Cross Site Authenticated Flist Reading, and Poking Around Cyrillic LJ

[charmian]

1. In comments, stealthily asserts that Dreamwidth does (well, actually will) have a 'killer app': bug 710, cross-site authenticated friends page reading. This feature (as stated in the specs) will allow DW users to see their LJ friends lists on Dreamwidth, including whatever locked entries they can view.

Personally speaking, I'm unlikely to use this feature as I'm comfortable using several different sites, and because I deleted my main LJ journal, and now keep a smaller one whose content is very different from this journal's. However, this feature will be a great boon for those with large LJ friendslists, and will probably be welcomed by the DW userbase.

I'm not sure at all what LJ/SUP will think about it, but I kind of suspect it'll cause some angst among the LJ userbase, especially as there seems to be some caching on the DW end, and because it's specifically targeted to read locked entries. Will it really be the killer app? Maybe, but not necessarily, IMHO. It will probably be most useful for those who have something to read on DW already, or those who already maintain a DW and crosspost to LJ. Plus, a lot of people have switched off their syndicated feeds on LJ for privacy reasons. What do you think?

2. Been poking around Cyrillic LJ (more detailed report to follow soon)

The first things you notice are that the search form is front and center in the Lanzelot site scheme, and that on the main page there's a list of most popular current entries on LJ, as well as a list of the most popular users and communities. IMHO, this is fairly useful for new users.

Another difference is the presence of the 'statistics' option near the userpic in the corner. This link actually though, leads off of the livejournal.com domain, and towards the livejournal.ru domain (the link is livejournal.ru/counter). Why this is so, I don't know, except to promote LJ.RU? The "main" menu heading also leads to livejournal.ru.

The statistics do go beyond the My Guests thing, and include regular hits and unique visitors, so I suppose this will eventually be rolled out to the rest of LJ. Maybe what is taking them so long is that they've got to integrate it into livejournal.com for the rest of the users? Seems according to changelog that something is being done there, though.

Comments

[charmian]

Hmm, so you don't get much content from LJ? My LJ flist is now rather small, but for me, commenting is a large part of that, so I don't mind logging in.

[damned_colonial]

So here's the thing. I mostly read people's blogs/journals/whatevers through aggregators: Google Reader, my DW reading page, or my LJ friends list. On all three of those aggregated reading pages, I see posts, and links that I can click on to read comments or to comment myself. If I want to read comments or to comment myself, I am going to have to click through, no matter where I read.

The volumes I read are maybe 300 a day on GR, 100 on DW, and 5 on LJ. I visit GR constantly throughout the day, DW maybe 2-3 times a day, and LJ... every few days, I guess. The volume's just not there to make it worthwhile for me to go to LJ all the time.

[charmian]

Ah, I see... It's too bad there isn't a way on LJ to at least get those posts mailed to you or something. On Posterous they have such a feature.

[damned_colonial]

Well, I could subscribe to them via RSS (on GR or DW) but then I'd miss locked posts. And I can get LJ to email me but I have to request it on a per-journal basis. And I don't really want it by email anyway. So that's why I want DW to have the read-your-LJ-friends-here feature! I'll be in that reading-personal-posts-from-people-i-know headspace, and in the mood for it, and it will work perfectly.