Other social networking sites

[andrewducker]

So, having spotted a trend of people who used to post on LJ, went quiet for a long time, but are now posting on G+, Facebook, etc. I'm curious - what is it that makes you happy posting there, but not here?

If you do post on LJ (or crosspost to LJ) then don't answer the poll. If you want to see the results then just click on "submit" without clicking any of the options.

[Poll #1774801]

Comments

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

i post on lj to think things through
Sometimes i have thoughts longer than 440 characters.
Sometimes I need those thoughts not be shared with absolutely everyone i know i.e. filtering is easier.

I post on lj much less when i'm happier, hence my recent absence.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I don't really feel many people read LJ these days so it's not so much worth posting here.

[andrewducker]

There still seem to be plenty of people reading - they just aren't writing as much, as far as I can tell.

Also, a bit of a viscous circle, as the less people write, the less read, and vice versa.

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

I tend to use LJ for large updates and life dumps, but don't do so if I've already put the same stuff on Facebook, as I figure people will have seen it there.

[andrewducker]

I almost certainly won't have done, as I rarely get to read Facebook, and it doesn't provide decent filtering tools, so I can't easily keep up with what the people I care about are doing.

[tysolna]

I post here, and I am also on FB and now on G+.

There are people on FB that I would have lost touch with if not for FB. I occasionally throw in a one-sentence update along the lines of "Headache again" or "99% of all unicorns are virgins".

G+ is shiny and new and, like a new toy, wants to be played with. I also like the functionality of the circles, and have started a writing circle with friends who, again, are on FB and G+, but not on LJ, and that works very well indeed.
G+ reminds me more of tumblr than of Facebook, by the way.

[andrewducker]

I like G+ quite a lot. If it wasn't for the name thing I'd be pretty happy with it.

(And happier again if they implemented threaded comments.)

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I haven't filled in the poll because I still post around here. I do post on FB more but just odd snippets to keep up with people, whereas I witter on on here because it's a safer place for brain dumps.

I'm still resisting G+, I feel no need for a further social networking site and I have two different gmail accounts that I want to keep separate.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

Events are one of the main things I use Facebook for.
None of the other services have a decent tool for doing that (yet?).

Also Facebook has a wider group of contacts on it than LJ and more active contacts than G+.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

do you find facebook events successful?

I ask because most people I know completely ignore facebook invites. Including myself.
I have no idea how many events I would have gone to but have missed, because they were only announced on fb. A good example is a party at yours that Tina invited me to, told me was on facebook, and then failed to give any further info

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Of the people I friended on G+, now that the "WOO we're on G+ it's going to be fab" bit has passed, they're either ignoring it, reading but not posting or else using it like a Tumblr and just reblogging things from other people. Which is a shame, since I'd rather they used Tumblr for that since the interface is more customisable.

There's no point in doing the kind of things I do on FB on G+ since there aren't as many people and the event interface is the primary reason I went on to FB in the first place.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's worth saying that, amongst my friends, far more of them post actual personal content (ie thoughts, opinions, daily updates as opposed to link/photo spam) on Facebook rather than LJ or G+. LJ/G+ are mostly photo/link spam for all but a couple of friends, and of the ones who do that kind of thing on FB, they also post actual personal content too.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

I used to love LJ but now,

1) There are very few of the people I used to love to talk to left here

2) Numerous loss of service issues over the years

I'm not a fan of FB except for simple status updates and keeping up with family. I'm on G+, but it's just like FB as far as I can tell. I like blogger, but have no friends there.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Facebook for me, is a collection of contacts, with intermittent updates to ensure I retain some level of familiarity.

Livejournal is where I share my feelings.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Yes this. The people I'm closer to on FB I usually share more personal stuff with in person or private messages/chat. Most of my FB contacts are old school friends who I have little in common with these days.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

The sites also have a reputation, which can put people off.

