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

[foxfirefey]

Well, plenty of RPGs make do on LJ, so it's probably more important for some people than others. I think a bunch of RPGs do use IJ because of the higher icon limit--GJ used to be the main bastion of icon heavy RPG, with its insane icon limits, but it creaked and tottered over and died from neglect. While it was in its death throes, it specifically pointed everyone towards IJ. And, well, at this point I'm not sure offering a lot for RPGs that require lots of icons for no money is very financially viable for a business.

There are other groups on IJ, too, though--fanficcers furious about Strikethrough, and a (probably very) small group of breastfeeders angry about breastfeeding not being allowed in default icons (which means some of them would also absolutely refuse to go to DW, since Denise was head of Abuse on LJ at that time).

[charmian]

As long as it is that resource intensive, I doubt it. Maybe there is a way to change the software so it isn't that taxing (I have no idea), but otherwise, it doesn't seem to make much sense.

Huh, so are there any non-RP or fanfic fandom (or non-fandom) groups on IJ?

[foxfirefey]

Not that I know of, but that doesn't mean they don't exist--IJ can be kind of hard to explore.