LJ features not in Dreamwidth

Some features in Livejournal aren't currently available in Dreamwidth. Some of these will never be put into Dreamwidth, while others are just too difficult for now but will be added later. You may also wish to see the changes from LiveJournal page, which lists things that have been added or changed, as well as those which have been removed.

Working on implementing

These features all have implementation plans, although there is no guarantee as to when anything will be finished.

LiveJournal.app iPhone/iPod Touch Client

An iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad client is being developed for GSoC '10.

Scrapbook Photo Hosting

This is absent for technical reasons. We hope to eventually add our own media hosting service with better integration and usability, but it's a big project.

Pingbacks

We're working on this one -- we don't want to implement it the same way LJ did.

Notes

We want to add this, but haven't yet! See more about this feature on LJ here.

There's a suggestion for this feature.

m.livejournal.com

This is LJ's new mobile interface; ours is still the old one that was from livejournal.com/mobile.

Integration with Facebook

Haven't gotten around to this yet, either.

Uncertain futures

These features are in limbo: they either have big problems to surmount in implementing them, or the demand for them is unsure and they haven't been suggested yet.

A la carte userpics

This feature has two great difficulties to overcome:

• They are a very difficult thing to integrate into the codebase.
• They can be counterproductive for business, by undercutting one of the main reasons people buy paid accounts, yet comprising some of the greatest costs of having an account.

Phone Posts

We hope to add the phone posting ability some day, but would have to rewrite it from scratch and negotiate contracts with each country's phone providers, which is difficult and expensive, so it's not likely any time soon.

TxtLJ

We're in the same situation with this as with phone posts.

Automatic Location Detection

We don't have this right now. Read more about this feature on LJ here.

LJTalk

DW doesn't have a Jabber service yet, but it's possible we might in the future. (The LJ FAQ page.)

Todo Lists

This never came out of beta on LiveJournal and has not been used much. If we add something similar, it will be rewritten with better integration and usability. It's possible this may be implementing during GSoC '10 as part of the calendar project.

My Guests and Stats

Dreamwidth does give paid users and paid communities the ability to put Google Analytics on their journals, however.

MySpace Widget

Haven't heard any demand for this one yet.

Not to be implemented

These are features that we have no plans on implementing at this time.

Many of LJ's popular layouts

Many of LJ's popular layouts aren't open source, including popular layouts such as Smooth Sailing and Flexible Squares, and we can't convert those at all to our system.

S1 Journal Style System

Maintaining and documenting S1 is a lot of work that we would rather put into updating and fixing the newer S2 system. This will never be available on Dreamwidth.

Your Journal, Your Money

We took out the ad code, and it's probably not going to be added back.

last.fm Integration

We didn't want to put this in because it'd require other sites using the code to apply for a license. We also didn't feel comfortable with the TOS requirements.

LJ Messenger

So far, we haven't heard about a demand for this. MSN's requirements that users sign up for promotional email is also a little offputting.

Singles

We're not in the business of getting Brad laid. (And, sadly, it never worked for the rest of us.)

Nudge

If you want to nudge a user, you'll have to do it yourself manually; we don't plan on implementing automatic ways to poke people into posting. However, we do have a planned feature where you can sign yourself up to be nudged to post, which we find to be much more palatable.

Ads

Ads can help fund features for users that can't or don't want to pay for a journal, but we feel like we are better served by doing our best to make a service that people want to pay for, instead of depending on monetizing through third party service. By making sure that Dreamwidth's funding depends on being paid directly by its users, it gives us more incentive to make a better service for our users, instead of better opportunities for advertisers.