LiveJournal News

May News

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:50:31 GMT

V-Gift for Charity

This month is Mental Health Awareness Month, so the LiveJournal team is offering users a chance to support the Depression and Bipolar Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping improve the lives of those suffering from mood disorders. Proceeds from purchases of the Emerging Sun v-gift during May will be donated to the DBSA, so feel free to buy one. Or, if you really want to rack up some good karma points, get a bunch!

And don't forget: Mother's Day is this Sunday. Be a dear and check out the v-gifts shop. Send something that'll make her smile.

L to R: Emerging Sun, #1 Mom, Gift Basket, Chocolates, A Dozen Red Roses

Brand-Spanking New, Contest-Winning Themes

We know how you salivate over the prospect of new themes, especially when they're designed by users with a unique handle on both form and function.

L to R: Shiny, River at Night, Live and Learn, Vector Drips.

Who's responsible for this fantastic array of designs? We're pleased to announce that they're the winners of the HP "What Do You Have to Say?" Theme Design Contest. Chosen by Six Apart designers and outside voters from a pool of 355 entries, the winners are (drum roll please)...

First Prize: "River at Night," by Teresa Jones
Second Prize: "Live and Learn," by Li Kim Goh
Third Prize: "Vector Drips," by Terri McAllister

Extra loud applause goes to LiveJournal's very own phuck whose "Shiny", having racked up a total of 1,733 votes, was awarded the People's Choice Prize. Congratulations, phuck! We're proud to see our users recognized for their sharp eyes.

Congratulations to all the winners! Thanks to everyone who entered!

Advisory Board Nominations

We'd like to remind you that the nomination process for LiveJournal Advisory Board user-representatives has begun. If you think you're fit for the job, now's the time to nominate yourself! After all, you're the only who can do it. In two weeks, on the 22nd, the voting process will begin; we'll remind you about it again here.

If you're interested in keeping up with the nominations, watch lj_election_en. We'll post the results and announce the winner by the end of the day on May 30th. The new user-representatives will be seated on June 1st. Further details can also be found in lj_2008.

Advisory Board Nominations Open

Mon, 05 May 2008 16:00:14 GMT

Advisory Board Nominations Begin

This morning we are opening the nomination process for the user-representative positions on the LiveJournal Advisory Board. A full description of the process can be found here.

To get you started, here are the basic things you should know:

- You may only nominate yourself
- Each nominee will need 100 motions of support in order to be eligible to be a candidate
- We ask that you keep your comments on the nomination posts to "I support this nomination" or something to that effect; be kind to those who will need to count the "supports", please.
- Although the nominations and election poll will take place in lj_election_en, you do not need to watch the community in order to keep up with the election; we'll announce everything here as well.

Everyone here at LiveJournal is looking forward to this first-ever User-Representative election! We'd like to thank everyone who is participating. Some words from our current Advisory Board members:

danah boyd: “LiveJournal is filled with very passionate users. These users have helped shaped LJ's various communities over the last decade and it gives me great joy that LJ is recognizing and incorporating users' voices into the decision-making processes. Having user representatives from different parts of LJ on the Advisory Board will help make sure that the company is meeting the needs of its diverse constituents.”

Esther Dyson: "I'm sure we'll learn a lot from the process, and later on from the two users selected as well. Especially, I hope that the discussions before the voting will be more meaningful and more focused on policy than those in some offline campaigns."

Brad Fitzpatrick: "It's cool that SUP is getting users involved with the LiveJournal decision-making process. I look forward to seeing who the community elects and the results of our efforts working together."

Professor Lawrence Lessig: “The user elections will provide a critical check on LJ's process of maintaining a valuable and trustworthy environment for the LJ community. The mandate of the elections will give the user representatives pride of place among the members of the Advisory Board. Each of us will look to them to guide us in our judgment about how best to make LJ the community we all aspire that it will be. I look forward to welcoming the user representatives, and learning a great deal from them.”

chasethestars has also made some banners for you to use, if you'd like to show your support for the candidate of your choice!

