question

[winterbadger]

Is there any reason people are setting up Dreamwidth accounts other than fear that something will happen to LJ? Do they offer some practical advantage or features that LJ doesn't?

Comments

[wolfette]

not that I can see.

I think some people are just paranoid since LJ got bought by a Russian company, so they are constantly "waiting for the other shoe to drop".

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

I agree. I have an account as I may blog other things there, or I may not, but I am sticking here because I prefer it. I see no advantage to Dreamwidth. Some people are pissed off because they think LJ is too commercial now.

I also have a Facebook page and Myspace page I never use. I also have a Wordpress blog that just deals with art related subjects. Does this make me an internet hoarder? LOL

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Quite a few people are simply cybersquatting their usernames. I know if I don't grab 'pisica', it gets snatched up by a Romanian (which is perfectly fair, of course).

The other reasons I tend to hear are:
- in case of LJ outage we all have a bolthole (because OMG what if we can't read LJ at work???1/1/?!!!)
- backup of entries
- people who want to draw pictures of Hermione Granger + Darth Vader can do it without all the getting-shut-down-and-their-LJ-wiped-out stuff.

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

It's partly the fear that something will happen to LJ, and partly that things seem to be done more nicely on dreamwidth. They've improved the LJ code in some ways, for instance splitting the "Friend" concept into separate "I want to read your blog" and "I want you to see my secret posts" settings. And they seem generally more friendly and idealistic in their aims. Here are their Guide To Dreamwidth for LiveJournal users and Guiding principles.

Since you can post to dreamwidth and just tick a box to have your post automatically posted to livejournal at the same time, I do that, so that all my new entries are in two places and thus a bit more backed up.