charmian | Results of The Poll, and is "liking" coming to LJ?

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So, last entry I had a poll, and from the poll, I make the following interpretations:

1. The vast majority of people who answered the poll post on DW on a regular basis. I was somewhat surprised, as I thought there would be more lurkers (or readers/commenters only), but apparently not.

2. I was also somewhat surprised to see that so few people posted to LJ original material, and that so many cross-posted. I had thought that there would be more people only commenting/reading on LJ for some reason.

3. Self hosted WP is the most popular blogging option, and when you add in wordpress.com, WP in general is the clear winner. However, Tumblr was much stronger than I expected it to be, which surprised me; it seems to me that not much attention has been paid to the rise of Tumblr in LJ social media discussion circles (IME). Other LJ clones were also popular.

Oh well, was anyone surprised by the poll results?

In other news, looking on changelog, I see that LJ may be putting in Google Analytics and also adding an "I like" feature.

[links to "I like":
http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/8257370.html
http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/8244377.html
http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/8244199.html ]

[links to Google analytics:
http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/8210044.html
http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/8209487.html ]

I wonder if the Google analytics feature for personal journals will be a paid-only feature, or whether it'll be also offered to basic/plus users. If it is allowed for free users, this has some potential to alter user behavior on LJ, as people now will have some metrics of pageviews, and also have referrer data. LJ offering stats including referrers is long overdue, IMHO, and Google Analytics integration is a cheap feature offered by many of LJ's competitors, such as Tumblr, so this really does seem like an easy way to give customers a useful feature.

As for "I like," I'm not really sure what it is (can anyone who codes offer any insight into the mechanics of it?) It seems to be a 'props' system where readers can say they 'like' a post, and the journal owner can see who 'liked' it, and it appears that this function can be enabled/disabled.

I'm wondering if the information on how many 'likes' a post gets, and who 'liked' it will be publicly available by default, and whether, like Tumblr, LJ will make your 'likes' an RSS feed which you can potentially make public. Anyway, I've been long in favor of the 'liking' system, and think it can be potentially quite an asset to a blogging system.

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From:

I am just waiting for certain sections of the userbase to hear about the new "like" feature and melt like the wicked witch of the west in a rain shower with repulsion.

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Really? Why is it so horrible? I mean, it seems to be something you can choose not to use. (If I understand correctly?)

Is the problem that it might overcrowd the already sorta bloated space at the bottom of each entry?

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Because it's going to be Turning LJ Into Facebook and If They Wanted To Be On Facebook They Would Be and Why Can't You Guys Just Make the Site Work Right!

I have seeeeeen this before. However, if it's an opt in process, then it might help bunches.

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What, so FB is the only site in existence which has this feature? It's more comparable to Share This, which is something that occurs across many sites. I mean, Wordpress.com has something like this as an option also, as does Tumblr.

I kind of doubt it would be.

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I think you are overestimating the reasoning capacity of feature aversive users as well as their familiarity with a broad spectrum of other platforms.

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Is this a very large group of people anyway? I must say, you don't really paint them in the best of lights, both underinformed and unreasoning, hah.

Well, I suppose since they really hate features, they have nowhere to go but LJ, because anywhere else would have many of the hated features.

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matgb

It's a very vocal group of people; how large it is is hard to say, but they'll be complaining heavily about it, pretty much guaranteed.

The very idea that a website might want to take good ideas from elsewhere, make itself user friendly and attract more users in order to remain a going concern is simply anathema to some of the userbase, who look back to the halcyon days when LJ was perfect and forget how little competition there was, etc.

'Fey is right, there are some who will complain it's making it like MySpace, facebook, an intrusion into privacy, are averse to any sort of rating system, etc etc.

I predict a petition/anti comm almost immediately after it's announced.

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Oh boy....

Well, then, they must be happy that some indicators seem to suggest that LJ is less of a going concern than it is. 0_o I guess they don't realize that due to natural attrition, it's not optional for a service to get new people to replace the old ones.

Though, I don't get why it would be an 'intrusion to privacy.'

Yeah, this is not 2000, after all. This is an age of huge social network competition.

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matgb

Because anything that allows people to find public content easier is an intrusion of privacy.

Share This and similar is all Wrong, as is linking without permission, etc.

I've never understood it, but they're out there, they're vocal, and they're batshit insane.

And yes, there are some that are a) utterly convinced pandering to new users will kill the service while b) complaining there aren't enough posts anymore and their friends page is emptying.

A lot more are simply adding more people all the time, more fandom comms, etc, and not noticing the falloff in posts per person, nor the attrition of former users.

I still have LJ friends insisting LJ is just as busy as its always been, and my prophecies of doom (going back 3-4 years now) were misplaced; I point to the evidence I was completely right, they say it proves the opposite, etc.

None so blind as them that will not see :-(

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Hah, well, it looks like LJ is pretty much ignoring them.

There actually hasn't been much whining and petitioning about Share This that I can see. I would think from the privacy perspective, the Google Analytics thing would be far more controversial. (even though, if you use ghostery or noscript, you see it's on many sites these days)

LOL, so where are their friends going? FB? If the idea is that new users and paying attention to their needs will somehow kill the service, then eh, that is going to kill the service.

