First of all, syndication isn't just Live Journal. There are MILLIONS of free syndication feeds, and randomreality can be accessed via all of them. Syndication doesn't hurt you as a writer at all - it just means I - and hundreds of other people - can read your posts easily. I keep abreast of about 55 blogs, and the plodding work of visiting 55 blogs every day, many of whom don't update daily, is unfortunately not feasible time wise. But with syndication, all the blogs and news feeds one cares about are instantly uploaded and don't require laborious chasing down. The only down side to LJ RSS for you, as an author, would be if you lose advertising revenue, and there are even ways around that. For example, the famous blog "Overheard in NYC" incorporates advertising gifs into their actual RSS feeds. So please don't worry about a special LJ " island." There's nothing unique about the LJ newsfeed software. You can't call it an island unless you are also calling all the other news feed software, like that released by the Guardian and countless other freeware sources, as "islands." You don't even miss out on comments. If one wants to comment, the link is right there in the article, at the top of the entry.