I recently posted about not thinking I’d be so active on Google+ because it’s a walled garden system and I want to be able to connect with people without forcing them to use new, proprietary services.  I also want to trust my content will stay around for a while, which I can only do if I have control over where it is stored.  For these reasons, I feel WordPress is a better system.  If the site dies one day, I can simply take my content and host it elsewhere, and anyone can read posts using RSS.

However, there are limitations to this.

One of the great features of livejournal (and now Google+) is the ability to share content with only specific people.  If I want to write about something that I feel even slightly uncomfortable making public, such as details about where I live or my relationships with others, I wouldn’t post it here.  If it’s the kind of thing I’d ‘friends lock’ on livejournal, I’d simply ‘friends lock’ it on livejournal.  But this means I’m running two separate systems.  And the activity level on livejournal appears to be getting quieter every month.

(Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a standardised social networking system with privacy controls that everyone used.)

My solution is this: for all those entries where I’d write about, say, using a new sound for my phone alarm, or sharing awesome puns, I think I’m going to start getting into the habit of sharing them here, publicly.  I’m going to start using livejournal less for posting than for reading others’ entries – though this is a habit I’ve practically adopted already.

Such altered posting practices will better suit me.  Though I worry that, to my friends, changing the way they read my highly amusing comments on everyday life may seem like too much effort.

I guess we’ll find out!