The day after I randomly post TANSTAAFL, Brad posts this, which says the same thing about LJ. Wonder how many people are going to start looking into RSS aggregators and Movable Type weblogs soon...
I can see the philosophical objection to limiting paid users, but do you ever post 20 times in a day? I think that limit is not a problem at all. The free user limit of 3-5 posts will cause a lot of emigration, I think. It seems we paid users generally post less frequently than the free users anyhow.
Admittedly, I've been thinking of moving over to blogspot for a while now, so this might be more of a personal excuse than a reasonable rejection.
Right now, I -am- still a free user. If this happens, I'd either move or move on over to a paid user - uncomplainingly, since I've been a leech for long enough. I don't think that my philosophical objection would be given much weight compared to the practical concerns - which would be more advantageous: moving, or getting a paid account here?
Practicality is why I'm still with LJ. They offer things that no other weblog or RSS aggregator does.
Specifically, I can put all the various news feeds and "friends" logs on one page, easily read. I can screen posts so only certain users can read them. I can easily find friends of friends and such. I can tweak the heck out of the layout, and I can embed it into my site.
In order to do all that LJ does, I'd need to use an RSS aggregator, a content management system, and I'd need to find some way to navigate the blogosphere without wanting to kill people. Also, the CMS I'd set up, in order to allow certain people to read protected posts, would need to entice a lot of my current LJ-reading public to add a login to my private system as well. The added headache of yet another password to deal with, etc. Besides that, in order for anyone to read my site, they'd either have to go to it or they would have to use an RSS aggregator or insert my site as an RSS feed into their LJ friends list. Free users don't have enough mojo to create a unique feed, so any of the free users that read my page would have to gang up in order to drive the "cost" down of including my site on the LJ RSS list.
Seems like too much effort. I'm still trying to find a reason why I'd leave LJ, and the 25 bucks per year is not much of a disincentive to staying overall.
The practical aspects of staying with LJ have kept me here through their seemingly constant technical difficulties, and despite the S2 style system being "right around the corner" for over 2 years now.
Some things LJ does are unique, or would require an awful lot of work to duplicate. To whit: the RSS feeds on the "friends" page; the friends page itself; the ability to screen entries to certain groups of people; the joys of moods and music and userpics.
Now, that last item is useless overall, so let's look at the Friends page and screening entries. In order to duplicate the friends page, you need an RSS aggregator. There are several, but they are none to simple to use overall. Amphetadesk or one of its competitors would allow me to create a "friends" page similar to the one I have now, including the RSS feeds of LJ users, other blogs, and even other news sources entirely.
Screening entries is harder. In order to filter entries so only certain people could read them, I couldn't use Movable Type, Blogger, or Greymatter. I would have to use a full-blown content-management system such as PostNuke. Further, I would have to get all the people that now read my journal to sign up for a username on my site, in order to see the protected entries. Those few people who understand RSS feeds would be able to add my site to their friends pages, but they wouldn't see protected entries on that page anyhow so they'd still have to go to my site as well.
Not very convenient, compared to the single "Friends" page on LJ. $25/year? Yeah, I'll keep paying it.
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momijizukamori
no subject
I can understand limited free user posts, but paid users? I'd rather move to blogspot, or host my own!
no subject
Re:
Right now, I -am- still a free user. If this happens, I'd either move or move on over to a paid user - uncomplainingly, since I've been a leech for long enough. I don't think that my philosophical objection would be given much weight compared to the practical concerns - which would be more advantageous: moving, or getting a paid account here?
Pragmatism
Specifically, I can put all the various news feeds and "friends" logs on one page, easily read. I can screen posts so only certain users can read them. I can easily find friends of friends and such. I can tweak the heck out of the layout, and I can embed it into my site.
In order to do all that LJ does, I'd need to use an RSS aggregator, a content management system, and I'd need to find some way to navigate the blogosphere without wanting to kill people. Also, the CMS I'd set up, in order to allow certain people to read protected posts, would need to entice a lot of my current LJ-reading public to add a login to my private system as well. The added headache of yet another password to deal with, etc. Besides that, in order for anyone to read my site, they'd either have to go to it or they would have to use an RSS aggregator or insert my site as an RSS feed into their LJ friends list. Free users don't have enough mojo to create a unique feed, so any of the free users that read my page would have to gang up in order to drive the "cost" down of including my site on the LJ RSS list.
Seems like too much effort. I'm still trying to find a reason why I'd leave LJ, and the 25 bucks per year is not much of a disincentive to staying overall.
Re: Pragmatism
This is something I should look into! Thanks.
Re: Pragmatism
Yeah, free users only have .99 RSS points, so you can't make a new one on your own, just access others. Amphetadesk is supposed to be pretty cool.
no subject
Some things LJ does are unique, or would require an awful lot of work to duplicate. To whit: the RSS feeds on the "friends" page; the friends page itself; the ability to screen entries to certain groups of people; the joys of moods and music and userpics.
Now, that last item is useless overall, so let's look at the Friends page and screening entries. In order to duplicate the friends page, you need an RSS aggregator. There are several, but they are none to simple to use overall. Amphetadesk or one of its competitors would allow me to create a "friends" page similar to the one I have now, including the RSS feeds of LJ users, other blogs, and even other news sources entirely.
Screening entries is harder. In order to filter entries so only certain people could read them, I couldn't use Movable Type, Blogger, or Greymatter. I would have to use a full-blown content-management system such as PostNuke. Further, I would have to get all the people that now read my journal to sign up for a username on my site, in order to see the protected entries. Those few people who understand RSS feeds would be able to add my site to their friends pages, but they wouldn't see protected entries on that page anyhow so they'd still have to go to my site as well.
Not very convenient, compared to the single "Friends" page on LJ. $25/year? Yeah, I'll keep paying it.