liz_marcs | On Vox: Music from the Cube: What Am I Listening To Today?

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On Vox: Music from the Cube: What Am I Listening To Today?

James Hunter, People Gonna Talk Rating=$$$$$[Support the Artist]How I Got This CD: Bought on the spur of the moment while standing at the counter in the local Starbucks.Note: To stream the sample tracks, click on the thumbnail image in this...

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Sooooo. This is what a cross-post from Vox looks like. Mein gott, that is really freakin' ugly. The formatting is not only non-existent, it isn't even the whole Vox post.

Bleh.

Although access to the streaming music is nice (and certainly more legal than the downloads I've been doing), I still dislike Vox too much to do something like this on a regular basis.

And by the way, you can't "go backwards" and cross-post from El Jay to Vox. I've already checked.

God forbid they allow us to cross-post from El Jay to Vox, hunh?

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That's just ugly. O.o

Oh, yeah. Vox is only a step above MySpace in terms of navigation. In terms of posting? Dear god, it is pretty inflexible. About the only thing it does better is hosting streaming media, and that's about it.

Does Vox have a community system like LJ? I've tried to look for one, but I find the site very difficult to navigate. It's better than Myspace, but not by much, IMO.

As far as I can see? No. It doesn't.

It doesn't, yet, but they're apparently planning one. It won't make it any better, but there might at least then be a point.

But yeah; Vox=teh ugly, which considering that it's supposed to be more user friendly than the (dismally unfriendly) LJ interface, is a bit daft...

You know, I used to think LJ wasn't very user-friendly, but then I took a look around some of the other networking sites out there, and by comparison, I have to say that LJ looks pretty good. But that's just me.

Depends on how you measure it, compared to MySpace, LJ is better in many ways but people switching give up on LJ a bit. Compared to Vox, there are strengths and weaknesses. Don't use other 'network' sites except Librarything.

But compared to other blogging platforms, specifically Wordpress (both .org and .com) and blogger, LJ is confusing.

More importantly, new users find it confusing, and without new users the site dies. It's already dying.

Also, I have my own little metric of 'how easy is it for me to do what I want', and while it's got easier (Horizon and the NavBar), I still need to have links on my sidebar to get me to a few places, and even then I forget which bit of which place I need for certain tasks.

One thing Vox has got that LJ hasn't is an easy, workable search function, including by tag. I can find Vox posts about, for example, Torchwood, really easily, but LJ is a pain. Yes, they're working on it, and have a new staffer for the purpose, but it should've been done years ago.

Um, sorry, ranting a bit, apologies, I'll stop now...

How is the LJ interface "unfriendly"? I'm very curious.

LJ is the first blogging site I ever used and I found it wonderful from the start ... then I tried Blogger and it is horrid by comparison, and GreatestJournal which is a pale and weak imitation of LJ, and MySpace which wins as the worst ever (I have to visit MySpace for friends every so often and it is always pure torture). I've avoided Vox.

So not only did I find LJ user-friendly from the beginning, it shines even more by comparison to anything else I've seen out there. Even when they make the, er, "improvements" they've been doing lately. Still the best, IMO.

Hwh just answered some of this in the above; I really like the wordpress interface, and have always found blogger easy to navigate and find stuff.

Yes, it hasn't got half the functionality, but I can always find the stuff it can do. With LJ, I still get lost regularly. And new/less geeky users find it really difficult at times, number of times I've talked someone through something that should be easy is a pain in the arse.

Bear in mind you've been here for more than 3 years, so LJ is what you're specifically used to, so you compare other sites to it. New users are trying to do things compared to what they've found elsewhere already, and LJ is a bit clunky.

According to

raheeli, some of the metrics for task completion rates are horrible, worse than I'd have predicted, and I'm a doom merchant.

Also, LJs usage and userbase are both shrinking, in a bad way, they need to make the site more welcoming.

I'm completely with you on MySpace, hate hate hate. But, unfortunately, it's popular, despite being crap. My MP has a MySpace FFS.

Rather than ramble; what was user friendly 31/2 years ago isn't compared to now. LJ is competing with so many other platforms, and users expect the height of ease of use. delicious pointed me right at a browser plugin when I signed up, I find flickr easy to trawl around even without an account. New users expect sites to be that easy. LJ, for a lot, isn't. Not for me, but for a lot of others, including a few of my personal friends (I had to show one how to add friends recently, he had no idea what they were for).

Mmmm ... I see what you mean. I think part of it is I visited LJ for awhile, reading different journals here, commented as "anonymous," and read through the entire FAQ before even signing up in the first place, so I dedicated a good chunk of time to becoming familiar with it. And I still discover/learn new things, years later (but I also was absent for most of nearly 2 years, so I haven't regularly been using my LJ as long as I've had it).

