Alternatives to LJ...

[almostwitty]

Ironically, given that LJ has become my blogging platform of choice, I've been trying to seek out some vague alternative. Not because of all the reasons given for the recent so-called strike, but because:

1. It has the feel of antiquated technology
2. You have to be in it to feel the benefits of it. Which nobody has the time to do these days!
3. It's exceedingly newbie-unfriendly
4. I'm not exactly confident that if LJ goes belly-up, exporting your data would be an easy process

and yet... once you're in it, it just somehow works. It's a platform that encourages commenting very easily. It's relatively easy to catch up on posts. I'm reasonably confident that posts I mark friends-only or filter-only won't be picked up by Google. Which keeps me here.

But then I've just found a new service, which seems to have much of the same LJ functionality, at least in terms of filtered posts. I've only just registered so must play around with it sometime, but it'd be good to have a bolthole just in case things really start happening.

So if you feel the need to have a bolthole and just experiment, take a look at http://almostwitty.multiply.com/journal - it's already let me import my LJ posts. I'm also keeping an eye on the elsejournal community.

and now, back to complaining about the lack of snow where I am!

Comments

[kiri-l.livejournal.com]

you know I think parts of the midwest might pay to have you visit.. *eyes posts from mid-westerners*

[theta-g.livejournal.com]

Respect! Thou hast laid waste to thine inertia! I'll have to check this Multiply out, right after I clean the bathroom. Interviewing roommates in 2 hours! AAAAGH

[madmosh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am not adding a *third* version of your blog to Google Reader... Anyway, I still don't get any of the juicy posts as none of the feed readers I'm aware of can access the "friends" posts and I can't be arsed going to blogs manually any more.

I'm currently verging on shifting my last remaining blog to WordPress, but I'm hitting mental blockages. Around 2000 posts, plus comments (that I'd have to pay Haloscan to get in a useable format), inline stuff that'd likely break WP, and as for maintaining the permalinks... I just shudder.

[waltzingalong.livejournal.com]

I added thee on the Multiply service -- just another place to snag the waltzingalong username before someone else does. It seems quite nice and clean, though.