardian journalist enjoys watching Big Brother.

I remember that comment. I read it and honestly wanted to puke. It was such a very smug, self satisfied way of trying to establish intellectual superiority and being catty whilst claiming some kind of detachment. I didn't get why NO ONE seemed to accept that it was also a really provocative thing to say. It read like a bully's comment to me. 100%.

It was someone trying to prove that they were as clever as they thought they were. That was totally it.