I really don't have any idea how true/not true it is.... External stats say there is some decline, though these are of limited reliability. I've seen discussions of the decline of online services which also note that sometimes after decline, stability can be reached, and a rump kind of continue. If decline has been occurring, then, it is perhaps also possible that the stable rump has been achieved.

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matgb

Decline was a fairly steady rate that 'Fey and Insomnia were tracking up until SUP took over properly, at that point it seemed to stabilise then start growing (IIRC), but from what we could see, that growth was entirely Russian, and the English decline was possibly even faster (although those figures were very hard to confirm for many obvious reasons).

I suspect those that're left are those unlikely to jump to places like here, but they may simply drift away; I know a lot of my fandom inclined friends have come here, blogging inclined friends have gone to WP in some form, and the networkers had already gone to FB (I don't think I've seen a "what X are you" quiz for over a year now, which is nice).

Which is why the pro-DW specific comments in news posts will sometimes get jumped on, there are those still convinced LJ can do no wrong and any other site is evil.

I also suspect Analytics will simply be accepted; it's already fairly standard, a lot of people opt out, and you could already do fairly similar with services like LJ Toys. Analytics helps you see stuff, whereas Share This and Like encourage people you don't know to read your stuff.

I think those that turn analytics on and have public journals will get some surprising results; the desire of SUP to put ads on Basic accounts wasn't for current content, it was to monetise all the old posts that get search traffic &c, but so few people got that.

From:

It's hard to see, because they don't really separate things in the stats, yeah? I know according to external stats, English visits are either stagnant or declining (by some measures, English Tumblr is already more visited than English LJ).

Well, they often drift somewhere, I suppose.

Eh, I have to say that personally (this may be an unpopular opinion) I can see why pro-DW opinions may not be though appropriate in news posts. I am not sure whether the official posts of a company are really good places to advertise competing products, really. Even if the person is not an official rep of DW, these will be seen as advertising, etc. I seem to see more people taking the piss out of completely nutso conspiracists (such as the person who thought Foxfirefey was a secret agent of LJ) or 'look, ok, you think LJ sucks, so why don't you just stop spamming LJ sucks! comments and go to the site you like so much better?' sort of comments rather than straight out "LJ ROXXORS" comments.

Eh? How does Like encourage people you don't know to read your stuff? From what I see (so far) there are no means of making public Likes lists or aggregating a leaderboard of something like 'top 50 liked posts in the past three days,' or incorporating likes into search rankings.

Is there really a difference between old posts and current posts in terms of ad monetization? I'm not really getting the old/current distinction, and I'm not sure the people complaining would really care about the old/current distinction either. (Anyway, so what about people who dislike the current LJ because of ads, yet move to IJ, which has ads as well?)

Well, I don't think it is so much

Really? But

From:

matgb

Correct, it's all stats together, so assuming Russia is growing as much as they say its growing, looking at the actual stats that must mean English is shrinking faster, but I suspect they're exagerating Russian growth, etc.

When I'm commenting in News, I tend to be constructive and responsive, I might mention DW but not in a "jump ship have an invite" way; if people find my constructive responses useful, they'll find a clear DW link from my profile and journal, which I think is more useful. And I sometimes defend LJ in there, there're some who attack it for anything while insisting on staying on.

I was under the impression there'd be some way of seeing what you'd "liked" recently somewhere, may've misunderstood.

And it's not that old posts will get more revenue; it's that there's masses of it, a lot in inactive journals. Long tail applies, even though most recent posts will get traffic, the older posts from dead journals also get search hits, and they're just deadweight cost.

Plus, someone hitting a post from a search is slightly more likely to click a google text ad keyed to content, apparently, although that might've changed, it's awhile since I did search marketing.

Think of all those LJ posts going back to 1999, many of them on dead journals that their owners will never look at or touch, but that they can't delete. Putting ads on them will make a tiny sum of money over a period of time, but those tiny sums add up, and otherwise they simply cost when displayed.

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I wonder if there is some way using (ethical) bots/sampling that we really COULD see whether there has been a decline in English language LJ?

Eh, I don't mind (not that anyone really gives a damn about what I think, haha) about constructive and relevant mentions of DW, but this whole 'have an invite' thing is kind of pushing it, unless a person specifically expresses interest. Those people who can't leave LJ because their friends are on etc., should actually realize that at this point.... er, don't they have much more chance of influencing their friends to leave LJ, or at least also use other places, vs. influencing LJ itself to change? (I assume their friends are why they are staying on LJ. If not, it is truly mysterious why they continue to stay)

I think whether they are likely to click a text ad or not, IIRC, depends on exactly what the search is for?

Yeah, but I mean, for the purposes of the people complaining, it doesn't really matter, because it's not as if LJ is only putting ads on the dead journals.

From:

matgb

Sampling could be done, but the work needed compared to the result probably wouldn't be worth it.

And yes, depends on what the search is for, but clicks per pageview is a good metric, older posts are only going to get search traffic, and those landing are more likely to be prepared to click a relevent ongoing link.

