Well, if you have no need for the full capacities of a product, arguably if there's a weaker one with a better UI, it is rational and most effective to choose the one w/ the better UI, especially if using it casually.
Very much agreed! (And I almost never log into facebook for this very reason. I hate the UI, and it's far too much trouble to figure out how to turn off or avoid all of the busy crap that I don't want to see.)
My suspicion about LJ's US traffic is that it isn't just microblogging or any one particular other site that's directly responsible. I think English speakers, and especially English speakers in the US, just tend to be the primary target demographic for every new social networking/blogging/getting eyeballs to look at ads thing that comes along. With tons of competition and constant shiny new things to distract people, it's no wonder a given older site has trouble holding people's interest.
Not that there aren't plenty of multi-lingual sites and not that there aren't sites that don't care about having US eyeballs looking at ads, but...
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Very much agreed! (And I almost never log into facebook for this very reason. I hate the UI, and it's far too much trouble to figure out how to turn off or avoid all of the busy crap that I don't want to see.)
My suspicion about LJ's US traffic is that it isn't just microblogging or any one particular other site that's directly responsible. I think English speakers, and especially English speakers in the US, just tend to be the primary target demographic for every new social networking/blogging/getting eyeballs to look at ads thing that comes along. With tons of competition and constant shiny new things to distract people, it's no wonder a given older site has trouble holding people's interest.
Not that there aren't plenty of multi-lingual sites and not that there aren't sites that don't care about having US eyeballs looking at ads, but...