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LiveJournal

LiveJournal

Overview

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.

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Recent Reviews

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LiveJournal has proven to be a valuable tool for users seeking effective and non-intrusive communication with their customers, as it …
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LiveJournal

7 out of 10
March 14, 2014
I mostly blogged about the activities of the campus newspaper for which I worked in 2000-2002. Otherwise, I'm using this product for …
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Pricing

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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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

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  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

3D Model of LiveJournal 3d Logo Review

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Product Details

What is LiveJournal?

LiveJournal Competitors

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Tumblr, WordPress, and Blogger are common alternatives for LiveJournal.

The most common users of LiveJournal are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(10)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

LiveJournal has proven to be a valuable tool for users seeking effective and non-intrusive communication with their customers, as it allows them to connect and share information without resorting to spam emails. Additionally, many individuals utilize LiveJournal for personal blogging, using the platform to share their daily activities, thoughts, and experiences. This has made LiveJournal a popular choice among hobbyists who prefer a diary-style format for their content.

While LiveJournal is predominantly used by individuals, professional organizations have also found value in utilizing the platform for internal communications. It provides a cost-efficient means of sharing updates, announcements, and important information among team members. Moreover, some internet-based companies have leveraged LiveJournal to expand their online outreach due to its ability to reach a wide audience.

It's worth mentioning that LiveJournal has also been used as a supplement to other social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. By integrating LiveJournal into their social media strategy, users gain additional avenues for engaging with their audience and sharing content. However, utilizing LiveJournal for external communications may present challenges since most of the platform's content is user-generated and not specifically business-oriented.

In summary, LiveJournal offers various use cases ranging from customer communication and personal blogging to internal corporate communications. While primarily favored by hobbyists for diary-style content, it can still serve as a valuable tool for professional organizations looking for an affordable and efficient way to engage with their audience and expand their online presence.

Easy-to-use Platform: Many users have found LiveJournal to be a user-friendly platform for sharing experiences and thoughts without the need for coding skills. They appreciate how fun and easy it is to navigate.

Convenient Phone App: Several reviewers have praised LiveJournal's phone app, which allows them to easily add userpics and customize settings on the go. The convenience of this app has contributed to their overall positive experience with the platform.

Customization Options: A number of users have highlighted the extensive customization options available on LiveJournal. They appreciate the variety of blog templates and designs that allow for easy customization, catering to both novices and professionals alike.

Reduced Layout Options: Some users have expressed frustration with the reduced palette of layouts on LiveJournal in recent years, making it difficult for them to read and customize their pages.

Poor Customer Support: Several reviewers have mentioned experiencing poor customer support from LiveJournal since its buyout by SUP. This lack of responsive assistance has left users feeling unsatisfied and unsupported.

Censorship of Blogs: Many users have complained about LiveJournal's tendency to censure or censor blogs without giving the authors a fair hearing. This heavy-handed approach to content moderation has led to dissatisfaction among some users who feel their freedom of expression is being restricted.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-5 of 5)
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Alex Wittenberg | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
My organization does not have an official use for LiveJournal. I make occasional posts about our activities from my personal account.
  • Excellent phone app
  • Easy to add userpics
  • Easy to generate and alter some settings
  • 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
It's good for polls and posting images, and for basic blogging. Offers something of a community, unlike Wordpress.

ETA: Their mobile app has crashed. LiveJournal's days of being of use to non-Russian bloggers are at an end.
  • No impact on our business
I prefer LiveJournal strictly out of longterm loyalty. Dreamwidth is a similar blogging platform that has fewer customer service issues but that also does not offer an app and has no plans to. If many friends had not migrated to Dreamwidth, I would not be using it, but I don't really love LiveJournal anymore. And I suspect it will abandon the American market at some point as blog sites lose users to Twitter, Tumblr, etc.
As long as I have friends using it, I will use it. But I can't predict how long that will be the case.
March 14, 2014

