In what ways is facebook more attractive than DW/LJ?

[jack]

I used to tag posts about LJ "meta", but I had no way to tag posts which were about "meta" itself. I could have used "meta-meta", but then, well, that enters an infinite recursion of paradox...

In what ways are facebook more attractive than DW/LJ? Either better or more addictive. I agree with all the reasons facebook is bad (that it hides what you want to see in favour of things that will get more advertising, that they obscure the privacy model, that they inconsistently enforce real names policy and let abusive things pass but ban anything vaguely detrimental to advertisers, etc) And why many of us like LJ,DW, because I love long-form posts. But I suspect that I end up using it because it's convenient in some ways, not *just* because of the network effect.

Off the top of my head:

* Easy to do many things
* Easy to "share" other people's statuses
* Easy to post short updates and have *some* (albeit bad) comment threads on them
* Easy to post albums of pictures
* Easy to see weddings, births, etc from distant friends
* That simply everyone is on there

What else?

Comments

[naath]

Easy to see when posts you were interested in get new comments on them (yes, I know you can click the "email me comments on this" on LJ; but that's fairly new).

[merrythebard]

The "like" thing is good. Also, I like the business/interest pages when they are of businesses I actually care about (e.g. businesses run by friends, or political organisations I support), and as someone who runs more than one such page, it's obviously a better facility for such things than LJ/DW. Though it's not exactly *good* either, of course.

[danohu]

In addition to what I've said on LJ...

A lot of it comes down to relatively small UI things. I have to hunt for the reply button, and blank out a bunch of weird other options. The comment box relies on me using HTML tags. etc, etc.

Individually these are pretty easy to fix, but they need:
a) a bunch of developer time
b) a focus on usability

DW is doing a lot better than LJ there, but not nearly as well as it needs to be

[naath]

I almost never use HTML in DW/LJ comments; I know I can, but I don't... so I'm a bit surprised that you think it "relies on" HTML. FB on the other hand apparently doesn't give me the option, which is irritating if you want it (and inconsequential if you don't).

[danohu]

I guess I'm mainly use it to insert images, links and associated blockquotes -- which facebook handles its own way. Also lj usernames
I agree that not being able to use simple things like italics on facebook can be irritating, though.

[danohu]

and one more...

go to facebook.com logged-out. Half the page is taken up by a very clear, simple sign-up form.

go to LJ or DW logged out. You have to really hunt around to figure out how to join the thing.

Again, this is an outcome of a bigger gap in the development resources. It's actually making me wonder if we should just all pile into dreamwidth development, and start improving things like this.

[lavendersparkle]

I find Facebook useful for organising events. It's not as user friendly for that as it was a few years ago, but it feels easier to put an event than to organise it via DW or LJ, even without the issue that if I put it on Facebook they'll be a few non-users I need to email, whereas if I put it on DW or LJ I'd still have to contact more than half the guests some other way.