Online Journals: Assessing Livejournal.Com

For most people, Livejournal is just another blog site. By definition, a blog is a public web log and Livejournal isn't truly public. Livejournal is an online journal service that promotes user interaction. Livejournal, unlike a traditional blog, allows a user to post their thoughts to different security levels. A single post can be public, locked to friends only, set to a custom group of friends or just private. Traditional blogs allow published or unpublished, with few allowing for registered user viewing.

Most blog software have public or private only, which makes Livejournal one of the few sites to offer more than just your ordinary blog. Livejournal allows the user to be more open and share things that they wouldn't normally share on a public blog. The majority of Livejournal users use their journal as an online diary, sharing more of themselves. They use their Livejournal as an actual journal, allowing the reader, their chosen readers, a glimpse inside of who they are. Bloggers, on the other hand, find a niche, be it sports, technology, politics, or religion, and that is the focus of every post. Is that a bad thing? No, it just sets Livejournal apart from traditional blogs more.

With Livejournal's highly customizable and user friendly set up, it allows the user to be able to set up a nice looking site without having to know how to write the code to it..Livejournal also affords those without the means to host their own domain and software, a place to make their voices heard. Can you find that with other blog software and sites? Yes you can, but unlike a blog, Livejournal is a community of friends and families sharing themselves with others who share the same interests without opening themselves to the entire world. Livejournal sets itself apart with their sense of community. Could you get that at other sites, sites for social networking, but again, Livejournal is not a social networking site, they are a journal site. A site that was built for people to share their thoughts and feelings within their chosen community.

Livejournal draws together those who share similar interests, have similar goals, have had similar life struggles, forging strong bonds between it's users. They haven't done this through a dating scheme, nor a social networking scheme, they have done it by giving it's users a safe space to share a part of themselves that they wouldn't share anywhere else. Could you call Livejournal a social networking site? Sure you could, but it was around before social networking sites were big. Could you call Livejournal a blog? Sure you could, because by definition, it can be used as a traditional blog. No one is saying that it's not either of those things. What is being said is that Livejournal is more than just a blog, more than just a social networking site. Livejournal embraces both of those ideas and puts them together in a safe space for one to share the things they wouldn't share elsewhere.