The Decline (and Fall?) of LiveJournal

[monk222]

There was a time when just the term ‘blog’ carried a certain cachet, an aura of coolness. All the high schoolers and college students didn’t want to be left behind without one. And LiveJournal rode high on those cultural currents, even spawning many imitators wanting in on the action. In fact, it was through Blurty that I came in on the fun, and it was hard to see that site stall and all but die.

But fashions and cool currents rise and die fast in the information age, and the economic downturn is shaking up the business of Internet social life. Blogs now seem old as dinosaurs. MySpace was a significant but tolerable incursion into the blogoshpere, but that technology has matured into the Facebook phenomenon, which in conjunction with the growth of webcam sites, such as Justin-TV, now threatens to render LiveJournal as obsolete as Tyrannosaurus Rex, though at least it may be a slow death rather that a quick, fiery extinction. I don’t expect LJ to go the way of GreatestJournal in my lifetime, but it seems to be going that way.

With my old, beaten face, a site called Facebook doesn’t sound like a promising avenue of experiment. But LiveJournal doesn’t seem to have a sustainable business model, and maybe its market will be limited to homely, somewhat introverted writers who find an e-diary to be better than maintaining a growing collection of scribbled notebooks in the closet, and who enjoy some connectivity with others to discuss news and some personal affairs.

Ironically, LiveJournal’s survival may depend on its more sexually adventurous clients, which were the people they started pushing out when they were making a bid to get profitable in the Facebook age. A mass-audience site will presumably have to keep it pretty PG-rated and family friendly. So, maybe LJ will be less hostile to the non-anti-social perverts who just like to write out their dark passions. Run on less money and rely on a niche clientele of serious diarists and other deviants.

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Sources:

Press Release

LJ post

some discussion

Comments

LJ Future

[poovanna.livejournal.com]

1. ...though at least it may be a slow death rather that a quick, fiery extinction.


2. ... Run on less money and rely on a niche clientele of serious diarists and other deviants.

I agree on both these points. And I do not think that point # 2 is bad; the world could use more deviants!

I cannot stand Facebook, MySpace etc. They are filled with teeny-boppers who bug you with their asinine status messages and running comentary about their relationships - Like anybody gives a shit.

I will continue to use LJ as long as it lasts because:

• of the great folks, and communities here;
• No ads on my pages;
• The non-LaTeX support is not a problem for me anymore.

Re: LJ Future

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I hope most LJers feel some fidelity to the site, because it's hard seeing a lot of new people coming on to it. Teeny-boppers, after all, are the life-blood, the future - they usually mature sometime, heh.