LJ Deathwatch

9 years ago
In the interest of better understanding just how dead Livejournal is, I have unfriended everyone who hasn't posted in 2010. That was around 60%.

Don't take it personally -- it's not me, it's you.
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47 Responses:

  1. ronaldscott says:
    9 years ago at 1:26 pm

    *crickets*
  2. kfringe says:
    9 years ago at 1:31 pm

    I hear that the kids are using something called myspace now.
  3. phoenixredux says:
    9 years ago at 1:37 pm

    And surely you have some really neat and easy methodology to painlessly complete this task?
  4. fightingwords says:
    9 years ago at 1:42 pm

    Wow. That's a lot.
  5. pikuorguk says:
    9 years ago at 1:52 pm

    It's all Facebook and Twitter now. Seems it's easier to fill the Internet with "I am on the bus, it is boring" than stuff people might want to actually read.

    Also... this stupid captcha system.
    • kartos says:
      9 years ago at 5:48 pm

      Pretty much!

      Also:
      -ads
      -lazy jerks
      1)don't want to actually read what their friends say
      2)don't want to bother logging in
      -a large portion of the world doesn't have LJ
      -can't use it at work
    • fantasygoat says:
      9 years ago at 5:52 pm

      Were we reading the same LJ?

      The vast majority of LJs were whiny tweens complaining about their parents.
      • pikuorguk says:
        9 years ago at 1:25 am

        Ah well I only add actual friends and interesting people to my LJ thing.

        And then I run those through Google Reader so I don't actually have to visit this place (and that also bypasses work's proxy filter that says LJ is banned).

        Today's silly captcha data: 0.04 fiencirg ... what?
    • recursive says:
      9 years ago at 10:18 am

      The internet was better when normal people didn't use it.
  6. cnoocy says:
    9 years ago at 1:53 pm

    Does that include people crossposting from twitter or dreamwidth?
    • krowface says:
      9 years ago at 3:14 pm

      holy shit. i can't stand those "latest twitter posts" updates.

      your cheese sandwich post is not made interesting by the fact that you ate three of them.
      • chaobell says:
        9 years ago at 3:31 pm

        What, you don't like scrolling through five thousand screens of half a conversation? What's not to love about that? </sarcasm>
      • quadhome says:
        9 years ago at 7:37 pm

        Yes, but with Location Based Services this is practically a CrowdSourced Recommendation System BEGGING to be exploited!

        You had three cheese sandwiches? And we're friends?! OMG, SOMEONE, TELL ME WHERE I SHOULD EAT MY CHEESE SANDWICHES?!
  7. monkey says:
    9 years ago at 2:42 pm

    I like that approach.
  8. revglenn says:
    9 years ago at 3:10 pm

    i've considered doing that. but then i figured if someone ever accidentally looks at my info page it will just look really pathetic for me to have 6 friends.... one of whom is me.
  9. kowh says:
    9 years ago at 4:01 pm

    It's depressing that LJ is declining yet still the least annoying* to read of all the various social circlewankeries I've used. None of these things seem to have figured out that we don't actually want to read every single thing people post.

    *Caveat: I use adblock, flashblock and noscript, so I'm generally unaware annoying ads exist.
  10. funjon says:
    9 years ago at 4:16 pm

    For a second I was like "Wait, I've posted in 2010!". But you never friended me in the first place.

    Ah well. Yeah, LJ is pretty dead these days.
  11. jabber says:
    9 years ago at 5:25 pm

    I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter, if only to learn how to see when someone last posted.
  12. jay says:
    9 years ago at 6:37 pm

    I just stayed around for my 10 year LJ anniversary.

    (heh, just noticed the "Please confirm you are a human below.")
  13. jayp39 says:
    9 years ago at 7:07 pm

    I haven't posted since August 2009, but then I don't think you had ever friended me in the first place, so I've nothing to worry about.
    I still read LJ every day and comment on posts occasionally, but obviously I'm not very motivated to post anything here. Between twitter, facebook and my blog I have all my outlets covered. But LJ is still my favorite place to consume content (with adblock).
  14. ladykalessia says:
    9 years ago at 10:02 pm

    I haven't done that yet because some people created LJ accounts only to read other people's locked posts. This is why I run the census every year. I suppose I ought to get around to discarding the chaff.
    • giantlaser says:
      9 years ago at 2:10 pm

      If LJ is dying, why bother discarding the chaff? I don't really understand why Jamie did it either. I still read LJ for some inexplicable reason, but I don't expect that to be the case a year from now. Hell, even my own posts are just automated re-treads from my blog elsewhere.
  15. gardenprophet says:
    9 years ago at 10:27 pm

    I find this an interesting thing to ponder - I personally don't post to my own journal anymore, but *am* active in a number of groups. In fact, there are a number of interest groups for whose content LJ is perfectly suited, and I wonder what will happen to them if/when LJ dies.
  16. krick says:
    9 years ago at 10:43 pm

    Kids today have the attention span of a fruit fly, and probably a similar I.Q. You actually expect them to read more than 140 characters in one sitting?

    I predict that the next social networking system will be just one big emoticon (no text) and you'll wear an Apple "iRing" that will monitor your mood and update your emoticon on the web in real-time.
  17. sharding says:
    9 years ago at 10:45 pm

    I don't remember my Livejournal password.
  18. volk007 says:
    9 years ago at 11:31 pm

    All My Friends are Dead
  19. jered says:
    9 years ago at 7:57 am

    What bothers me is that it's not the incompetence of LJ that has driven this for me, but the rise of Facebook. I find that instead of writing medium-form about a thought I've been gnawing on for a few days, instead I just facebook "too short, here's what I had for breakfast" equivalents.
  20. rmjwell says:
    9 years ago at 7:35 pm

    Some of us cranky old fucks who remember Usenet still prefer LJ over MarketBook (even if we're on it).
  21. neacal says:
    9 years ago at 11:34 am

    It's sad to see a good thing die. But dying it is. It used to be that when I looked at my Friends Page on LJ, I'd get a broad spectrum of thought and insight into what my friends were up to. Now, it's mostly crickets, crossposts, and the occasional interesting post.

    I'll probably stick around until LJ shuts down, just because on occasion, I do feel like writing a longer post.

    I've managed to stay away from Facebook - still hoping it will die within 3-5 years, without sucking me in. But most of my blogging has moved to Twitter, and become microblogging.

    Many people are against microblogging, because it doesn't convey enough depth. And the constant link posts and re-tweets and inane status updates sure make it seem that way...

    But ever since I came across 6-word poetry (which can really be amazing!), I figure that if I just try hard enough, I can get across most thoughts in 140 characters, though perhaps not in full detail. So my aim is to share even deep thoughts, by properly condensing them for Twitter.

    On the other hand, I think posting about your adventures during the day (well, anything beyond potty breaks and foursquare) can actually be interesting to your friends, because it creates a sense of connectedness. And many posts that happen on Twitter would be deemed too short to be worthy of an LJ entry. So perhaps not all inane tweets are useless.
  22. dougo says:
    9 years ago at 3:48 pm

    Was their silence cluttering up your friends page or something?
  23. ruineraz says:
    9 years ago at 12:46 pm

    The only reason i have a LJ account at all is because i wanted to post a common on this blog. (previously, not this specific comment)
  24. srcosmo says:
    9 years ago at 4:09 pm

    That 60% must've moved over to DeadJournal.