It's an interesting commentary on LJ...

[hrj]

…that my "user information" indicates that 226 people list my journal as a "friend" but even in my recent burst of activity for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project, the maximum number of unique LJ-user views I've gotten on any particular day was 14. On that same day, I had 25 unique non-LJ visitors. (I plaster links to this series all over: fb, twitter.) On the average, I've had 20 unique visitors total each of the 15 days I've posted LHMP entries. This compares with an average of 29 unique visitors daily for a 10 day period in May starting with my first Kalamazoo postings (though some of the traffic at the end of that period was for several writing-related entries). The main thing that all this says to me is that if I were to move my blogging to a different platform, it would have very little impact on my readership. One of the worries I've had about, say, setting up a blog on my alpennia.com site (which is still very much in larval form) has been that I'd lose readers who couldn't be bothered to follow me over there. But the LJ stats show that the majority of my readers aren't reading my through LJ accounts. (On some days, as few as 10% of my readers are through LJ and the rate is always below 50%.)

So here's a question: is there anyone out there who is currently reading me regularly through LJ who would not be willing or able to follow me on a separate blog (presumably one with RSS capability, and where I'd be providing links in fb and twitter)? LJ has essentially lost its usefulness as a community-building or community-maintaining tool. I suspect a lot of those 200+ accounts still listed as following me are leftovers from people who have long since drifted away. On the other hand, I don't see myself stopping reading my friends-list here because there are a number of very good friends who still post regularly. So I'm dithering.

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to trundle along to RSS feed blog places, so long as there's still a way to comment. One of the reasons I still cling to LJ is that, despite some of the weirder changes, it's still the easiest place to leave comments, have conversations, and read other conversations clearly. Twitter makes it difficult, especially as the conversation gets longer; Tumblr makes it damn near impossible. But I know a lot of standard blogging services make it work just fine.

[stitchwhich.livejournal.com]

Same with me. I've not read your recent entries as extensively as I would normally, but I'd only be one extra person in your count.

I really appreciate my friends-list friends who, after they move on to another blogging platform, provide some method to continue reading their entries via LiveJournal. I've a friend using wordpress who manages to have her blog entries just show up in my reading list - and we can reply on LJ or at her blog page.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I probably wouldn't follow on a different platform.

[irinarempt.pip.verisignlabs.com (from livejournal.com)]

I'd actually prefer to read you anywhere else than LJ. I'm not willing to follow to facebook, but a standalone blog would be splendid. I'm reading the RSS feed now anyway (or following twitter links, whichever I notice first), only clicking through to save in a tab to read later and/or to comment.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I prefer live journal, but if your new blog had an rss feed, I'd syndicate that in a millisecond. I've done it with a bunch of other people already. Facebook is the least desirable: twitter is short form, so it's not going to serve your purpose: but wordpress, blogger, whatever has a long-form and an ability to add an rss feed would be fine if you're going to leave lj.

This is probably as convenient a place as any for me to say again that reading what you have to say and engaging in conversations about it is a majopr highlight for me.

[ursula]

Does your stat-counting include people who read your posts in an lj friendslist, but don't click through to look at the post?

If you set up a blog somewhere else I'll read the rss feed on dreamwidth, but I do find I'm less likely to comment outside lj/dw.

[mariedeblois.livejournal.com]

What she said, generally. I need something to show up in a place I'm already reading (LJ, DW), but am ok with something that requires clicking through, and once clicked through, am willing to comment there (as long as no extra new account needed).

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Yes, this

[sibylle]

Does the stat count views on the LJ friendslist, though?
As you do not cut-tag your posts, one does not need to click on anything to read them...

[julesjones]

I won't actively follow anyone to somewhere else. I will pick up an RSS feed from the somewhere else to LJ, should such exist. This means that anyone who moves to FaceBook has moved beyond my ken, but WordPress is fine as long as you leave a forwarding address. I've found blogger somewhat hit and miss on whether the RSS feed to LJ is stable.

