Blog Platform Review – LiveJournal

LiveJournal is a hosted blog solution from SixApart, the same company that also provides TypePad, Movable Type, and a new offering called Vox. SixApart???s web site indicates the focus ??? TypePad and Movable Type being offered for professional and business blogging, Vox for personal blogs ??? and LiveJournal for a community of bloggers.

Not surprisingly, the key highlight of LiveJournal is the ability to form and manage a community of blogs; people who choose to blog on a common set of topics, or share a common background or interests. Whether it???s based on being from the same school, living in the same town ??? or finding new friends around the world, sharing an interest, LiveJournal offers a way to knit your blogs together in a shared space.

Signing up

LiveJournal offers 3 levels of service ??? two free, and one paid option. The basic free service has limited features, but doesn???t have advertising; the plus featured free version requires ads to be placed on the blog.

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Unlike Xanga where the ad position is fixed, LiveJournal allows you to choose whether top and bottom, sides, or between posts; you also have the option of choosing the categories of ads that you???d prefer to show on your blog.

Signing up is straightforward; you enter a username and your email id, and get an email to activate your account. Once activated, you can modify your profile, and start posting. The test blog we created is at http://2cworth.livejournal.com/.

Posting and editing

Once logged in, the menu offers a variety of choices; the Journal link brings a pull down menu to access posting, editing and customization options. The default edit screen is a text editor; Rich Text and HTML options are also available. The edit screen also has options to add tags, indicate your mood and music choices, as well as whether to allow viewing and commenting to the public at large.

LiveJournal also allows customization of the look and feel; there are 24 choices of themes that can be used. Several external sites also offer themes for LiveJournal. However, some of the themes can only be used with the paid option. You can also customize the style sheet and the fonts through the customization screen.

In addition to the browser based update, LiveJournal also offers email-based, Internet Messaging based updates, plus audio. There???s also a Text Message based update possible from your mobile phone; however, this is currently available to US based members only.

Social Features

In keeping with the community oriented nature of LiveJournal, there are several features that allow for social networking. The starting point is the Profile, where you can list your interests and affiliations, to provide more information about yourself. LiveJournal offers an internal messaging system to enable private email style messaging.

You can choose ???Friends??? from the LiveJournal members; similar to blogrolling, but within the LiveJournal community. You can invite others to become friends, or invite your friends to join LiveJournal.

But by far, the ???community??? option provides the greatest interaction. A community is similar to a group blog, in that any of the community members can contribute to the shared space; the creator of the community has the option to grant or restrict rights to the members, and to have additional administrators / moderators to help direct the community. Take a look at 100poems, or badwriters; different people, coming together, to create a shared experience for themselves and others.

Unlike Blogger or Wordpress, where you can engage with anyone outside, LiveJournal is more of a closed community; while you can link to external sites, some of the functionality related to trackbacks and blog style discussion isn???t available. The focus is more on smaller, closer knit internal communities as opposed to the free for all that general blogging provides. Nevertheless, for personal blogging, and where your preference is for closer interaction than for the public stage, LiveJournal is a good option.

Conclusion

LiveJournal, as one of the older blogging platforms, has a sizeable number of users ??? some estimates put it around 2 million or more. With a robust set of features, aimed at fostering small community linkages, LiveJournal attracts a particular type of member, providing a small town-like atmosphere amid the hurly burly of a flat world.

This is an ideal platform for small, non-commercial groups; those seeking to attract a wide audience or to incorporate commercial elements,?? are better off looking elsewhere.