Other social networking sites
Sep. 1st, 2011 08:50 amSo, 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]
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]
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 07:56 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2011-09-01 09:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 09:15 am (UTC)Also, a bit of a viscous circle, as the less people write, the less read, and vice versa.
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Date: 2011-09-01 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 09:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 09:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 09:58 am (UTC)I was a late holdout with facebook but eventually realised that despite LJ having been my primary social network for about six or seven years there just wasn't many people using it any more -- I can't remember when I started using Facebook -- less than a year ago I think and my Facebook friends list is larger than my LJ friends list (despite being more selective on Facebook).
Not that LJ is a bad thing at all -- just that if I do post here (which I almost never do) I'll link it from Facebook to get attention.
In a lot of ways I prefer LJ but it just doesn't have the user base among my circle of friends.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 10:11 am (UTC)I am sometimes tempted to crosspost to there, but that would either mean doing it by hand, or living with it importing stuff that I might not want relatives stumbling over by accident.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 10:45 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 10:47 am (UTC)(And happier again if they implemented threaded comments.)
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Date: 2011-09-01 11:06 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 11:27 am (UTC)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+.
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Date: 2011-09-01 11:28 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2011-09-01 11:29 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2011-09-01 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 11:32 am (UTC)Livejournal is where I share my feelings.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 11:36 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2011-09-01 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 12:05 pm (UTC)Interesting read though -- I was actually unaware of the comics collapse thing.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 12:17 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 12:31 pm (UTC)The value of shares ought to be based on the expected return (dividend) and the expected profit on reselling the shares.
Yes... but the first part is much smaller than the second.
There's clearly some correlation,
That's not what the statistics says -- or rather there is no simple unambiguous correlation. If you pop the numbers into a computer then it just isn't the case for many/most markets.
because companies performing badly see their share prices drop, and companies performing badly see their share prices rise.
Ah but what has "performing badly" and performing well to do with dividends? Apple is generally considered to be performing well and has massive market capitalisation (dwarfs microsoft) but never pays a dividend (or not for 15 years). It paid a very low dividend (by market standards) from 87 to 95 and nothing since. A company which is actually tanking can't afford to pay a dividend (obviously). A company which is doing badly but has some cash stashed may pay a dividend to boost a flagging market. A company which is doing well enough has no particular reason to pay a dividend if its stock is flying high anyway.
So... dividends were at a historic low before the market crash a while back. If you torture the data properly there does seem to be a slight lagged correlation between dividend and stock performance but it's really low (if a company pays a higher dividend there is a small but measurable chance their stock price will go up after that).
Essentially, any explanation for the market price of a company should not these days be centred on dividends paid any more than an explanation of the price of a given comic (in your other part of the analogy) should be centred on the quality of the story, writing or illustration in that particular issue.