LiveJournal Advisory Board Elections

I support username to be my representative on the Advisory Board.

Show your support at lj_election_en.

<div style="background-color:#fff; color:#213368; padding:10px; border:1px solid #213368; width:23.31em; height:6.88em; font-size:16px;clear:both;"><img style="float:left; width:6.25em; height:6.25em;"src="http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/74327005/15133486" alt="" /><div style="margin-left:6.88em;"><p style="font-weight:bold; font-size:0.88em;">LiveJournal Advisory Board Elections</p><p style="font-size:0.75em;">I support <lj user="

USERNAME

"> to be my representative on the Advisory Board.</p><p style="font-size:0.75em;">Show your support at <lj user="lj_election_en">.</p></div></div>

LiveJournal Advisory Board Elections

I support username to be my representative on the Advisory Board.

Show your support at lj_election_en.

<div style="background-color:#000; color:#fff; padding:10px; border:1px solid #fff; width:23.31em; height:6.88em; font-size:16px;clear:both;"><img style="float:left; width:6.25em; height:6.25em;"src="http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/74330601/15133486" alt="" /><div style="margin-left:6.88em;"><p style="font-weight:bold; font-size:0.88em;">LiveJournal Advisory Board Elections</p><p style="font-size:0.75em;">I support <lj user="

USERNAME

"> to be my representative on the Advisory Board.</p><p style="font-size:0.75em;">Show your support at <lj user="lj_election_en">.</p></div></div>

April 2008 News

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:39:34 GMT

Advisory Board Elections
Do you think you would make a great addition to the LJ Advisory Board? Well now is your chance to nominate yourself! The nomination process begins May 5th and voting will take place from May 22nd - 29th. The newly-elected user-representative for the Advisory Board will begin his or her term just a few days after the votes are counted on June 1, 2008. You can find all the information you'll need about the process, as well as the exact rules and dates in lj_2008. We'll post in news again on May 5th to remind you to submit your nomination. We can't wait to see all of the amazing nominees!

Introducing LiveJournal Labs
While most of us are busy working on features and fixes for LiveJournal, we wanted to create a forum where we could showcase some of our latest ideas that are not quite ready for the prime time. Some of those ideas might never get integrated into the product, while some of them might become separate services.

The new forum is called LiveJournal Labs and can be found at http://www.livejournal.com/lab.bml. We will be adding new applications over the next few months. In the meantime, please play around and let us know what you think!

Post to Your LJ (and ALL your blogs) from Facebook
Blog It powered by TypePad is Six Apart's new cross-platform blogging application for Facebook. Blog It brings some of the best social networking aspects of Facebook to blogging, making it easy to blog from within Facebook. Whether you you blog using LiveJournal, Movable Type, Blogger, Tumblr, or numerous other services, now you can update everything and everyone via one easy-to-create post on Facebook.

For more information about Blog It powered by TypePad, please visit http://blogit.typepad.com/.

Release Notes
As usual, you can find all of the release notes in lj_releases but here are a few new things we thought you’ d be happy to hear about:

The Panther Express Content Delivery Network is now serving Userpics, CSS and LJ image files. This will speed up the loading of pages, especially for our international users.
The thread expander is now supported by "The Boxer" and "Variable Flow" layouts, as are Custom styles.
Polls can now be closed by the poll creator, and re-opened again if need be.
OpenID friends can now leave comments in journals that have been marked as “friends only.”
There's a new “Delete All” button in your inbox that allows you to easily delete all of your messages.

LiveJournal Housewarming TOMORROW!
Are you going to be in the Bay Area tomorrow night? If so, please stop by the LiveJournal offices in San Francisco and help us celebrate our new office space, meet the new additions to our team, and discuss all of the exciting things we're working on for 2008 and beyond. The get-together starts at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow night. We'll have snacks and drinks, so all you need to bring is yourself!