And yes, it matters not, but so many people don't notice the point of monetising the old journals, mostly people who've had no say, and likely no knowledge, that someone is now making money out of their words.

Meh, it's not like it really matters, it's just, y'know, vaguely relevent.

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I don't know if the antis have any real oomph anymore. LJ's doing some things that've been upsetting people, but the kickback has been much weaker than it used to be.

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Oh really? What do you think the cause of that is? They got tired of it, or they stopped using LJ and went somewhere else?

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matgb

Aye; I suspect it's because a lot of them have either given up trying or have jumped ship to here or IJ.

They're still about, and still vocal, but there're fewer of them, partially due to decline, partially due to them leaving for "better" climes.

(and that some of the people here who love the new things and improvements were the same people complaining about stuff like the profile page update and similar there still amuses me)

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Hmm, so maybe there won't be a volcanic eruption anyway.

Well, that makes sense, because it seems more than disagreement with the features in and of themselves, it's borne out of a sense of a lack of control (IIRC this is like Az's essay in progress about Old School and New School users), which they have more of here. And at IJ, in general there are never any new features anyway (IIRC), so I suppose that suits them as well.

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yvi

I am also already making the popcorn. Especially as I now see that it will probably show who clicked on the "like" button.

+ function builtin get_eventrates() : UserLite[]
+ "Id list of users who rates this entry.";

Not sure whether it works the same way on Facebook?

Edited Date: 2010-03-20 11:59 am (UTC)

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Facebook shows who liked an entry, yep. (So does Tumblr.)

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I think it does. It's the way it works on most systems like this.

From:

elena

Facebox also collapses the list and says something like "You and 239 others like this" or "(friend) and 13 others like this" or such. You have to click on the "others" part to expand it in a pop-up.

Vox had the [this is good] feature, too, but it just added a message to the beginning of the comment box.

From:

miome

I would click 'Like' on the 'Like' feature. ;-) To me it reduces clutter. There's plenty of posts, esp. on fan communities, with lots of comments that are just 'I like this!' or 'Win!'. I'd rather see '50 people like this post', rather than click on '50 comments' only to find them pretty content-free. ( Not that I'm saying people shouldn't give appreciation to posters - just the contrary! I'd like to make it easier to do that. )

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I feel the same way. If that's what people are going to do, why not make it easier on them?

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I don't really know what Tumblr is--I found their site kind of vague beyond "it's blogging! it's easy!"

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Heh, it's really not that complex.

http://www.tumblr.com/why-tumblr

I've also blogged about it before: http://charmian.dreamwidth.org/tag/tumblr

Somewhere in there is a guide I wrote to Tumblr, but it's kind of old and Tumblr has since added new features.

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Hmm, it may be my microblogging-ambivalent Twitter-ignoring self, but nothing stands out about it for me as dramatically different other than the lack of comments, which is a huge negative for me, and the "reblogging" culture, which is also kind of a huge negative for me. I think I'm just not their target user.

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Well, there are 'replies,' and people often use reblogging as a form of commenting. On those two counts, then, probably you'd be more interested in Posterous, which has comments and doesn't have reblogs.

However, the reblogging DOES make a huge difference. It is also really easy to use it, and they don't have ads and let you use your own domain name for free, which makes it attractive to bloggers.

(Depends also what one is comparing Tumblr to, and also, there are the network effects)

From:

Yeah, it sounds like it's filling a niche. I could see using something similar for a photo blog, but I wouldn't be comfortable with reblogging my photos, so I'd probably choose something different.

But for something like, I dunno, a lower-drama Cute Overload, where you're curating photos and commenting isn't vital and may even be annoying, I could see Tumblr working really well.

From:

It seems there are professional photogs on Tumblr; at least that's one of the promoted categories.

Yeah: it's also really good for those kinds of blogs because you don't need to formally join and post; instead, you can 'submit' things using a form should the owner wish, and then they can pick and choose from the submissions.

From:

azurelunatic

There have been some suggestions discussions on the topic. Many of them have been interesting.

The best one came out with the idea for an automatic header and footer, and a new poll format, so one could set up "like/dislike" if one wanted, or "awesomesauce/send in the velociraptors/i do not like peas"

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Yeah, I think I saw those back in the day. Having the 'dislike' option be not default is the best practice, I think, but it would also be nice if the people who want a dislike option could also do that.

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https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkOyl1joEdhQV7M0607hGLvOXzk46RjqCY

blah blah blah testing

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http://www.google.com/profiles/worldserpent

google/u/worldserpent

From:

fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com

Check out the latest news post (http://news.livejournal.com/126772.html) on LJ.
+1: We've introduced a '+1' button on (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_photophile/profile)lj_photophile (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_photophile/) to help select photos for the weekly polls. We're eager to get your input on this new rating tool! Please comment on the latest photo poll (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_photophile/900737.html) to let us know what you think.
Digging through the Core 1 source it appears this is the like feature that's been in development for so long. I've got to say that this was a really subtle rollout.

From:

Yeah, it really has been in development for a long time. They also seem to be really testing this one out also. Which is indeed a good idea.

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