One option is to do locked entries readable only to custom friends groups. (Like friends only, but aimed at a subset of your friends, so you could do bear-only or geek-only posts.)
Even more than belonging to the same listserv or newsgroup, LiveJournal gives one a sense of keeping in touch with someone with the absolute minimum of effort.
LiveJournal has the advantage that it encourages people to do generic updates on their lives and activities in a way that other sorts of fora don't. (Not that I generally take advantage of this; other than the Las Vegas trip report, I pretty much stick with random thoughts and observations at random intervals.) On the other hand, it drives me nuts that there's no better way to monitor new comments on other people's journals than to scan up and down the page and see if the number of comments has increased. (At least, I don't know of any-- if there's a view option that will show all unread comments, I'd be interested in knowing about it. What I'd really like is a Usenet-style interface to LJ, with each user treated as a separate newsgroup and a list view that says "2 unread entries and 16 unread comments in rollick's journal" or whatever, and brought up only the unread material unless I requested otherwise.)
BTW, is "obstensibly" a clever portmanteau of "obstinate" and "ostensibly", or just a typo?
no subject
Even more than belonging to the same listserv or newsgroup, LiveJournal gives one a sense of keeping in touch with someone with the absolute minimum of effort.
LiveJournal has the advantage that it encourages people to do generic updates on their lives and activities in a way that other sorts of fora don't. (Not that I generally take advantage of this; other than the Las Vegas trip report, I pretty much stick with random thoughts and observations at random intervals.) On the other hand, it drives me nuts that there's no better way to monitor new comments on other people's journals than to scan up and down the page and see if the number of comments has increased. (At least, I don't know of any-- if there's a view option that will show all unread comments, I'd be interested in knowing about it. What I'd really like is a Usenet-style interface to LJ, with each user treated as a separate newsgroup and a list view that says "2 unread entries and 16 unread comments in
BTW, is "obstensibly" a clever portmanteau of "obstinate" and "ostensibly", or just a typo?