On a whim today I decided to cross-post all the Livejournal entries to my thus-far unused Blogger account so that they would should up in Google Buzz. I love getting new readers. I've never given it much thought before, but it occurs to me just how much I love blogging. It appeals to so many things in my nature that it has become a very important part of my life.
First of all, I love writing. I have tried my hand at writing many different things, from plays to larps to stories to films to poetry to comics. I get an enormous rush from writing something and then setting it loose for people to experience. The trouble is that it can take an enormous amount of time and effort to get a piece to the point where someone can consume it. The amount of work and the time delay between the effort and the payoff of completion and audience reaction can be pretty huge sometimes. But with my online journal I can generate a substantial and (sometimes at least) interesting entry in a fairly short amount of time, and post it for my friends to read almost immediately after I'm done. Blogging is an easy source of that rush I get from my writing being read. I don't even need people to comment on the entries or anything, though it's nice, because I just like knowing that someone is reading. For this reason I've become something of a content-generation junkie. I usually produce at least two Livejournal entries a day. I find the more I write, the more people frequent the journal because they expect a reliable stream of new content.
I was delighted when the site instituted the stats page that lets you see how many hits the various parts of your journal have gotten and the people who have visisted, at least for paid members anyway. I recently arranged to have my entries cross-posted to my Facebook page, which honestly is the first truly useful thing Facebook has ever done for me. I think it's brought in a lot more new readers. I have checked my hit counters, and there's been a noticeable increase in visits since I started the cross-posting. This plan backfired once, as one person early on took offense to a particular entry, but overall I'm pleased with the results.
Also, being part of a network of Livejournal friends means I have lots of neat and interesting stuff to read, updated on a nicely regular basis. I am a voracious reader, but I usually need some kind of "hook" of some kind of make me interested in reading anything in particular; if that hook is absent I often have a hard time getting into things. The fact that the writing comes from my friends (people I'm already interested in hearing from) means I am automatically drawn into the things they say about their lives and their thoughts. This reason has also gotten me following and even casually using Google Buzz, despite my steadfast refusal to try Twitter, mostly because it's right there in my mail client, but the shallowness of that sort of content doesn't quite satisfy the need with me. I far prefer blog entries. I have bullied/convinced/inspired/whatever a number of people into getting Livejournals of their own (including crearespero*, dendron_ges*, katiescarlett29*, and nennivian*) for the reason of having more interesting people generating content for me to read. Unfortunately it means I tend to stalk my friends page, refreshing constantly in the hopes that something new has been posted. I also like how the interconnectedness of journals on this site makes it easy to follow what people are writing, and by extension what they're thinking and what's happening in their lives.
I like Livejournal better than any other blogging platform. I love the privacy settings, the way it connects to your friends, the user icon system, the in-entry user tagging, everything. My messing around with Blogger today didn't leave me very impressed. I had a Xanga for a while, which imitates LJ in a lot of ways, but again, it wasn't as omni-capable or in possession of as many little features that I enjoyed. I just feel like I have so much more capability and specificity in the functionality of LJ.
Livejournal has brought me a great deal of enjoyment over the last several years. I'm really glad such a service exists.
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