Address: 576 Folsom Street (at 2nd Street, next to the Courtyard Marriott)

If you think you can make it, let us know in the comments, or... just show up. We can't wait to see you!

New Team Member

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:11:22 GMT

Looking ahead to 2009 and beyond, we determined that we needed to bring on new talent to assist the Advisory Board in long-term planning. We wanted to select someone who had international experience and who understands the pressures of living in the public eye. And most importantly, we wanted to be sure that he was someone who had the respect of the LiveJournal community.

After a lot of searching, we are excited to be able to introduce the newest addition to our team. Please welcome him at our new community: lj_2009

MARCH 2008: In Like a Lion... Out Like a Lamb

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:51:08 GMT

The past few weeks at LiveJournal have not been without incident. Last week we updated you on our plans for 2008, including our policy and development priorities, and we've been working fervently on those plans already. During this busy time, we've also brought on new colleagues, and moved into our new San Francisco office. We've also been able to roll out a few things we hope will make your life on LJ a little better.

Less Spam. More Books.
We are now using a new CAPTCHA from reCAPTCHA during the registration process for new accounts. Not only will this help to significantly decrease the amount of spam accounts that are created, we love that reCAPTCHA is helping improve the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. In short, reCAPTCHA is helping to digitize books one word at a time, all while eliminating spam.

Get Inspired
As you know, we post a new Writer's Block prompt every day of the week. The questions are meant to inspire you to post, but clearly not every question is going to inspire every single person, which is why we've created the Writer's Block Archive. Located next to the "Suggestions" link in the Writer's Block module, you'll find a link to an archive of the last 30 days of Writer's Block prompts. Don't feel like sharing with the world what you're most neurotic about? No worries... Just check out the archives and find a question you DO want to answer. Do you have a great idea for a Writer's Block? We'd love to hear it!

News from Russia
We made a commitment to keep you abreast of important LiveJournal developments and we want to honor that commitment and let you know about a new feature we are going to test in Russia: Paid Accounts Supported by Sponsors.

The concept is simple, really. Essentially it’s a paid account, but someone else picks up the bill.

Here's how it works: Users will be offered paid accounts that are supported by sponsors. Users will be able to choose accounts from a range of brands supporting this program. Should the sponsor stop supporting this arrangement, the account will revert back to its previous type.

The accounts will have a specially designed journal style with modest branding from the sponsor; these will be designed by our creative department and approved by the sponsors. There will also be a banner in the profile page. The owners of paid/sponsored accounts will not see advertisements in other people's journals, while existing paid users will not see banners in a sponsored users' profiles. The branded styles will respect ?style=mine, which will allow paid users to avoid seeing branded styles if they wish to do so.

This new feature will soon be available for testing by Russian-speaking users. They will test the functionality of new accounts and provide us with feedback. Based on this feedback and agreements with global advertisers, we may eventually extend this new functionality to LJ users around the world.

Design It With Style: Enter the HP "What Do You Have to Say?" Theme Design Contest
One of the first things people notice when they're checking out your journal is the theme you've chosen to represent yourself and your content. Whether you've chosen one of our themes, or a custom theme you've designed yourself, the way your journal looks really does provide readers a hint about your personality and style. Not to mention, a great looking theme can also inspire creativity and motivate us to post to our own journals.

Which is why we're so excited to announce the HP "What Do You Have to Say?" Theme Design Contest.

All you have to do to enter is design a theme that showcases your personal style and creativity. The winning theme will be made available to millions of bloggers on LiveJournal, TypePad and Vox. Plus, if your theme is chosen as the winner, you'll win some really cool prizes from HP:

First Place: $1000 gift certificate from Hewlett Packard
Second Place: $500 gift certificate from Hewlett Packard
Third Place: $300 gift certificate from Hewlett Packard

Visit the contest homepage to learn how to submit your theme, as well as VOTE on your favorite themes.

