[LMB] (news) my new blog

[Azalais Aranxta]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007, Lois McMaster Bujold wrote:

> For people who have been living under a rock for the past five
> years -- that would be, um, me -- can someone explain blogspace
> generally, and what the objection is to MySpace particularly?

MySpace is designed for "social networking".  Teenagers and
college students use it a lot to hook up.  However, it's also
used a lot by musicians to promote their work and their shows,
which is probably why whoever set this up for you thought it
would be a good idea.

The problem with MySpace is that the way it's set up is just not
friendly to people much over the age of 25.  The graphics are
ugly and loud, and the site is designed for you to conduct your
social life there.

Other services such as Live Journal or Vox are more user-friendly
to people aged 30+ (though many teens and tweens use LJ).
LiveJournal has less of an emphasis on getting together with
people and how many friends you have and what they have to say
about you and more of an emphasis on what you have to say (the
blog part of a MySpace can sometimes be tiny to nonexistent).  If
you need help setting up an LJ, I am very experienced at doing it
because I own over 100 of them that are used in a 300+ character,
273 and counting journal RPG, and would be happy to set up an
account for you or help you to set it up.

Vox is even easier to set up and you can link to book and other
media content at Amazon.com.  You can RSS feed it to LJ.

The thing about LJ is that it is very, very popular with SF fans
and fandom.  It is used as a fic archive, a roleplaying mechanis,
etc.  If you use LJ you will almost certainly either want to use
it under a pseudonym or be prepared to have 2000+ friends that
you will not necessarily want to friend back.  Like, in a week.

(Vox and LJ both allow you to filter content so that only people
you think you can trust can access it.)

There is also a service called journalfen which is designed for
media fans, but it does not allow users under 18 and is largely
inhabited by people who get their kicks from humiliating others
in public and airing dirty laundry in public, so I don't
recommend it.  It uses the LJ code.

~malfoy :)

****************************************************************
Azalais Aranxta (~malfoy)
ataniell93 on LiveJournal and Vox
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/malfoymadness

"I know the true world, and you know I do. But we needn't let it
think we all bow down." --Christopher Morley