3 ms·
I am from approximately the same age group as the author. I remember FidoNet and PhpBB forums. I remember blogging, and LiveJournal. But I completely missed the
by azangru 8y ago
I am from approximately the same age group as the author. I remember FidoNet and PhpBB forums. I remember blogging, and LiveJournal. But I completely missed the Facebook craze. The first time I logged into Facebook — after having used LiveJournal for several years — I was shocked by the unfamiliarity and unintuitiveness of the interface, and the total absence of formatting options. I looked around — and then ran back to the familiar internet tools and services.
It’s weird. Seeing stories pop up lately about how people get disenchanted with Facebook, I keep wondering what the big deal was.
(And another source of wonder and cognitive dissonance is how a company with what seemed like such an unappealing product managed to attract so smart engineers and to bring about a number of significant technical innovations.)
- auntienomen 8y agoLiveJournal was, for my money, the correct balance of text to image content. You could upload photos and other media, but it was a bit of a pain. And in 2006, people didn't necessarily have the ability to play media anyways, at least not without a few false starts. Consequently, people wrote. Their thoughts weren't always that interesting. But they were at least original and the product of real effort. It worked fairly well, and was a lot more appealing to me than memes and viral marketing.