I recognize that, as an extrovert, I naturally have a tendency to interact with a larger # of people than many of my other friends. Part of what's been fun about FB is contact from school friends I've been entirely OUT of contact with for 30-40 and even more years.
Twitter is good for specific, real-time coverage of an event (e.g., Iran in 2009) or --if you have a lot of followers-- blasting out a single piece of data. It can interface fairly well w/FB but really does have a very limited kind of usefulness.
David, I disagree with your statement, "If they'd come back to LJ, they'd find a system that can do everything FB does and do it better, and then we'd all be happy." LJ *doesn't* do everything FB does and do it better - LJ really does favor those people who want to keep an online journal, to write out long, thoughtful pieces and interact extensively with their readers. Folks *can* do that on FB using Notes (and tagging those folks you want to make sure know about it) - but I don't have the time to interact with all those people on the level that LJ would require.
In other words, LJ worked as an interim location for me, after BloopDiary melted down (post GEnie), but FB works better *for my needs* than LJ did - and it doesn't have to do with "more people" being over there-- that's been the icing on the cake.
But, unlike you, I rather enjoy learning new interfaces - it's genuinely fun for me. And while I could go visit everybody's individual blogs, the truth is, I wouldn't, I'd burn out. And my friends' list on LJ takes me off the main page to read the whole post and takes me off the main page to comment to a post, even if it's short enough to appear in toto on my friends' page. It's much easier to move from profile/friend to profile/friend, I know who folks are, rather than the "I'm hiding behind an alter ego" username style of LJ (I regularly have to wrack my brain, "just WHO is xPrQ2! anyway??").
So you may believe that it's about the number of FB users vs the number of LJ users (and, for some, that may be true) - but it's not true for me.
It's okay that's you're not on FB - nobody is going to try to force you do it. I figure as long as we've got email, if someone posts something really important that they want me to see on LJ, they can email me - as you did (thank you!). Shoot, I've got a lot of friends who use both and when they post to LJ they put a link up on FB; I routinely follow those over.
Not to mention LJ's advertisements that derail the LJ experience with increasing frequency....
no subject
Twitter is good for specific, real-time coverage of an event (e.g., Iran in 2009) or --if you have a lot of followers-- blasting out a single piece of data. It can interface fairly well w/FB but really does have a very limited kind of usefulness.
David, I disagree with your statement, "If they'd come back to LJ, they'd find a system that can do everything FB does and do it better, and then we'd all be happy." LJ *doesn't* do everything FB does and do it better - LJ really does favor those people who want to keep an online journal, to write out long, thoughtful pieces and interact extensively with their readers. Folks *can* do that on FB using Notes (and tagging those folks you want to make sure know about it) - but I don't have the time to interact with all those people on the level that LJ would require.
In other words, LJ worked as an interim location for me, after BloopDiary melted down (post GEnie), but FB works better *for my needs* than LJ did - and it doesn't have to do with "more people" being over there-- that's been the icing on the cake.
But, unlike you, I rather enjoy learning new interfaces - it's genuinely fun for me. And while I could go visit everybody's individual blogs, the truth is, I wouldn't, I'd burn out. And my friends' list on LJ takes me off the main page to read the whole post and takes me off the main page to comment to a post, even if it's short enough to appear in toto on my friends' page. It's much easier to move from profile/friend to profile/friend, I know who folks are, rather than the "I'm hiding behind an alter ego" username style of LJ (I regularly have to wrack my brain, "just WHO is xPrQ2! anyway??").
So you may believe that it's about the number of FB users vs the number of LJ users (and, for some, that may be true) - but it's not true for me.
It's okay that's you're not on FB - nobody is going to try to force you do it. I figure as long as we've got email, if someone posts something really important that they want me to see on LJ, they can email me - as you did (thank you!). Shoot, I've got a lot of friends who use both and when they post to LJ they put a link up on FB; I routinely follow those over.
Not to mention LJ's advertisements that derail the LJ experience with increasing frequency....