All entries must be submitted by April 4, 2008, at 5:00 p.m. PDT.

We can't wait to see what you create. And remember, this is a contest, so be sure to tell your friends and family to vote for your design!

Need Some Inspiration?
No one brings ideas to life quite like Gwen Stefani. With awesome personal style, and a true understanding of what it means to be creative, Gwen is a true inspiration for the designer in all of us. And now, for a limited time only, you can add a custom theme from Gwen Stefani and HP to your journal.

L to R: HP Love, HP Lovers Plug In, HP Lovers Rock, HP Music, HP Plug In

New V-Gifts
It wouldn't be a release without a few new V-Gifts. Throw someone a bone, send them a carnation, or let them know they're "the one" with a rubber ducky.

L to R: Peach Carnation, Purple Carnation, Smoothie Blender, Milk Tea Boba, Green Tea Boba, Frank Punching Bag, More Cowbell, DogBone, Rubber Ducky, Evil Ducky

Moving On
Jason Shellen, our VP of product development, decided to resign from his position at LiveJournal, Inc. at the beginning of the week. His decision was for family and personal reasons. We wish him the best for the future.

And Last, But Not Least...
We added a few other small things in this release... You can get all the details for this release (and all the releases) in lj_releases .

Finally... as we mentioned in the subject line, we realize we came into March a bit like a lion... So we hope you won't mind if we stay true to the old saying and go out more like a lamb. Or a goat. Whichever.

Happy Spring Everyone!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:18:13 GMT

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.

The 100th day

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:02:37 GMT

Today marks the 100th day since we announced SUP's purchase of LiveJournal from Six Apart, the formation of LiveJournal, Inc, and goals for the first 100 days. We've made some amazing progress since that announcement, and we're really proud of what we've accomplished in such a short period of time: the team in the U.S. is growing, we've gained a VP of Product Development, set up a San Francisco home for LiveJournal, and we're ramping up recruiting so we can continue to support and improve the service.

Additionally, we’ve made some great movements towards establishing clear policy guidelines, and will continue to gather your ideas on improving these proposed policies in the coming days. We also started setting up an Advisory Board to help guide LiveJournal in the right direction. Previously, we announced four of the members, and provided information on the roles they will play. When we made this announcement, we mentioned that two of the members will be representatives elected by you. Please read our latest entry in lj_2008 for the details on when these elections will occur, and how they will be held.

There have been a number of other changes in the past 100 days as well. Some of these are more visible, such as our new comment expanding feature, the addition of an icon for entries filtered to custom friends group, and the ability to easily discover new content with Explore LJ. We've also made some improvements to LiveJournal's infrastructure; email notifications should now be faster, and we're in the process of making other changes which will improve the site's overall speed.

Other changes you may have noticed are the logged-out homepage and registration process for new users. We streamlined and simplified things so that now it’s faster and easier than ever to create a LiveJournal account.

After focusing time on some of the most requested features, we are looking forward to the future and seeing how we can continue to make LiveJournal even better. We want to honor the tradition of being a unique place to write, share, and keep in touch with friends, while also helping people find communities of people with interests similar to their own. Our goals for the future include continuing to improve the design of the site, extending LiveJournal’s reach throughout the world, and improving our ability to support users worldwide… all while continuing to provide a compelling place to write and express yourself.

Policy conversation

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:46:39 GMT

We know that information about LiveJournal's Abuse policies and procedures is an important issue to many of you, so we want to make sure we get the attention of everyone who's interested. We've put together a set of proposed policies in lj_policy. In order to create the best set of policies possible, we really need your feedback and input, so please do take the time to review and comment.

Also, be sure to keep an eye out; we'll have other things to update you on next week!

Gettin' A Move On...

