Happy face/Sad face

[birdienl]

I'm happy... because today I met author Julie Klassen, who was on a promotion tour for her newest book in The Netherlands. I wrote a review about her second novel The Apothecary's Daughter [Poll #1867853]

Comments

[crazymaryt.livejournal.com]

I will say Tumblr is nice but I like LJ because you get to be more selective about who you get to talk to.

[ces-1.livejournal.com]

I still haven't figured out how tumblr works :o I'm sticking with LJ as long as it's here, but yes I've noticed the trend. A lot of landcomms closing as well. And I don't know, maybe because we "grown" up, have lives that takes over, the fandom dynamic changed somehow?

I know I'm not as active due to I'm exhausted in the evening after I'm home from work, which takes teh fun out of everything :(

It's a shame though, but things can't stay the same way forever.

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

You're right probably, but I would like to write more book/movie reviews, which I think is rather grown-up!

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

So glad you had such a nice time with a good author!

Tumblr is fun, but not really great for conversations. If that's what you want, you'd do better with a blogging platform. There are still quite a few blogs doing very well.

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

I'm leaning more towards a blog indeed, I'm already following a few, making a blogging account should make that easier as well.

[moonreviews]

Whatever I try, I cannot post comments to Blogger! So please don't move there, or I'll be emailing you my comments all the time :P Same with tumblr.

Dreamwidth is getting more active, many people from LJ are moving there, and you can still crosspost to LJ automatically. It's nice that you can also friends-lock entries, same as on LJ.

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

I'll have a look at Dreamwidth then!

Even if I went to blogger, I would still crosspost to LJ, so you can comment!

[epea-pteroenta.livejournal.com]

Tumblr has its advantages and disadvantages. Its advantages are that it's very active, it's easy to respond to comments - IDK, I'm more likely to reply to an ask on tumblr than to remember to reply to comments on LJ but that might just be me. Searching for things is good and it's much more open than LJ. Yeah, it's good.

Drawbacks are: no way to limit your posts to certain groups; it's all public. Not a great place for discussion because you end up just reblogging the same post over and over again with more comments added. However it does work work for discussion because everything appears on your dashboard so you don't have to keep going to a particular thread to find it. When it appears, you reply. I find that easier. The ask system is a terrible PM system. It's much more of a popularity contest than LJ - everyone can see how many notes something you post gets and it cane be hard to avoid comparisons and seeing the idiots in a fandom.

It's certainly addictive though...

[ladyadeone.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's allll right. I love your icon, btw!

birdienl, if I had to choose I'd say tumblr, because I have one, but I'm personally not quite ready to give up LJ yet!

[msantimacassar.livejournal.com]

How fun! That is so cool that you got to meet her!!

I feel bad about LJ being so quiet too... It seems so empty now! But then, it's never been very active in the time I've been here. I really love Tumblr, but it's not the same. (And the people are seriously annoying most of the time.) I would perhaps try both and see what happens...

Whatever you decide to do I'm glad we will be able to stay in touch!

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

It is indeed quite empty, I've read my f-list in half an hour...

Yes, I'm going to make sure we stay in touch!

[msantimacassar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, just a lot of icon posts...

Very good :)

[richyl88.livejournal.com]

I'm not really sure what to answer,Tumblr is fun but there is not that personal connection like here.

[florencia7.livejournal.com]

I still like LJ best but I just suffer from the lack of time overall :[ I hope that regardless of joining other sites you'll still keep posting here ♥

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'll make sure I crosspost!

[mystery-spell.livejournal.com]

I have also noticed the downturn in the popularity of LJ. It's disappointing, but these things happen. Look at MySpace, for example. I have a tumblr (mysteryspell) and a blogspot account as well.

[ever-maedhros.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely with you about how sadly quiet LJ is. I'm on tumblr as well as LJ, and how much interaction you get on tumblr really just depends on you and the people that share your interests. I don't talk to a whole lot of people there--but then I'm also I little shy of just spamming people's ask or message boxes. (That's pretty much your only way to comment, aside from adding text in your reblog posts.)

I think you should try out tumblr and/or blogger for a bit. Can't hurt, can it? (I have both a Tumblr and an LJ, and I'm happy with that. :D Oh, I almost forgot--I also have a blogger account, but I don't do much with it, because LJ and Tumblr take up so much time. LOL!)

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your answer! I've already heard from quite a few people that Tumblr is not really great for talking, so I'll probably skip that for now, but I'm really leaning towards a blogging platform (in combination with LJ ofcourse!)

