This Ars Technica article looks at the promise--sadly unfulfilled--of pioneering blogging platform Livejournal. It really could have been a contender. I was on it from 2002; it had, in embryonic form, a lot of the elements common to the most popular social media around now. Poor management just did the site in as a potential mass audience on Facebook scale, George R.R. Martin's departure simply underlining this.
Was there a chance, do you think, of LiveJournal capitalizing on its potential? What would the resulting Internet look like, then, with anonymity being actively supported, for instance?
Was there a chance, do you think, of LiveJournal capitalizing on its potential? What would the resulting Internet look like, then, with anonymity being actively supported, for instance?