If I meet someone and get on with them, I might say "oh hey, add me on facebook" and they'll know what I mean. If I said "oh hey, add me on LJ" then that could seem overly personal, or they might still see LJ as what used to be a fairly commonly mentioned stereotype ie that it's a place for people to post angsty poetry and rambling screeds about their self-harm issues under a name like xXx_reznorfan666_xXx. Fair or unfair, it's certainly an image that it had. Having a G+ account is a bit nerdy at the moment, having a facebook is normal (these days), having a livejournal can still be seen as odd by some.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

most people I have met in the last 6 months mention facebook accounts as an embarrassing necessity - normal purely in that they are expected to have one, rather than finding it useful or in any way pleasant.

unsurprisingly I concur

in saying that, I would entirely fail to come up with a good alternative. Haven't used G+

[steer.livejournal.com]

Not at all related to this post but I was wandering around your website and happened across your post about stocks and how they work. I'm not at all sure the divident yield works how you think it does... or rather your technical description of the situation is correct but the conclusion that dividend yield is (or even should be) what drives investment is not so clear. Checkout the wikipedia article on it. In general people don't make money on the stock market through dividends and dividend yield is fairly low these days (compared to historically). The idea of buying stock in the hope of dividends is more historically important than currently important. Statistically it depends how you do the analysis. A naive analysis shows no correlation between dividend yield and stock price but the data can be tortured in various ways to get a relationship.

Interesting read though -- I was actually unaware of the comics collapse thing.

[andrewducker]

Yes - there is, nowadays, much less correlation. Although there really ought to be, if the market was working efficiently.

The value of shares ought to be based on the expected return (dividend) and the expected profit on reselling the shares.

The first part of that is nice and stable (so long as the dividend is), the latter part has a positive feedback loop built in.

This means that the latter part can easily outweigh the first part, if the market is at all excitable. If the price goes up enough to cause short-term investors to jump in then that pushes the price up enough to attract more short-term investors, and so on, causing a bubble. Eventually the price becomes so overvalued based on the stable part (the actual return on investment) that it becomes clear that the price is going to have to drop. At which point the smartest investors drop out, the increase in value drops, making it less worthwhile for lesser investors, and then suddenly the price is being positively reinforced in a downward direction, because a dropping share is worth negative money.

What I would expect is that over time you would have a boom/bust cycle around a central value that is based on the dividend, because that's the only value that's at all stable over the long term. Without that there any value is based purely on random variation.

There's clearly some correlation, because companies performing badly see their share prices drop, and companies performing badly see their share prices rise.

If investors were forced to hold on to shares for a long period (say, three months) after buying them then the whole market would be massively different, of course. At the moment it's largely based on second-order properties of value, rather than on value itself.

[helen-keeble.livejournal.com]

Changing circumstances, for me. What I used to do on LJ is now split between my writing blog and FB; writing and book talk goes on the blog, personal stuff and photos go on FB. Nearly all of my relatives and in-person friends are on FB. Only the very geekiest are on G+ at the moment (and I'm avoiding that site at the moment due to the name issues; losing access to Google's other services would be catastrophic for me, so I'm not willing to risk it for any but the most compelling reason).

As I'm now a 'professional' YA writer, I needed a web presence somewhat filtered to make it suitable for my target audience, hence making a fresh start on a new blog (I'm slowly locking down my old LJ entries, though I am contemplating setting up LJ cross-posting for the remnants of my writing-related social circles that are still here). I also wanted complete control over the appearance and functionality of my site, so I'm now using a custom install of WP hosted by DreamHost (which gives me all the behind-the-scenes access my geeky heart could want), under my own URL.

[andrewducker]

The problem for me there being that that's yet another site to check, and it doesn't feed to LJ (that I've noticed) so I have no awareness of it.

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

I post on LJ (from DW) ... about once or twice a month, at the moment. I do it because various parents/relatives use LJ to keep vaguely in touch with what I'm up to (they're not on FB/etc, and not likely to).
Trying to keep an idea for a time when I can sit down and compose a post about it just doesn't happen much these days.

I use Twitter the most, mainly because it's quick and easy to do from my phone, and I can act on an idea soon after having it.

I mostly post to FB via cross-post from Twitter, and only read it when I've run out of Twitter and other diversions.