But I can see it's more common for people to want to just dive in without all that research. LJ can be intimidating at first.

However, Blogger/Blogspot is nowhere near as good for interaction. I've found comments are not regularly emailed, and comments-to-comments aren't emailed at all ... it's practically impossible to actually hold a real interactive conversation there, whereas it's so easy to do on LJ. To me, Blogger seems far more like a "pulpit," but I'm looking for ongoing interaction with people!

Oh, compared to blogger, LJ wins for interaction. But for ease of use in terms of the person running the blog, Blogger can be much easier to figure things out. I completely redesigned my layout at blogger with very few issues; I'm still using a default LJ with my own CSS, as I simply can't get my head around layers &c.

LJ is very (very) good for interaction once you know what you're doing, but the learning curve is steep, and most rarely if ever look at the FAQ (you freak ;-) ). Even if they do, it's frequently outdated, unclear or simply not telling people what they want to know, the 'getting started' bits simply aren't there, although the new account/first post thing is an improvement.

Blogger=very pulpit like, and I've now dumped it for most and will bump it for all my sites soon. Wordpress is simply much better for what blogger does, and can be as good for what LJ does, nearly. The bits missing we'll get to eventually.

Well, I haven't even checked Wordpress yet. You've intrigued me.

I also love the ability one has at LJ to make posts private or friends-only, and even make special filters. Far as I know, no other site has that.

I admit it, I'm kind of a freak. I thought it was *fun* learning everything about LJ, and I still go read the FAQs every so often ~ although you are right, often they don't seem to have the stuff I need to know. Then I get even more freakish and google up stuff about HTML and obscure LiveJournal tips & tricks trying to figure stuff out!

I can see where they need to make it easier, but I hope LJ doesn't go away or lose the features that make some of us love it. (Then I guess we'll all have to move to Wordpress, eh?)

For Wordpress, you can try the basic version at wordpress.com, but an install on your own server gives a lot more functionality.

Vox has filtering for friends/family and neighbourhood, and I'm told MySpace has some filters but I've never tried to use them. However, we're working on a full port for all LJ functionality at

lj2wordpress, I'll be installing my test version within the next few weeks as I plan to decamp for most of my writing.

I'm actually pretty sure that LJ/6A is doomed as we know it, but I hold out hope they'll turn things around (recent comments from peopl esuch as

rahaeli,

anildash and

brad lead me to think all is not lost.

But regardless, the data server, with no back ups, is located the wrond side of one of the dodgiest faultines in the world. An alternative that's portable to any server is pretty much essential just because even if 6A stop sucking, nature isn't on their side.

Besides, this l'il anarchist likes the idea of a completely decentralised model...

Nice!

I nosed around the on the online tour and the site a bit. I kind of like the idea of importing LJ posts there, but I'll have to read up on how to do it. I double-love the fact that you can upload files there as well.

Also, it appears that Community Blogs are an option as are various levels of locks.

I think the private server option is just a leeeeeetle bit too much for me, though. I don't need that much flexibility.

I doubt I'll be jumping the LJ ship, but I've been trying to find a decent place to backup this LJ "just in case." I haven't been terrifically happy with GJ (even though much of the coding is the same) and Vox is a pain in the arse to use.

Best of all (Woo-HOO!) I've locked in my name there.

I'll try it for mirroring music posts and see how it goes.

First, I've got to figure out how to use it.

I'll look forward to what you cook up for an import

Eye, the locking name in thing was the main appeal at first, but it's just so much better overall. The friends viewer beta is pretty good as well, and inviting new users in looks straightforward.

Unfortunately, no extra plugins, WP plugins can get a bit adddictive, I've been collecting them for ages. I'll be posting lots about it when it's ready to go, dinnae worry.

And I can't figure out when I posted a reply whether it went to you or not. :-(

Bah! The comment threading is sorely missed.

Agreed, and it doesn't notify; you can subscribe via email somewhere, and there's a bit in the admin panel about your recent comments around the site, it's not as good.

Which is why I'm working on a server based install, there are plugins for threading, and there's also one for email notification, just haven't installed them yet. Keep talking online rather than actually doing any work...

I do somewhat agree with the idea that LJ is not easiest to use, but I don't think it's the hardest to use, either. I thought most of the stuff I saw when I first joined was fairly intuitive (i.e., friending, memories, using the LJseek button, etc.). I'd put it somewhere in the middle as far as difficulty of use for networking sites.

Now, let me be honest: My experiences are somewhat scattered. When blogging first, first was getting started as an app, but before you had a critical mass of people online who were doing it, I tried Blogger (pre-Google buy-out) and one other (the name escapes me). I also took a taste of MySpace roughly around the time I got this LJ (GAH! Run away!). Currently, the networking sites I use are LJ, and LJ-like sites (as in they use the old LJ code) GreatestJournal and JournalFen. The other networking sites are Vox (good for multi-media, not very flexible for anything else) and LastFM (which allows blogging even though that's not the feature I use and is specifically designed for one purpose).

