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LiveJournal

Score10 out of 10

10 Reviews and Ratings

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What is LiveJournal?

is a social network owned by SUP Media where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary - a wide variety of political pundits also use the service for political commentary.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about LiveJournal.
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LiveJournal is OK, but not what it once was

Alex Wittenberg
Communications Coordinator at The Jewish Museum (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Excellent phone app
  • Easy to add userpics
  • Easy to generate and alter some settings

Cons

  • Reduced palette of layouts for users in recent years, with a baseline layout that is hard for some to read
  • Poor customer support since buyout by SUP
  • Tendency to censure or censor users' blogs without fair hearing

Return on Investment

  • No impact on our business

LiveJournal

Adrienne Odasso
Managing Editor at Harvard Business School (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • Easy posting format.
  • Variety of blog templates/designs.
  • Easy to customize said formats.
  • Communities.
  • Extensive commenting capabilities.

Cons

  • Slightly more extensive customization options.
  • Cheaper usage fees for paid accounts.

Return on Investment

  • I do not use this for business purposes anymore, as mentioned.

LiveJournal: Not for everyone

Holly Bowen
Editor at Freelance writer, reporter, and editor (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • The friends list feature aggregates content posted by the users and communities you follow, so you don't have to visit each individual journal.
  • The privacy settings are easy to use and understand. Posts can be set as public, friends-only, private, or you can create a custom privacy filter that enables access only by certain users you have approved.
  • LiveJournal offers a wide variety of journal styles and customization options, with the most options available to paid subscribers.
  • Communities enable users to make online friends and connections who share similar interests. Users may comment on posts and initiate conversations with original authors and other commenters.

Cons

  • It is difficult to discover new content on LiveJournal unless you know where to look. The search feature needs improvement; for example, searching for a specific term will not produce a comprehensive list of entries, although some will appear. Rather than browsing for new content, it's better to use LiveJournal to follow the blogs of specific users or communities.
  • Organizations hoping to use LiveJournal to advertise products or services may be met with resistance from users who see the platform primarily as a tool for informal communication.
  • Posts are generally displayed in reverse chronological order. In communities with a large number of users and posts, content can be pushed down so far on the page that it may be overlooked. Someone may post a topic first thing in the morning, only for 25 other people to post to the community over the course of the day. Users must scroll through all of the day's posts in order to reach that first morning topic. Unlike a discussion forum or message board, the posts do not show up as a condensed, easy-to-access list of topics.

Return on Investment

  • I have not used LiveJournal in a business setting.

LiveJournal - A Personalized Platform for the Personal Company

Kelly Weidenfeld
Marketing Coordinator in Marketing at TNT Express (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • LiveJournal allows for customization. There are many communities on LiveJournal that provide layouts for novices and professionals alike.
  • It's relatively easy to create a post and incorporate media into them, such as pictures of products or events associated with a launch.

Cons

  • LiveJournal is a bit clunky. Posting is easy, but formatting a post can be a bit difficult, especially if the user doesn't have much HTML expertise.
  • The search function is practically unusable. When searching for a community to join or check out, it is difficult to wade through the list of results. Often times, the results that come back are not related to the topic a user is searching for.

Return on Investment

  • LiveJournal is more of a personal use item, and hasn't been used in my current company.

LiveJournal: Simple And Effective For A Certain Kind Of Company

Verified User
Employee (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • Anyone can use it: The default formatting for LiveJournal is so simple that anyone could grasp it. It's true that the results are quite bare-bones without customization, but depending on how you want to use it, this may be a good thing.
  • It has free options: By default you'll be added to a Plus account that gives you 1GB worth of space and the basic freedom to create decently detailed posts.
  • There are advanced settings too: For those that have the experience, HTML and other forms of coding are allowed. This makes it easy for qualified individuals to get the most out of even the basic services. You can even program your own custom themes if you have the know-how.
  • Tagging features mean that SEO enthusiasts can try their hand at making their posts more present in popular search engines.

Cons

  • You may feel nickel and dimed: Yes there are basic free options available, but beyond those choices, the site makes it very difficult to not spend money. For example, they have many themes you can apply to your page, but many of them cost about $30. This is fine depending on the financial situation of your company, but for those that don't want any more added expenses, you may want to steer clear.
  • The interface may be too simple: Even some of the most professional pages wind up looking somewhat bare-bones and inexperienced. Especially when there are other free alternatives out there like WordPress that create nice GUIs without any hard work, this can be a real turn-off.
  • Because your journal appears in a large community and most users don't spend the money to register a specific domain, sometimes it can be hard to bring traffic to your LiveJournal. The best case scenario for us was to put the link on our homepage, but that only ushered in a few random comments on occasion. It has a niche fanbase which means you won't get as much traffic as Twitter or Facebook even if you use their tagging tools.

Return on Investment

  • Better overall social media presence: It allowed us to look well-rounded as a company so that we could provide a more complete social media front.
  • It did generate some traffic: Our best post got 150 visitors in a week, which isn't too bad for something that was only meant to be an additive to the blogs we already own and operate.
  • It allowed for greater connection with our readers: Every comment we received is one that may not have happened on our home site. It's hard to tell how this impacted overall visitor numbers, but there was at least some return in the form of comments that showed we were making progress.

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