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:47:20 GMT

LiveJournal, Inc. has found a home! Our new office space is in SoMa, an up-and-coming district in San Francisco with a downtown/industrial vibe. SoMa is home to many internet companies (including Six Apart), the SF Museum of Modern Art, AT&T Park (Go Giants!), as well as lots of locally-owned restaurants, book stores and galleries. We're moving onto the top floor of a historic three-story building with exposed brick and flexible meeting spaces with sliding walls. There's even a little patio area where Frank can hang out on sunny San Francisco days.

The current SF-based LiveJournal, Inc. staff are in the process of moving to the new space and will be joined soon by the new employees we're actively recruiting to ensure that LiveJournal continues to be one of the best online communities available.

And while we're on the topic of how LiveJournal is one of the best online communities...

We Need Your Vote!
LiveJournal has been selected as a finalist in the 2008 Webware 100 Awards. Webware 100 is CNET's yearly awards program where users nominate and then vote for their favorite Web 2.0 apps and sites.

LiveJournal is nominated in the "Social" category. So if you think LJ is superior to Digg, Facebook, or MySpace, we hope you'll go vote and let the world know!

Voting is open until March 31, 2008, and the winners will be announced on April 21, 2008.

Just In Case You Need A Little Convincing...
Here's just one reason, out of many, we think LiveJournal deserves your vote. So far in 2008, LiveJournal has had less downtime than MySpace, Friendster, Facebook and LinkedIn. In fact, with only ten minutes of downtime, LiveJournal has had a full 12 hours and 18 minutes less downtime than Bebo. See the pingdom post for the complete list of social networks and their downtime.

We understand that all websites go down from time-to-time, but we also understand that you depend on LJ to be available whenever you want it. A huge thanks goes out to our ops team who work non-stop to make sure that LiveJournal is accessible to you at all times.

Advisory Board Update
Back in December, we announced the creation of the LiveJournal Advisory Board, as well as the fact that brad joined as its first member. We are thrilled to announce the addition of three new members to this international group of informed and trusted leaders from the online community. Find out more about the newest Advisory Board members in lj_2008.

New Icon for Filtered Posts
You've been asking for a way to easily keep track of which of your posts are filtered to custom groups and now you can!

Today we released a new icon that will display on your entries that are filtered to one or more custom friends groups. In addition, the entry's metadata will automatically list which of your custom groups can see each post.

Note that the custom friends group icon and the list of groups will only be viewable by you (the journal owner). The normal friends-only icon will be displayed as usual to your friends who can read your filtered posts. This feature is for S2 users only.

But Wait... There's More!
We've added new V-Gifts to help you celebrate the upcoming holidays. Toast a friend with a mug of green liquid on St. Patrick's Day or make some bunny's Easter sweeter with kissing chocolate bunnies. Not in a festive mood? We've got a few signs that may be just perfect for you (or as April Fool's Day jokes for your friends!). Find these V-Gifts and more in the V-Gift Shop.

L to R: Mug of green liquid, chocolate bunnies, "Ban Me" sign, "De-Friend Me" sign, "Kick Me" sign, "Troll Me" sign.

Explore LJ poll

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:25:57 GMT

We'd like your feedback on the new Explore LJ page!

View Poll: Explore LJ

What subcategories would you like to see under each category?

View Poll: I'd like to see the following subcategories:

In the interests of consolidating your feedback into one place, comments here are disabled; please use the contact form for suggestions on this feature. Thank you!

Introducing the New Explore Area

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:38:48 GMT

When we first outlined the 100 Day Plan in early December, we told you of our intent to improve content discovery. Today, with the beta release of the new Explore LJ, we are one step closer to that goal. As you'll see when you try it out, the new Explore LJ is designed specifically to help you find the things on LiveJournal that interest you.