I have joined G+, but I'm not convinced it adds much value for me personally (my 70-year-old relatives probably won't move, for example), and I'm not impressed by the whole Real Names/#nymwars thing. (for example, a strict interpretation of the rules would exclude three of the team of eight that I work with ... )

Finally, kittens ... it gets strangely hard to write for LJ when one or both hands is occupied with a kitten :)

[ms-tek.livejournal.com]

None of the above.

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

I use Facebook and Livejournal in completely different ways.

Facebook is for updating my clients on important reminders: "Remember real estate tax payments are due on Monday." I follow what's happening in the lives of my children, nieces and nephews. I keep in touch with my neighbors: "Black Cat with Red Collar Missing at corner of Elm & Maple: answers to the name 'Satan'. Cross-posted for Emma."

I almost NEVER say anything even remotely revealing on Facebook. I treat it like a work Christmas party. Pleasant and shallow, slightly human-like but mostly Worker Unit.

I would neither discuss religion nor politics on Facebook and am aghast at the number of my neighbors who do. Seriously, do they hold the illusion that their neighbors AGREE with them? Haven't they NOTICED the 50% break-out on every poll? But, hey, whatever. It's not news that people are stupid.

I do all my introspective thought and polite issue debating on LiveJournal. Livejournal attracts grown-ups. It's about journaling and thinking.

Not Facebook.

However, that said, I spend nearly as much time on Facebook. I scan 300+ people on Facebook (much the same way as I peruse my spam filter - just in case there's something caught in there that I might need.)

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I tend to chew things through when I'm writing, which I rarely have time for anymore. Plus I like Facebook's photo feature, and you know they do say a picture is worth a thousand words...

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

that is true. Where's the like button?

[nickys.livejournal.com]

I'm concerned about the ethical stance of the new owners of LJ, so I'm not keen to give them too much access to my life.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

fucking Russians

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

I shan't answer the poll as I do still post here, but nothing like as much as I used to. Buzz has completely replaced all my shorter and less well thought out LJ posts, really.

And actually, "There are people on my flist on LJ that aren't on the other social site, and I'm avoiding them" does also apply!

[andrewducker]

Do you have readers on Buzz? I didn't think anyone actually used it...

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

“It’s earlier than you think.”
People are still inventing how they use this stuff, and the people who build the tubes are still experimenting to find out what people will use.
If you want to make a poll like this meaningful, add a question at the bottom asking how long things have been this way, how long they were however they were before that, and how long you guess it'll be before it all changes again.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I post some things to DW, which crossposts to LJ. But I post other things to G+ because it has a Much Better iPhone App: I can do the location thing and, even more, I can do photos with two button pushes, rather than having to a) faff around uploading them to scrapbook and then b) stripping out all the pointless LJ crap that gets added and then c'n'p'ing the code for to DW.

[andrewducker]

Yes - DW badly needs photo hosting. I know they're working on it though.

I'm using photobucket for hosting, because I can upload in one click from firefox, and it gives me the url instantly for my post. Not quite as easy as having it all in one client though - but I don't tend to post from my phone.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

None of the above, or I suppose 3, though it's more that Livejournal's functionality is better suited for actual content and Facebook's for soundbytes. Because I've spent the summer distracted by my online roleplaying obsession (also in livejournal, I actually spend *more* time in here than I used to, I'm just busy being other people as I do it), soundbytes are mostly what I'm doing atm. It'll fade in time, as obsessions do.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

when I got on G+ I soon came to the conclusion that the only merit Facebook has, is that everyone is on Facebook. But, that was once true for Myspace.

So. Why am I here? Why are you here? Your puny span of years, occupying that flesh body, what are you doing with yourself?

Me, I decided that I'm here to help, and one of the best ways is just to write and repost funny stuff. It lightens the load.

Now, it's good to put stuff on LJ, because you can go back to it and it's funny again. It's good to put stuff on Facebook because more people will see it (my wall is visible to the entire internet btw).

Googleplus, I'm just keeping a presence there until it either gets better than facebook, or most everyone abandons it.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

and it's likely that a youtube will not be available for a long time, or some news articles. So either put it on FB for maximum eyeballs, or else cut and paste the whole damn thing to the blog. That's best, but I'm also a lazy dude.