Vox: the Milton Keynes of social network sites.

[reddragdiva]

I'm sure I'll use this even more than my DeadJournal. Rather than LiveJournal for grownups (with ads), it appears to want to be MySpace for grownups (with as many ads; here's to FlashBlock). The median mean age of paid users on LiveJournal is thirty-one, so Vox must be aiming for the Daily Mail set.

(By the way, it doesn't appear to accept entered HTML; you have to use the clicky buttons for formatting. So much for writing offline.)

LiveJournal is a mediocre blogging engine; its entire secret sauce is the network effect, which is the only reason everyone didn't just get up and leave with the silly shit SixApart have been pulling of late. Note also that LJ grew organically rather than being planned that way. Vox appears to be an attempt to synthesise the effect. The Milton Keynes of social network sites.

If someone could tell me something Vox can do that the others can't, I'm all ears.

Edit: * I can't find that statistic, dammit. Anyone? Edit 2: beckyzoole, here.

Comments

[vampwillow]

"If someone could tell me something Vox can do that the others can't, I'm all ears"

ok bunny, Vox has ... adverts.

(how come you have one, anyway ...)

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

The median age of paid users on LiveJournal is thirty, so I expect Vox is aiming for the Daily Mail set.

I don't know, aren't Daily Mail readers still convinced that the Internet is a dangerous and immoral place with pedophiles lurking in every corner? Just look at what happens on MySpace!

[secretlondon.livejournal.com]

I think he meant Daily Mail readers as in the still-not-dead-yet but critical thinking is long gone..

[shadowdaddy.livejournal.com]

I'll take this opportunity to point out that OKCupid now has blogging capacity, too...and it's not perfect, but seems "not bad." Friends lists, comments, etc. It seems brand-spanking-new, so will be interesting to see if it takes off.

I haven't looked too closely at vox, but from what I recall seeing it did smack of myspace, which I for one despise with all the passion in my soul. I find the community aspects of LJ to be far superior than pretty much anything else I've come across. My company is looking into upgrading from a stock phpBB forum to some greater 'social networking' package, and I'm seriously considering pitching the LJ engine as a solution.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

If you can invite people, or whatever they want to call it, could you throw one my way?

[reddragdiva]

I can't find such a mechanism. I think you need to go to their signup page and wait for them to release more accounts.

[reddragdiva]

Actually, I got two invitations. (The 'Admit One' ticket graphic is the essence of cheese.) Sent one to your LJ email.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Quite. I daresay MK would be lovely if all your chums were there and in similar pushbike-range to the nice shops, nice work and nice pub with the nice goth-nite where the nice beer was... Oh God I can't go on.

I think Vox is Geocities with a hat on.

LJ's only rubbish at the sort of 'blogging' that assumes an Alligator Station and requires the backup of Quicktopic and technorati (et al) to tie stuff back together. I've seen 'mainstream bloggers' bang on about 'conversations' a lot. Where the hell are they? I just see blogger-1 have a pontificate, followed (for very small values of 'follow') by blogger-2 having a different pontificate that references the first.

'Conversation' my arse.

LJ is the only tool that gets it mostly right, because you've threads and some measure of control. Witness the Guardian getting it maximally wrong. A very fine upgrade for LJ would be the ability to promote comments on a post to 'front page' status, rather than them being always subordinate. You'd get a lot more interaction exactly like this, for a kick-off. Though it would 'this is what I have to say' model somewhat.

What on earth is it about this stuff that's so hard to understand?

[reddragdiva]

I frequently take a comment of mine elsewhere and make an entry of it (that's where a lot of my one-liners come from), though that doesn't pull the original comments in with it.

[reddragdiva]

The things LJ lack include trackbacks, access to your referer logs (though when someone provides the same effect through custom mood icons or LJToys., people are up in arms) and the other stuff you'd get running a blog on your own server.

I mean, what you do on Libeljournal could be done here.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed it could. However, I wanted to have a play with MT and libeljournal is (was, I suspect) an entirely different part of my head talking. There are/were regular times when I just want(ed) to dump some images and text somewhere and not be asked what it meant. The stuff there just was, and interpretation was up to the individual. I'm not terribly interested in explaining the 'correct' interpretation, though I am always fascinated by other people's versions of what was going on.

For that specific purpose, LJ was (mentally) a bad fit.

Libeljournal is/was a playroom for a slightly damaged psyche. Jansky noise from my subconscious.

Trackbacks, I think, are a bodge-up (and now spam-conduit) in the same vein as technorati. The rest just get in the way. Hell, if you want to know who's got you off default_view, host an image and wait a couple of days. I know exactly who reads my malarkey and it's quite a small percentage of the total F-L. However, the people who do pay attention are The Quality, so I really don't give a bugger.

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

The multimedia organization is better thought out (I hate, hate, HATE scrapbook.) Other than that? I dunno. We shall see.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I'm not touching anything for which you require an invite with a barge pole. I spend enough time at work feeling like I'm in high school, I don't need it from my blogging providers.

[wintrmute.livejournal.com]

uh, didn't LJ require invites, up until relatively recently? (well, a year or so ago?)

[reddragdiva]

No, you could use either (a) invites or (b) money.

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

So like all the best parties, you could buy your way in.

[hawkeviper.livejournal.com]

Age demographics of LJ can be found @ http://www.livejournal.com/stats.bml

[reddragdiva]

Yeah. But (a) it no longer lists paid users separately (b) it doesn't have the paid user age statistics.

[reddragdiva]

What I was referring to was something someone worked out from a sample of paid users and was publicising in an attempt to get SixApart to stop being quite so dickish.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

That would be me (http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/228496.html).

Caution, it was just one small sample. But it certainly fits the anecdotal evidence as well.

[reddragdiva]

Ahahaha, thank you!