Vox: cons
I did talk about Vox and how great it is, but of course nothing is perfect. With the cons that I read and experienced, I still see Vox as the leader in its field (MySpace, FaceBook, etc). But anyway, here is something I read:
LJ has been going downhill in small increments since the SixApart buyout. Practically the only good thing I’ve seen coming from the buyout is a bunch of new layouts… however, not all of them take all of LJ’s features into account.
I have had a Vox beta account for a while, and have been using it, because their journaling prompts are usually OK (even though the autotags are a little too specific for me to find them useful: I prefer generic tags like “music” rather than “top 25″ when I’m supposed to be listing the top 25 songs in my mp3 player). Most of the journal styles are attractive.
However, because it’s so easy, Vox lacks a flexibility that LJ has: it’s not infinitely customizable. The media that shows on your blog page is simply the most recent stuff you’ve entered. So far, you can’t make a blogroll of nonVox sites. The privacy levels are interesting, but you can’t add others that only allow *some* of your friends or family to see a particular post (very doable on LJ). There’s no ability to attach any kind of mood indicator or icon to posts (one of LJ’s most amusing features can be the multiple user icons, which are often used to comment ironically on a post or reply). There are no “communities” on Vox, but it wouldn’t be difficult to create something like one. SixApart may not realize that LJ was once a lot like Vox, but features were added over time because users demanded them: communities started as group journals.
Overall, Vox seems to be more of a replacement for Typepad and Blogger users who are looking for privacy levels and a way to keep track of and share media collections than something that’s really comparable to LJ. Mena Trott has said that it was created not to get to know people, but as a way of keeping in touch with people you already know. I think it’s entertaining for what it is, but crippled a bit by its simplicity.
(Also, if you don’t have a fast connection, it takes much longer to load than it really should, and sometimes there’s a crapshoot w/r/t whether or not you’ll actually be able to type text into the composition box.)
I cannot agree with Miranda in all points she discussed except few: Such as the simplicty and how it can overkill the flexibility of the site and ability to add 3rd party modules or such.
Well, this is version 1 and not 5 or 6. I am pretty sure more things will be added or improved.
That is all for now.
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