Oh, absolutely. LJ, much like Vox (which is pretty clearly Spawn of LJ), uses blogs as a community tool, rather than a publishing tool.

There's more input needed than there is with, say, Facebook, but I'd like to think there was more to be had out of it as a result.

Blogger, on the other hand, is clearly blog as publishing tool, and it's up to you to build a community specifically around your blog.