LiveJournal

Adrienne Odasso | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I mostly blogged about the activities of the campus newspaper for which I worked in 2000-2002. Otherwise, I'm using this product for personal blogging. I maintain a writing and publishing/editorial blog there.
  • Easy posting format.
  • Variety of blog templates/designs.
  • Easy to customize said formats.
  • Communities.
  • Extensive commenting capabilities.
  • Slightly more extensive customization options.
  • Cheaper usage fees for paid accounts.
I feel it's better for personal blogging than for business.
  • I do not use this for business purposes anymore, as mentioned.
  • None.
I do not have a basis for comparison because I do not use other blogging platforms.
I have been blogging here since 2002. At this point, it's home.
Kelly Weidenfeld | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I currently use LiveJournal as a personal means of communication. At my current company, it is not something that is being used at the time. I do not see an immediate need for LiveJournal for my current company at the moment. While it is a solid platform, and customizable to a tee, it is one that may benefit a company that is looking to be in-depth with it's customers and provide a personal experience.
  • 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.
  • 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.
LiveJournal is best suited for personal experiences. It is a platform that works for personal blogging, whether it's maybe a CEO of a company looking to discuss a new product or providing a place for customers to respond to a product. LiveJournal doesn't really lend itself to everyday company blogging. It's a very personal platform and for a specific kind of user.
  • LiveJournal is more of a personal use item, and hasn't been used in my current company.
  • WordPress,Blogger,Google Analytics
Livejournal is relatively easy to use, compared to the other blogging sites. It's essentially ready to go once a user has signed up. Personally, the comments section on LiveJournal is much easier to navigate than other blogging sites. LiveJournal is a good place to start for those looking to get into the blogging world.
LiveJournal has a sense of community that is unlike that of other blogging sites. LiveJournal's layout and setup allow for user engagement that is on a different level than those of WordPress and Blogger. Community and a sense of being in one is important when communicating with customers, as well as responding to comments and complaints. LiveJournal makes it easy to address these issues.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
LiveJournal has been used as a supplement to other social media tactics like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. It was was mostly a way to display shorter posts with more targeted relevance to a subject matter than some of the longer-form blogs that I was tasked with composing.

As far as addressing problems, its basic goal was to be a cost-efficient way to expand our outreach om the internet. Especially since I worked for an internet-based company, this was very important.
  • 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.
  • 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.
I think the best scenario for LiveJournal is for those with more artistic career paths. Those interested in photography art, entertainment etc, are probably more inclined to see a benefit in LiveJournal. It allows for easy commentary and conversation which is most essential to those kinds of fields.

Other areas where it might not be useful is in retail or corporate-based scenarios. The service implies a casual atmosphere, so it may be a tough sell for those that want to look professional.

A final question I would pose is what you truly need it for. It can be a great additive to any social media campaign because it's free, but you wouldn't want to base your entire strategy around it.
  • 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.
  • WordPress,Blogger,Joomla
LiveJournal does not hold a candle to any of these alternatives in my opinion. The above options allow for more flexibility with their free suites, and provide more professional results with less work. We actually do not use the LiveJournal much anymore because these other alternatives work far better. We used it only as an additive to what the other products bring us.
It didn't work out for us because even the best tagging tools did not generate much traffic. We have very few employees, so we don't have the resources to put much effort or money into expanding the platform. As I previously said, I think LiveJournal could incite positive change in other circumstances; but it didn't improve us enough to warrant a renewal.
No
  • Price
  • Product Reputation
  • Third-party Reviews
The basic idea was that it offered a free way to expand our social media presence. The site has a good reputation, and we were keen to see if it could improve the visitor stats we were already getting. It's hard to refuse something that doesn't have to cost your company anything.
I think we would pay more attention to something that gets more favorable SEO results. We might also want something that offers more features for for free. LiveJournal was very much a knee-jerk decision for us, so I think greater time to evaluate the alternatives I mentioned in my review would have been a good idea.
Holly Bowen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
My LiveJournal expertise is based on 12 years of personal experience. In general, LiveJournal is not necessarily intended for use by professional organizations; the vast majority of its users are simply hobbyists who post diary- or blog-style content to their own personal journals or to interest-based communities. That being said, there is nothing stopping a professional organization from using LiveJournal for internal and/or external communications. Users may create communities with restricted membership, so an organization could set up a blog or bulletin board for its own employees. In my experience, using LiveJournal for external communications would prove more difficult, as most content is user-generated and not affiliated with any sort of business pursuits.
  • 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.
  • 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.
In general, I would not recommend LiveJournal to organizations wanting to communicate to potential customers. Although it is an easy-to-use blogging platform with a large number of free and relatively inexpensive customization options, it is known primarily as a source of user-generated content. Smaller organizations looking for a free or inexpensive blogging platform may find LiveJournal useful, however, as a way to communicate with employees or existing customers.
  • I have not used LiveJournal in a business setting.
LiveJournal is similar to Tumblr in that most of its content is user-generated and informal, but LiveJournal posts tend to feature more text than visuals. Image and video posts are popular on Tumblr thanks in part to its effective tagging system, whereas LiveJournal is primarily used for text-based entries that may or may not feature supporting visuals. LiveJournal also features a tagging system, but it's more difficult to find new content because many users restrict access to their posts so that only approved users ("friends") may read them.
LiveJournal does, however, offer more opportunities for interaction than Tumblr. On LiveJournal, users may reply directly to a post's original author, and the author may reply back in the same comment thread, providing an opportunity for conversation. On Tumblr, users may comment on posts, but the original author cannot reply directly to them in that comment thread. He or she would need to send a private message or create an entirely new post to reply to someone who had left a comment.
Because I use LiveJournal for personal purposes, like communicating with friends who share similar interests and hobbies, and because I am not currently a paid subscriber, there is no risk to my continued use. That being said, I feel like increasing numbers of people are leaving LiveJournal for Tumblr and other blogging platforms that offer a larger, more rapidly growing userbase and more effective search function.
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