For me, Twitter is pointless for providing links. They get swamped in all the other chatter.

I haven't read all of the recent series of posts, because I was very short of attention span last week and using what little I had on my 150 words a day project. But I've at least skimmed most of them, and found them very interesting. Must remember to link to them...

[brooksmoses]

The same here. These days it probably wouldn't occur to me to set up the RSS feed myself, but I might remember to. I also note that, when I'm trimming my friendslist, I tend to find myself trimming RSS feeds first, for some reason.

One of the things about RSS feeds that only bring over titles and excerpts is that when short of attention span I will tend to skim things rather than clicking through, and so I've skimmed many of your recent posts (and then said "that's interesting" and posted a link in a relevant comment thread on jamesnicoll's LJ) -- but if there had just been a title, I probably wouldn't have clicked through.

I'll also AOL green_knight's comment below about commenting.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Like others above, I'm not clear if your stats-count would recognise those of us who read your posts on our friends list, and so don't have to click through to your actual journal. Which would presumably be the majority of your LJ readers.

Me, I very very seldom read anything but my LJ friends list, so I'd probably just passively hope that someone would set up a feed from wherever-you-went-else to LJ.

[gmdreia.livejournal.com]

The value of using social media is that lots of people will read something on their FB wall, their Tumblr dash, or their LJ friends list that they may not otherwise remember to always read. Maybe another blog format that would allow people to subscribe, and you could embed it into your website?

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I usually read on my flist and only click through if I want to comment (or think about commenting and then decide against it, or want to save a post).

I will read RSS feeds, but 95% of the time I end up not commenting because it's too much hassle to set up an account, log in with an account into every site, log in all the time on Wordpress (WP does not leave you logged in). This happens even when I want to stay in touch; it's just very often one spoon-eating hurdle too many.

And while the community-building aspect might be fairly low key these days (sniff), on WP blogs it's almost impossible to quickly check out another commenter and substribe to them if you find their blog interesting, so many WP blogs end up with people dissiminating information instead of having a conversation with friends.

This development does not make me happy.

[luscious-purple.livejournal.com]

Just as a data point, I looked up my LJ activity from five years ago today (because there was a large, multiple-fatality train accident in DC on that day), and I got 16 replies to my brief "I'm OK, not on that train" message. Today ... well, I can hear the crickets chirp.

I have a WordPress.com blog that is the home base for my professional nonfiction writing, but hardly anyone ever reads it.

[patoadam]

I would not follow you somewhere else. I haven't followed anyone who has left LJ and set up shop elsewhere. I echo the question as to whether your count of LJ views includes friendslist viewing.

[lferion]

I would follow you, likely by way of setting up an rss feed to Dreamwidth, and clicking through to particular posts, but agree with the various people above about the greater ease of commenting here.

I, too, am curious as to whether the stats count reading-page readers.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

If you could RSS feed back to LJ I'd follow you.

[joycebre.livejournal.com]

I read all your stuff. I find it thought-provoking and you have a way of explaining things that I really like. If you post a link on FB that doesn't go here, I'd likely click it. I don't click the ones you have now on FB because I know I'll be on LJ sometime and I'll read it then.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I am terrible at following blogs. Just horrid.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Where would you find the time? (Kind of surprised you read my little-ol' thing here.)

[kareina.livejournal.com]

I saw your reply in the next post saying that it does notice when we read you on our friends pages, but does that count those of us who access the friends page via a phone app? These days I tend to read lj on my phone whilst doing my morning situps in bed. I don't bother with looking at blogs from here though, since the browser on the phone is way slower to open than this app. So while I would probably add your new blog to my rss feed, unless it got mirrored here I probably wouldn't find time to look at it often. (and I would be disappointed, since your posts tend to encourage lots of situps)

Technical bits

[scotica.livejournal.com]

1. Yes, RSS feeds of a blog at Alpennia.com (the new version, still in process) are certainly possible.

2. We would have control over how much was in the feed (that is, whether it was just a title or whether it included some --or all-- of the text).