What I like about LJ is it's flexibility. I can go in, grab a basic template, and then tweak it (colors, pixel size, link text, sizes of sidebars and main posting, etc.) fairly easily. Or at least I think so.

I wonder how much of it might be a "generational" thing. I was banging around the Internet when it was Windows 3.1 and no WWW, so reading FAQs is something I do automatically. If I want to do something, I go check the FAQ. On that front, I think LJs FAQ is actually pretty good and easy to follow. The problem is finding the FAQ since there's no direct link to it with Horizon. You kind of have to dig a little to find it which is a pain in the ass. So I can't blame people when they actually don't know how to do something like an LJ-cut or an LJ name. However, there's no getting around that a lot of people won't read the FAQ to figure out how to do something, and right there is a problem (admittedly).

But Vox? Definitely not the way to go. I, for one, don't love the ads. I manage to screen quite a lot of them because I've got Firefox, but I still get the "Amazon recommends" links which drives me batshit insane. I'm willing to pay to make those ads go away.

As for searching, I agree the LJ search interface sucks the big one. The way around that is to go to LJSeek (via the Spyglass icon on the User Info page), change the parameters from searching just your LJ to searching all, and type in the search terms. The drawback is that if someone doesn't allow Spiders on their LJ (even if they don't friendslock their LJ), they're "invisible" to LJSeek, so no. It's not as good a solution as improving the internal LJ search interface. I'm not sure if allowing Spiders is an opt-in or opt-out (I think it's opt-in), but I do know that an awful lot of people don't allow Spiders. What that percentage is, I can't tell you.

My biggest complaint with LJ is that it's difficult to find out what all the features actually are. If you're not a FAQ whore like me (and even then I check when I'm trying to find out what I can and can't do), or if you don't belong to

news, or if you're not willing to play around with your settings, finding out the features is an impossible task. So, yeah, that definitely could use some work.

I'm simply not sure how you'd fix it, though.

The drawback is that if someone doesn't allow Spiders on their LJ (even if they don't friendslock their LJ), they're "invisible" to LJSeek, so no.

D'oh! That explains why LJSeek never worked for me even though I kept my journal public for a long time ... I did deliberately choose No Spiders.

I hate the Horizon view. That scrolling up to page top or down to page bottom to find links? UGH! Up until they made Horizon the default I was perfectly happy with XColibur, then in all the angry conversation about Horizon I saw many people recommend Dystopia ... after a week trying to adjust to Horizon I switched to Dystopia and loved it. Still love it. Many more links on the sidebar, much easier to get to information ~ it's less of a hunt.

Regarding

news, new members are automatically assigned that comm ~ I was when I joined ~ and now

lj_maintenance and

tipoftheday are automatically assigned as well.

insomnia had an interesting post on LJ stats. It doesn't look at all good.

However, it's just focused on LJ, with some mention that online blogging as a whole will be declining over time for various reasons.

It's an interesting read, though.

Aye, he crossposted it to

no_lj_ads, and it saved me compiling the same figures. His figures, and a few other sources, show LJ is declining both in total numbers and in market share. Alexa, weirdly, shows a massive spike 13 months ago that I can't explain other than potentially a plugin becoming available popular with LJers, other similar sites show no such spike.

But the Gartner studies are mostly bull, showing 'abandoned' blogs as people stopping blogging (I have at least 6 that would count as abandoned by their metrics, two of which have been transferred elsewhere, the rest are simply me registering my username).

Combing a reply to your other comment, if you're using Horizon, look down; FAQ and site links are at the bottom, the links at the top are for the end user to use their journal easily, the bottom stuff is for help/support/LJ stuff. And online FAQs are definatly not commonly read these days, I tend to refer to them, but people new to the web don't.

I think FAQs were a usenet thing that carried over, but now September doesn't end you need to spoon feed people. My big gripe with Vos is it's LJ lite, but apparently they're working on interfacing the two, soon you'll be able to 'friend' a vox, have it on yout friends page and the user can read your FO stuff (combing the feed and OpenID login), but that's not going as quickly as hoped (and it took a bit of hassling to get it considered in the first place).

They should've simply launched Vox as a different LJ entry point and given all the features to both sites, but that would've been clever...

Re LJ searching, I love Wordpress for the search functionality, and it can search everything if need be. You should be able to use an LJ search box to search your journal, or a friends, for anything you can see, regardless of whether spiders are enabled or not.

I, naturally, have my public posts fully searchable, I've made a few LJ friends through google searches (mostly citation search but one person found me via a google search for LJ vs MySpace...)

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On Vox: Music from the Cube: What Am I Listening To Today?

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