Let's be honest: There are times when you've updated your own journal, read all of your friends' posts, visited all your favorite communities, but are still looking for something more. It's not that you don't love the stuff already on your radar, but you want to branch outside of your comfort zone and find content that is not only new, but that actually appeals to you. We are hoping our new explore area will help you do just that. Much like how your morning paper is conveniently organized into sections so that you know exactly what to grab if you want to find out about world news versus your local sports teams, we've created six relevant areas of interest for you to explore: Culture, Entertainment, Life, Music, News & Politics and Technology.

In order to make sure each area has great content, recent public posts are analyzed electronically and then placed into the areas where they best fit, if there is indeed such an area. (Not all entries will necessarily appear in an explore area.) The feed of posts is updated constantly, so you can refresh the page to see new entries as they are posted. In some areas, you will also see featured content that the LiveJournal staff found to be timely, interesting, or well-written. As of today, we have featured content picked by the staff in both Entertainment and News & Politics, with more featured content to come.

Want your content to be featured? We'll let you know in the coming weeks how you can send suggestions for topics and entries you'd like to see highlighted.

We've also teamed with MSN to bring you the news you don't want to miss. You'll find breaking news headlines right below the featured LiveJournal content in News & Politics as well as Entertainment. We are excited about this partnership with MSN and we hope you'll view it as just another way for us to provide you with more visibility to news-worthy topics.

Of course, as with all sponsored content, the MSN links will only be visible to Basic and Plus accounts.

Opting Out
First of all, let us reassure you that the only entries that will ever appear in the explore areas are public entries. However, you will have a few options if you don't want a post of yours to be included in the explore areas. You can remove individual posts that are currently appearing in an explore area by clicking on the delete button next to that entry. This will not delete your entry from your journal; it will only remove it from appearing in that explore area. If you want all of your public entries to be excluded from the explore areas, you may opt-out by going to Viewing Options and checking the box labeled "Explore Area Exclusion." Journal entries posted as private or friends-only are automatically excluded, but this will also exclude your public entries from the explore area.

Beta Features and Feedback
You can find out more information about the explore area in the FAQ. As we mentioned, it is still in beta and we are working to make improvements to both the relevance of the categories, as well as adding sub-categories that are more specific and unique to LiveJournal users. We are excited to try something new on LiveJournal, and we really want your feedback about what's working, what's not working as well, and what you'd like to see going forward. We will post a poll in a couple of days, after you've had time to play with the new features, so that we can collect all of your comments. Once we've aggregated them, you'll want to stay tuned for more changes and improvements in the New Year.

Speaking of...

It's the Year of the Rat
Chinese New Year begins on February 7th; those born in rat years (like chasethestars and janinedog ) are often born leaders who have practicality and charisma on their side. Whatever year you were born, it is considered good luck to give others a red envelope symbolizing luck and wealth. Pass out our red envelope V-Gift to all of your friends to celebrate what is sure to be an amazing New Year. Plus, we think you'll be happy to hear that we've made some more improvements to the V-Gift Shop. You can now send V-Gifts to more than one user at a time, as well as view the comment you include on the checkout page (thanks henrylyne). We hope this makes it even easier to brighten a friend's (or many friends at the same time) day. Which animal year were you born in? Let us know in the comments!

From the entire LJ team... Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐!

State of the Goat 2008

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:21:32 GMT

2007 was an epic year for LiveJournal. Of course, the biggest news was the launch of LiveJournal, Inc. -- a company dedicated exclusively to LiveJournal with a passion for and commitment to the technological innovation for which LiveJournal is known.

However, there were a lot of other changes and additions in 2007, amongst which were some of the following favorites:

LJ & Photobucket. Since a picture really is worth a thousand words, we made it even easier for those of you who use Photobucket to insert images into your journal directly from the update page.
Username Makeovers. Sure you thought BarbieGirl4Eva was a cute name. But then you came to your senses. And so did we. After two years, we finally purged usernames, making a lot more names available for you. We also made sure it remained easy for you to rename your journal or community without losing any information.
Redesigns!

