Why I'm looking forward to the next site after DreamWidth

[brooksmoses]

There's one important-to-me feature that's currently missing from the DreamWidth journal-site implementation, and it's missing because it's something that DreamWidth can't add until the next journaling site after them happens.

(Actually, there's one really important-to-me meta-feature of DreamWidth that can't happen until the next journaling site happens, of which this is a manifestation.)

A big thing that's important about LiveJournal is the friendspage. One page, and I can see everything my friends post, including things that they've friendslocked in ways that allow me access to read them.

Well, everything my friends post on LiveJournal. Which, up until just lately, was close enough to "everything" as to not make much difference -- but only because most everything was on LiveJournal.

Similarly, my DreamWidth friendslist will include everything friendslocked on DreamWidth, but it can't contain stuff friendslocked to my LiveJournal account. People can crosspost, but crossposting is messy and not really the right solution.

But look what happens when another journal site comes along that uses the DreamWidth code. Let's call it SleepGradient (which has a hidden meaning I'll explain in a bit). If I've got an account on SleepGradient, that gives me an OpenID, and my friends on DreamWidth can put that OpenID in their friendslist. And then SleepGradient, when I'm logged in, has all the access information it needs to go to DreamWidth and ask for posts that are friendslocked to me -- and it is a simple matter of coding for it to do that and include those posts in the friendspage that it shows me along with the SleepGradient posts. All in one page, just as if they were all part of the same overall community.

Not only is it a simple matter of coding (as opposed to a complicated matter of policy and design), but it's something that I would expect to be entirely in line with the DreamWidth vision, and something I would expect them to implement as soon as it becomes relevant.

And that makes the circle complete. With that, with a SleepGradient account, I could put people on DreamWidth in my "circle" and let them read my posts (even locked ones) and vice versa, and I could subscribe to their journals and see them in my friendspage -- even the locked posts, if they've given me access. It would no longer matter that we had accounts on separate sites.

That's the meta-feature that matters to me here. It's my hope that this exodus from LiveJournal to DreamWidth will be the last exodus that matters in this community-shuffling way for quite some time; that from DreamWidth we go into a broader cross-site journalspace where it's no longer confined to a single provider, and a friend moving from DreamWidth to SleepGradient would merely mean that I might have to update their name in my access lists, but otherwise it wouldn't affect me any more than them changing an email address would.

(And that's where the SleepGradient name comes in. Mostly it's just a riff off of DreamWidth, like a lot of the LiveJournal clone sites used. But there's a bit more, too -- see, the name of my personal website, dpdx.net, is mathematics for a pressure gradient, and "sleep" means that it's not woken up yet. So "SleepGradient" might as well refer to a hypothetical DreamWidth-codebase site that I'm running on my own computer, just for me. I really don't want to try to install and run something with this big a codebase -- but the idea that, y'know, I could if I needed to, and could still be part of the same community, is something that I think is a very big deal.)

A year ago, when the last round of serious discussons of leaving LiveJournal went around, this was what I'd envisioned as the right next step, but I had nowhere near the time to work on making it happen (save for that post). I'm really deeply pleased that I wasn't the only person with that vision, and that other people are actually making real progress towards making it happen.

Comments

[rosefox]

Actually, I think Dreamwidth is planning to show LJ posts on your DW reading page; the feature hasn't been implemented yet, but it's coming.

[brooksmoses]

Oh, good!

But I don't think they can show friendslocked LJ posts on the reading page without cooperation from LJ, or without some sort of clever hacking that requires me to give DW my LJ account login info -- the access stuff doesn't work right until LJ allows people here to list DW OpenIDs in their circle.

[rosefox]

I assume it does require LJ login info, just as crossposting does. I'm comfortable with that, though I can see why some people might not be.

[brooksmoses]

Oh, good point -- I'd forgotten that there was already precedent for letting DW log into one's LJ account with the crossposting.

I'm still looking forward to the day when this works correctly without needing hacks like that, in particular because it means that crossposting (with its complications) isn't needed, but I'm glad that there might well be a working workaround before that day arrives. Yay!

[eagle]

There are plenty of available protocols to make it work properly right now (OAuth is probably the way that works best with OpenID). The concern I have about LiveJournal in particular is that LJ really does not have a financial incentive to make that work. They're advertising-based, so they want to drive eyes to their site.

You're right that Dreamwidth is more likely to make that work. They don't have the same financial incentives.

One of the stated goals of the Dreamwidth project is to have a documented update path from the existing LJ code base, so you may not need to wait for another Dreamwidth; the existing non-LJ installs of LJ like InsaneJournal may be enough.

[shandrew.livejournal.com]

LJ has long supported reading locked posts via rss, using basic http authentication w/, which most rss readers accept in the rss url. Minimal security, but it works.

I'm not convinced that LJ's advertising revenue is anything but a blip compared to their paid sub revenue (roughly 500k paid users * $20/yr = $10M/yr). Advertising revenue on personal blogs and social networks has been a very poor business; none of LJ's competitors have earned much with ad revenue either. Their interests are to continue to satisfy paid users, though certainly the crazy new ownership could throw a wrench in that.

I think that blog hosting is a simple business like classifieds, where a less-for-profit more-for-users site like dreamwidth could evolve to be the best option. Speaking of which, anyone have an invite code for dreamwidth? :)

Andrew

[eagle]

Yup. :) Sent.

If LJ's advertising revenue is just a drop in the bucket, I don't understand why they're doing so much of it. They've taken a ton of heat for it and created the environment in which serious competitors are possible, so if they're not making much money from it, it seems like a horrible business decision.

[brooksmoses]

I'm currently out of invite codes, but their FAQ says that users can request extras, so I've put in a request for one. (With that said, you can also pay $3 to get a one-month paid account which will automatically revert to a free account at the end of the month; those don't need invite codes.)

Edit: Looks like Russ beat me to it, so I've cancelled the request. Thanks, Russ!

I hadn't realized it was possible to use http auth with RSS; that sounds reasonably useful indeed.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I don't see much of an "exodus." I see people - like me - setting up Dreamwidth accounts as insurance, but continuing to do most of their journaling right here.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

A few of my friends are cross-posting and one is keeping all her commenting on Dreamwidth -- which means I'm not bothering to click through and comment.

Unless and until there's a mass exodus of the people I know, I'm staying right there, though I have a new account set up just in case.

[cobalt-00.livejournal.com]

*blinks* I vaguely recall outrage from a year ago, but only one person I know left.
And now they're back.
Goes to show friend circles are variable, I suppose. :) Did a lot of your friends flee for different pastures? I'm going to make a note to myself to have a look at DreamWidth at some point after finals.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, this is definitely part of the grand vision - not the Dreamwidth site, but the concept. For example, country-based DWs, so people are posting according to their own national laws; and language-specific DWs (the current DW is adamantly English-only because they don't have the resources to do proper translations). And it's certainly part of why I'm there.

(I've had RSS newsfeed absorbers that could get me my LJ friends' locked posts)