SHINY THING!

[hatman]

stellar_dust pointed out a spiffy new journal site in progress. Made by former LJ people. I plan to sign up for the beta test which starts April 30.

Links:

Stellar_dust's post

Main Dreamwidth page

DW changes from LJ

Beta test announcement and info

dreamwidth (LJ community)

A lot of nice features, and I just love the idea of (theoretically, hopefully, etc.) better management.

Am now subscribed to half of their mailing lists, and even the way they handle that seems cool. For each list, I filled out a webform to get on and got a confirmation email. That gave me three different ways to confirm that I wanted to be on the list (and it wasn't just a case of some jerk adding my address without telling me). List archives are publicly available on the site (so you can see what you're getting into before you sign up), and I have the option to only get daily digests. Oh, and I can log in to the list's page on the site to change my listed name, address, and a whole host of options, some of which I never would have even thought of. I never realized mailing list maintenance could be so shiny and spiffy. I mean, heck, the available options and controls are better than what I've seen from MIT. (Yes, recently. Am still on one mailing list through there.)

stellar_dust mentioned that they are/were working on a way to allow cross-platform flists. Tricky when you're dealing with locked posts, but we'll see what they come up with. That'd be most important for me. No sense migrating to a new service if you guys don't come along, you know?

ETA: One of the (two) owners noticed our discussion of the above (thanks to the magic of referer logs - the things that tell site owners where people clicked from to get to their site) and responded. Just now. As in, less than an hour after said discussion. To tell me that she wants that feature as much as anyway, and they've got the general outline of how to do it. Won't be functional for the beta test, but will (fingers crossed) be up and ready when the site goes live. Color me very impressed.

ETA AGAIN! This post has more and better information.

Comments

[htbthomas.livejournal.com]

I am going to participate in the launch, too, though I'll probably just get a free account. $200 is a bit pricey for my budget, and I received my permaccount here as a gift.

But it definitely looks promising!

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

For the record, those aren't your only options. Or necessarily the options you'll have.

As explained in this post:

1. Free beta accounts will be given out randomly. Which means you may not get one.

2. $200 seed accounts are limited in quantity, and, really, they don't want you spending that money. They want to sell that block, to obtain start-up capital, but, for any given individual, they'd rather you get a paid account.

3. Various levels of paid account will be available:

For our first six months of operation, paid accounts will cost $25 for 12 months, $13 for six months, $5 for two months, and $3 for one month. Premium paid accounts -- all of the paid features at higher limits -- will cost $40 for 12 months and $20 for six months. (After the first six months, the prices will rise to $35/year for paid accounts and $50/year for premium paid accounts; the first-six-month discount is to reflect that things will still be imperfect during open beta.) All prices are in USD.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

(So if you can't get a free account, you can participate in the beta for $3 and thus sample the paid account features.)

[htbthomas.livejournal.com]

Aha! I didn't remember that info. I wonder if the premium paid will have similar features to permaccounts here...

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Sort of the other way around. Seed accounts will have the same features as premium paid.

As of now, though, DW does not have voice post or photo hosting capabilities. They're considering it for Sometime Down The Road, but they've got a lot on their virtual plates right now, and they're not sure what bandwidth usage will really look like and all that jazz.

So, within those limits, a premium paid is just like a paid, only more so. More userpics and suchlike.

[ksarasara.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You'll have to let me know how it is. I'm intrigued and impressed by the cross-platform flist, though.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

We'll see. Open beta isn't for another month, and who knows how long it'll be until full launch. Cross-platform flist, unfortunately, is one of those nifty features that's being put off until full launch. Too much else to do, apparantly. But it does look spiffy so far. I'll keep you posted... er, so to speak.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

(For my own reference: Original poll of hypothetical shiny, and my comment to it.)