[spally.livejournal.com]

Maybe a tumblr and an LJ? I don't want you to leave, but I understand the quietness. I have been on LJ for nearly 9 years now and it's gone through a couple of cycles of activity and quietness as different fandoms have surged and died down and as people's lives have changed. I've found that if you want to stick around live journal for a long time and keep interacting with people, you need to be doing at least one of these things:

1. Be proactive in seeking out new LJ communities, especially as the present ones wind down.
2. Be content with prolonged quiet periods.
3. Engage with people on Tumblr, Wordpress and Blogger while still using your LJ.

I'll miss you if you stop posting here, but also I very much understand! :)

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

9 years! So you really know a thing or two about LJ!

Thanks for your tips, I'll take them to heart! And I'll not be leaving LJ, even if I open up an account somewhere else, for now, I still love LJ too much!

[caffeinatedlife.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's sad that LJ has become more and more quiet. Most of the friends I used to chat to maybe three years ago have all left and now I either keep in touch with them through other sites (Twitter, Facebook) or not at all.

I have Tumblr but I personally don't know how people can use it to blog like, serious stuff and converse with friends (I haven't exactly conversed much with the people I follow because it messes up my system of what I reblog (if that makes any sense; I find it difficult to organise my stuff over there)). There's no privacy to it. I use mine mainly for reblogging fandom-related stuff and pretty photography =)

Anyways I voted for "Something else"--if you're thinking of switching blogs, what about Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.com)? I find it nicer than Blogger personally as a platform with a lot more layout styles and more control with your content (unless the Blogger platform has changed in the past two years).

Dunno if that helps at all with the decision-making, you could always just open accounts with all of them and see what works best for you =) (and then let us know so that we can follow you ;))

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for your answer!

Actually, I didn't specifically mean Blogger as opposed to Wordpress, but just, a blogging platform in general. But I'll definitely check out Wordpress then! Does Wordpress allow you to follow blogs and comment on blogs from other platforms as well?

[caffeinatedlife.livejournal.com]

Ahh, thanks for the clarification! I read it as Blogger and that was that lol =P

I haven't really played around with my wordpress.com account but it doesn't look like it can follow blogs from other platforms. However, I think you can comment on blogs of other platforms (Blogger as far as I know has this option) using your wordpress account if the person's blog enabled this option.

Also, in answer to your other question, yeah feel free to ask me and I'll do my best to help out =)

Have you decided yet what you're going to do or are you still shopping around? There's a lot of options out there, it's hard to decide sometimes xP

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

I've more or less decided to have a Wordpress blog next to my LJ. Now I just have to find the time to actually dó it....

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

I forgot to ask: if I dó open an account on a blogging platform, could you perhaps help me with some tips about the technical side of things? I know you also have a way of cross-posting your blog posts to LJ, I'm very interested in that.

[plumeriandeity.livejournal.com]

Hello! I'm here! I've just been really lazy. I keep meaning to come online and then I never do. (I've also been reading "A Song of Ice and Fire" and it's been so addicting that I haven't made time for anything else).

[plumeriandeity.livejournal.com]

I mean that I keep meaning to come post on LJ and then I never do. Today's been a marathon LJ catchup session. Been meaning to post on Doctor Who and Downton, 'cos I finally have caught up on the seasons!

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

I know and I totally understand. Real life (or reading/watching shows) can be totally absorbing!

[amaranthine3.livejournal.com]

It's so lovely that you could meet Julie Klassen and had such nice time at the bookstore!

And about lj, I sadly agree with you and that's mainly the reason why I took part in friending meme - to meet new people who still use lj. And it's sad because so many amazing people suddenly stopped posting and I can't talk with them so often. I hope hat you will still update your journal here, since we've just met ;) But if you want to move, I think it depends on what you'd like to post. For me, tumblr is really diverse - you get a bit of everything there and it's fun, but it's a bit harder to post longer rants and for other people to reply, because they would have to reblog your posts. Then on the other hand, if you'd like to post for example book reviews and other posts, blogger is really great for it. I know many people who have thei blogs there and it's easy to interact with other bloggers :)

[rissi jc (from livejournal.com)]

I've read a couple of Julie's novels but they didn't "grab" me like other historical fiction has. That's really neat that you met her! CONGRATS! :-)

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

He Rissi, how nice of you to drop by!!

I just really love the historical time period Julie Klassen sets her novels is, it's rather rare to find Christian novels written about the Regency period. I think not all her novels are equally good (you could click on my review of The Apothecary's Daughter), but as an author, she certainly has promise!