

Livejournal Done Right: The Case for a Social Network with Built-in Privacy - randomwalker
http://33bits.org/2009/09/09/livejournal-done-right-the-case-for-a-social-network-with-built-in-privacy/

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neilk
Thanks for writing this, Arvind. I've often tried to explain what was good
about LJ to other technologists.

LJ is largely shunned by the technology elite. I think this is because it
doesn't meet their needs -- it isn't a very good platform for increasing one's
personal authority on a topic. But the privacy culture was superior.

For most non-technology-elite, privacy is sine qua non. At my former job
(Upcoming.org), we allow everyone in the world to see what events you are
planning to attend. The event also displays a very public list of all those
intending to attend. Techno-elite users like this because they are often
looking to be highly visible at certain conferences, and even make connections
with people they barely know yet. The elite of certain music and social scenes
also want this. But user testing showed that this freaked the average person
out quite a lot and they couldn't see the use of it. For them, social data was
inherently personal and private.

It might be that everyone in the world will eventually live a little bit like
the techno-elite, and want more random connections and live more in public.
But for richer, more personal relationships, we will need some sort of cross-
site privacy system.

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randomwalker
(Author here.) My writing has frequently been at the intersection of my
academic and start-up lives, and has been of interest to HN. Hoping to kick up
some discussion on this post.

