Online Stocktake

This weekend I got to turn a virtual acquaintance into a real-world one (heya Andrew) (also heya Phil) and it got me thinking about where I exist on the internet at the moment.

Obviously: From The Morgue, formerly part of the additiverich collective and now a member of the isprettyawesome crew. Here is for thinking out loud, and talking about media, politics, and things I’ve seen or read. Occasionally I try to be funny. I used to make an effort to blog every weekday, but those days are gone. Isolated personal blogs like this one are on the way out anyway.

And my livejournal, which is only rarely updated. LJ used to be a busy hub of activity but it has been on a long, slow fade for several years now, because isolated personal blogs are on the way out. I’m more self-indulgent on LJ, and will not hesitate to post self-promotion or be incomprehensible. I guess I see LJ as a more forgiving space, content-wise. (From The Morgue is also syndicated to LJ, don’t know who set that up but thanks.)

I’m mr_orgue on Twitter. I don’t tweet much, and when i do it’s mostly just to say “I’ve blogged”, but I reply to other people and re-tweet messages a fair bit. I don’t try to keep up, just drop in and read a bit from time to time. Twitter is a fun time. I’m a bit scared of what it’d be like with a smartphone, though; I only access Twitter from desktop at the moment, but I think it’d be a completely different social experience with constant mobile access.

And of course I’m on Facebook. Facebook is mostly for tracking events, seeing photos and saying happy birthday to people. I’m pretty capricious about accepting friend requests – some days I’ll approve some random friend-of-friend I don’t actually know, other days I’ll refuse someone I’ve met more than a few times. Generally, if I want to say happy birthday to you, I’ll happily be your facebook friend.

Those four sites cover probably 98% of my online presence (outside of RPG-related activity, which is a whole separate issue). I have legacy accounts on MySpace, and WAYN, and probably several other sites I can’t think of right now. And of course there’s my rarely-updated personal site, which I’ve had for over a decade, Apocalypse: A Kind of Revelatory Experience. I should probably let it pass into history, but I like it, and also it hosts the infamous Leon Is A God subsite.

Oh yeah! I’m also on Hoffspace, which is where I ironically celebrate David Hasselhoff. Join me!

11 thoughts on “Online Stocktake”

  1. LJ’s decline is a shame since — as others have pointed out — it gives you a degree of access control that seems to be unmatched elsewhere in the social web. You can very easily configure which of your friends can read your posts, and this can lead to people feeling safe enough to put very personal stuff up that you wouldn’t trust Facebook with..

  2. Repton: Reflecting on it, you’re entirely right – I’ve seen incredibly personal stuff being discussed on LJ that would never turn up anywhere else. LJ has a very interesting history at the core of countless online social movements, and it was in many ways the pioneer of social media with its friends-based controls, two things that are probably related. It’s weird that nowhere else has really worked out the privacy controls – I suppose it’s not surprising that Zuckerberg’s post-privacy-age Facebook doesn’t have this stuff. Twitter lets you “friendslock” but gives no more granular control than that, I think.

  3. What Pearce said. Guess I better ditch mine to keep up with the trends then 🙂

    For my money while I agree that facebook et al has certainly reduced the numbers of active personal bloggers, I retain mine simply because it has capabilities and flexibilities as a platform that other on-line social media don’t possess. I don’t see it outliving its usefulness anytime soon.

  4. Hi back!

    I think we’re on fairly similar terms in regards to Facebook “friends”. I use the “Would I want to talk to this person for at least 5 minutes” criteria. Many fail.

    For for LJ, I’ve seen a bit of a resurgence as of late, as stated in our Sunday MEETING OF THE MINDS. I suspect due to the novelty of Facebook finally wearing off. Although I did have to do a bit of a trawl for new blogs that weren’t completely dead. Also ones where the writers weren’t just constantly looking for affirmation through amount of comments received.

  5. Maybe it depends on what the blog is being used for; there might be a reduction of blogs whose basic “omg i ate a biscuit lol” content could easily be replaced by Twitter or Facebook updates.

    However I have not noticed a reduction in the quantity or volume of blogs speficially devoted to things that I am personally interested in. E.g. there is no shortage of regularly-updated horror movie-oriented blogs.

  6. (ducks in) Pearce nails it – its about usage. Isolated personal blogs are on the downturn – I just have to look through my RSS feed history to see all the personal blogs that have disappeared as new, better-suited platforms have appeared.

    Issue- or subject-focused blogs will continue to be popular, they’re perfectly fit for purpose. Talk-about-whatever blogs like this one and yours Samm and, occasionally, yours Pearce, will become increasingly unusual. Unless there’s another development that integrates the blog back into the facebook/twittersphere.

    Andrew: Yeah, the LJ resurgence – I haven’t much looked for it, but I can see that it might be happening. It definitely scratches itches that other sites can reach, so to speak…

  7. I was reading this, thinking, “What about HoffSpace!?!?”

    And there it was, at the end. And I exhaled and calmed down….serenity now.

  8. Funny, I just went to the “Leon is a God” site yesterday. A workmate had been talking about Alyson Hannigan, and I felt obliged to share the “Dear Morgan, please make Leon a God” note. Don’t ever get rid of it!

  9. Oh, and agree with Repton re: access control on LJ. Facebook I say things that I don’t really mind getting out – I have work mates who are Facebook friends. Note how I never mention roleplaying or the like. LJ I feel like I can talk about anything – personal issues, etc. – and by putting it on a friends filter I can ensure some degree of control over it. Also I never link from Facebook to LJ.

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