First post

[ign]

Many thanks to the kind developers and testers of the Dreamwidth, I've got my "invite code" and is finally able to reserve my favorite username!

Overall, this does seem like a very nice job porting basic Livejournal features and UI (I regret that being a programmer, I didn't have sufficient free time to contribute, but perhaps I will) while making it easy to use and more consistent in the process.

I regret though that development team has decided against making localized UI version available (I believe that this capability has substantially contributed to Livejournal original success, especially in non-English-speaking communities). Yes, making any sort of user-provided content publicly available as site UI can and will backfire, but it is important to strike a right balance.

What I don't really understand is how business managers are planning to attract paid-account users in any substantial numbers. Comparison table between different account levels does not give any incentive whatsoever to ever want to upgrade to paid account, other than an obvious desire to support a good work by dedicated people. Who the hell would need more than 1000 tags, anyway (other than some automated publishing system, but that's a totally different issue)? Or, let's say, post via e-mail - I can trivially write a script which would make it possible via XML-RPC, should I ever need it, but I never used this option with Livejournal and not going to.

OK, granted, some people love dozens of userpics user icons and possibility to edit your comments is nice, but I am not sure how this could justify $25 per year.

That said though, "premium paid" account is a total mystery to me. 2000 tags instead of 1500 for twice the money? Well....

Speaking of Livejournal, historically in the early days of the service paid accounts attracted people because:

1. They wanted to support the service - OK, this reason does equally apply to the Dreamwidth;
2. This was the only way to get an invite code, and this way people who would not otherwise consider this were lured into paying - OK, Dreamwidth does use invite codes;
3. Free users only had 3 userpics, and that not a lot. Dreamwidth gives 6.
4. Free users could not customize styles, but rather only select from few pre-defined ones. Dreamwidth never mentions "styles" in the comparison table;
5. Livejournal also promised faster access to paid users, not that I think it ever delivered, but still, it sounded nice. Dreamwidth does not mention anything similar to that;
6. Ability to use "short" journal name like <user>.livejournal.com; this is now a default address in both Livejournal and Dreamwidth.

Currently, Livejournal users purchase paid accounts because of:

1. Ads-free access to Livejournal; this is not applicable to Dreamwidth;
2. Bigger and ads-free photo hosting; Dreamwidth is unclear on this;
3. Styles (reason #4 above)..

Anyway, I sure hope this new platform and community will succeed and attract attention beyond some dissatisfied LJ users, but we will see.

Comments

[charmian]

/wanders in.

Actually, I think you underestimate the desire for icons. Look how many people go into news post after news post demanding more icons, and how the extra icons add-on was popular enough for LJ to even code in the option. Icons are probably one of the top reasons people buy accounts.

[cesy]

I get the impression they like the idea of translation, but a large chunk of the problem is the current translation system, which is horribly broken, and is less urgent than several other big development projects.

I think some RPG communities and some other specialised uses want more than 1000 tags, though obviously this will be a small proportion of the userbase.

Editing comments and getting emailed your own comments is worth $25 a year for me, even without the userpics. I think "Premium Paid" is aimed a lot more at those who do want to support the site financially as well, hence the larger jump in price. Also userpics cost disproportionately more compared to other paid benefits.

yes, we will see

[piranha]

hey there --

you underestimate several things:

"some" people on LJ like icons -- "some" is a number in the tens of thousands. same for highly customized styles. this is a major attraction -- it still boggles my mind, but there it is.

the tag limit on LJ was instituted because quite a number of people (and comms especially) slowed the servers down because they had so many tags. well-organized comms, such as free_manga can use thousands of tags. if you categorize books by genre, author, original title, translated title, you're gonna be there real quick.

you and i may be able to throw together a quick script for anything we want to do, but the vast majority of users can't. they like their bells and whistles, and they like them served up pretty.

localization might come later; the groundwork is being laid now. i think it is a good idea to put it off, because LJ's translation system is a mess. if you end up finding some free time and joining the effort you'll get to see the code intimately up close -- might as well brace yourself now. :)

photo hosting is on the list of things to come within the year.

in any case, welcome to dreamwidth, and i hope you enjoy it here!

[zvi]

I am not denise, but occasionally I play her on the internets. I think that localization, as a volunteer effort, is highly improbable. If, at some point, the community decides they want to vote their share of the improvement money towards professional ongoing localization (or if, in the fullness of time, it turns out that sufficiently substantial numbers of people from some other linguistic group join DW that it makes business sense for Mark and Denise to hire a service to do ongoing professional localization, like apparently in Brazil you must use Orkut), then it might happen. But a volunteer effort like LJ's won't happen because it is (a) labor intensive for the paid person in charge and (b) unlikely to produce a business-quality result.

ETA: fix markup