Friday, September 30, 2005

Draugiem.lv offers blogs

Draugiem.lv, the friendster-like Latvian online social networking service with more than 400 000 users, has started offering blogging. So far, the service looks rudimentary, merely text entry, but I haven't explored it in full. The blog platform works with Latvian (a language with diacritics, like ā č ļ ž ģ) and I suppose it would work with simpler alphabets, like English. It will be interesting to see how this develops. In any case, draugiem founder Lauris Liberts is making good on a promise to offer true blogging. Before that, draugiem.lv offered a kind of public opinion platform where people could add lots of comment. The original opinions were selected, I believe, by some kind of editorial process (not any idiot could get published). Interesting to see how this will develop. Blogging in Latvia has been a kind of widespread underground process, with some blogs gathered around the rather difficult sviesta.ciba.lv which may have changed its name to something else. Most Latvian blogs appear to be rather narrow focus and personal, as do, for that matter, most blogs anywhere (just cruise on blogger.com, my plaform, on the random click thing). Now that this is done, why not open some real opportunities with audio blogging/podcasting and maybe some videoblogs (vlogs)?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

This draugiem.lv blog system is very insecure as it allows use of external javascripts, which can be used for XSS (Cross Site Scripting).

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, seems you're quite stupid .. Can you give at least one XSS attack example?

Juris Kaža said...

I am glad to see some debates in my blog comments? Do any of you guys (ladies?) have your own blogs on draugiem? I sort of started one, but I have to be easy on what I write in Latvian, since I write in that language largely for my employer, that business newspaper :)

Anonymous said...

Haha, i'd like to see them handle extra load. so far they have proved themselves to be incompetent in managing thier own business.

Anonymous said...

Konrād,
The thing is that I think draugiem had no idea they would have so many users so quickly. So their membership outran their capacity. We will see how they do handling blogs. None of my friends have started any yet (do friends' friends blogs show up too??)

Anonymous said...

as fas as i know http://www.jaffa.lv use podcasting and videoblogging services a lot. this is good example.

Anonymous said...

Afaik Sviesta Ciba, based on livejournal.com platform, has never been sviesta.ciba.lv, but journal.bad.lv. Then it became klab.lv (journal.bad.lv being redirected to this oneas well). And recently it has been bought by inbox.lv, as far as SC blogers (cibinji or klabinji or maybe cinboxinji now :D) know.
TrZ

Anonymous said...

dear anonymous
I had spoken with the owner once, offering him my expertieese in building high load systems, and he turned down - said they can do on their own. So far, their Verdi consultants only managed to put bigger iron and hope it will solve it, haha :) I know that I am in a biased situation here, but it is funny how people step on the same rake again and again and again. Perhaps they try to prove thickness of their forehead.