3. I believe we can even have multiple RSS feeds, to let people subscribe to the version they preferred (e.g., titles or teasers or full text)

4. If LJ lets people populate their LJ journal via an RSS (or similar) feed, we could do both. (That is, post on Alpennia.com, then hrj.livejournal.com gets it automatically through said feed.) I will look into what is possible.

5. A blog on Alpennia.com can be set up to allow people to comment without logging in (and still have some reasonable spam-control, via a lovely little service called Mollom)

Scotica, aka the fan-girl building the new Alpennia website

Re: Technical bits

[vnend.livejournal.com]

Scotica wrote: "4. If LJ lets people populate their LJ journal via an RSS (or similar) feed, we could do both. (That is, post on Alpennia.com, then hrj.livejournal.com gets it automatically through said feed.) I will look into what is possible."

I know it is possible, as Neil Gaiman posts his blogs to his web page, and they are then echoed on LJ. I don't know how automatic it is.

Re: Technical bits

[brooksmoses]

There are ways to "syndicate" an RSS feed into something that is sort of a quasi-livejournal. The big problem with them is that while they do allow commenting (but the blog author doesn't get notified), the entries and their comments disappear after a couple of weeks. So people have to click through back to the alpennia.com journal to make permanent comments.

There are also ways to set up a blog so that it automatically crossposts things to a livejournal when you post to it. See, for example, this post from swan_tower and the first of the two "crossposted from" links at the bottom. In my opinion, that would be the better option. I'll be glad to ask her how it's set up if that would be useful.

(In WHO-voice "I am here I am here....")

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

But like patoadam, I have not followed any of those who migrated away (to Dreamwidth or Facebook or anywhere else). I would not expect to do so in your case either. I can manage LJ without going overboard about it. Adding other sites or social networks would make this difficult.

I actively read your posts on my Friends page, so if simply scrolling down the Friends list gets it to count me as a reader then I'm on your list. Cases where I click through and/or comment are pretty rare, though.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

I read your posts on my flist, but I don't click through unless I'm leaving a comment; sorry to hear that's negatively affecting your stats :-/

The only blogs I succeed in following are the ones in my LJ RSS feed, or the ones that aggregate a week's worth of posts into an e-mail blast (i.e. some of my work-related ones). I created a Bloglines account to follow work-related blogs, but I almost never remember to check it (one of the pitfalls of not being a Digital Native, I guess).

Would your blog be "professional," or cover other aspects of your life as well?

[wulfsdottir.livejournal.com]

I'd follow along anywhere I can get an RSS reminder to read.

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

I'd put anything new onto an RSS feed and read it there. On the other hand, I'd say that the responses to this post, that didn't get linked through your twitter that I saw, may mean that the algorithm is borked.

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

I'm a voracious blog reader, but as this tardy comment shows, far less of a commenter than I once was. Excuses excuses, I don't know if it's me or the platforms. Let's blame me!

Give me an url, I'll pop it into my RSS feed & go :)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I too have noticed that traffic on LJ is way down, due in part (though not in whole) to FB. It's sad. I miss the longer updates I used to get from some people.

Though I have strong attachments to LJ as a place for me to blog in, I have no particular attachments to LJ as a place for others to blog in. I use theoldreader.com for my RSS/blog reading, and would simply add another subscription.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

At the present moment, I would be one of those who wouldn't be able to follow you, though that is largely my own fault. (I have been very remiss about doing *anything* with RSS readers.) At the same time, I also don't log in to LJ daily anymore, in part because I'm not actually online much right now. (The nature of my current major work gig does not lend itself to being online much.)

[ichseke.livejournal.com]

As long as you post the address, it's next to no work to bookmark it so I can visit regularly.