When LiveJournal, Inc., was launched in December the new team made it very clear that LiveJournal was going to change. We also said that we would respect the values and legacy of LiveJournal. But, we can’t ignore the fact that as LiveJournal nears its second decade it needs to make some business decisions.

Over the past 24 hours many of you have asked whether the changes to the account structure (removing the option of creating new basic accounts) is a business decision. It is, emphatically.

Overnight you also raised legitimate concerns about how this change was unveiled - message received, loud and clear. We're still working out how to strike just the right tone when communicating with such a diverse and complex collection of communities.

LiveJournal has been run as a business from its humble beginnings. Since then, it has grown into a pretty successful company: blazing a trail for blogging and journaling, providing employment for many people, building a community of volunteers, and creating a culture of openness and collaboration which is admired across the globe.

And we are building on this heritage. That means new ideas, new features, new colleagues, new offices, new technology, new hosting facilities, new products, new policies and, yes, a new account structure.

The changes will require not only an investment in time, energy and money from us but also engagement, understanding and ideas from all of you.

We hope you will embrace the new features that we introduce and you may certainly criticize the ones you don’t care for. But to make our intentions clear, LiveJournal needs to develop: we don’t intend to undermine the culture of LiveJournal, we intend to invest in it.