Homepage: We made the logged-out homepage more enticing for new users, and the logged-in homepage more functional for existing users.
V-Gift Shop: Giving has never been easier due to clearly designated themes and an easy-to-shop format.
Vertigo Site Scheme: We introduced the Vertigo Viewing Option because we understand that while a lot of people prefer to be horizontal as much as possible, there are those of you who'd rather be upright.
Customize Area: Streamlined to be more user-friendly.
Message Center: It's now easier to filter and keep track of messages.

Birthday Reminders. We brought them back, thereby eliminating the word "belated" from your vocabulary entirely.
Automatic Voice Post Transcription. Public voice posts shorter than three minutes are now automatically transcribed for you.
Improved Directory Search. Faster and better. Enough said.
Private Messaging. Finally, you can communicate with another LJ user directly by sending him/her a private message.
Lazy SMS. Now you can look something up when you're away from your computer and LJ will automatically post the Wikipedia article as a private post to your journal. Although why you'd ever leave your computer is beyond us...
Post On-the-Go with LJ Mobile. Fine, we admit it. You can't be in front of your computer all the time, so we developed LiveJournal Mobile, a free application for your Windows Mobile or Palm device that makes it easy for you to post photos and text to your LJ. Whenever you want. From wherever you want.
Tell A Friend. Sharing is fun, so we brought back this feature after making some improvements. If you see a public post you want to share with a friend, just click on the "Tell a Friend" link to email it.
Adult Settings. We've given you the ability to voluntarily mark entries, journals and communities as either "Adult Concepts" or "Explicit Adult Content." We also gave users the ability to flag content they think should be reviewed, and though this was a controversial decision, it's been helpful in preventing users under the age of 18 from seeing explicit content.
Charitable Giving. LiveJournal was involved with several charities and non-profit organizations in 2007. Amongst them: Women for Women International, NaNoWriMo, Heifer.org, Blog Action Day, and DonorsChoose.org.
Permanent Account Sale. For all permanent accounts that were purchased during the first 36 hours of the sale, we donated $25 of the purchase price to RAINN, Witness, EFF, and Creative Commons.
Over 250 New Themes. Because when it comes to your journal, looks do matter.
From Russia with Live(Journal). Russian users experienced a whole new series of features rolled out in 2007, including: LiveJournal.ru, a news site that summarizes all that is new and cool on Russian LiveJournal; media integrations: LiveJournal commenting functionality was added to some of the country's main newspapers and media websites; and statistics that allow users to find out both how popular their journal or community is, and, if they choose, even see who is reading it. Along with these features, more than 100 patches have been committed to the LJ codebase for Russian users -- fixing bugs, removing limitations, and extending services.

Paid Members: Feelin' the Love
Paid members now have the ability to:

Edit comments
Expand collapsed comment threads in Expressive themes
Edit the security of entries en masse
Filter journals by security level

Paid members also received an increase to their friends and recent comment limits. Read all about the additional features/changes from 2007 in paidmembers.

2007: Something We Didn't Get Right
In our attempt to implement a zero tolerance policy towards content that supports child abuse, pedophilia, or sexual violence, we suspended about 500 journals in May of 2007 that should not have been taken down. We wish it hadn't happened at all, and we cannot say we're sorry enough. However, we did immediately realize our mistake, and all of the journals that did not break our TOS were restored as quickly as possible. We really screwed up, and when that happens, we've learned the best thing to do is just admit it and try to fix the problem to the best of our abilities.

Luckily, 2007 was also the year...

SUP Acquired LiveJournal from Six Apart.
We are so excited about the launch of LiveJournal, Inc. As we told you in December, many of the Six Apart employees who worked exclusively on LiveJournal were transferred to the new company and remain dedicated to supporting and improving this community.

We are already sinking our teeth into the 100 Day Plan and are eager to get all of your suggestions for the features you'd most like to see in 2008. We also created a new community, lj_policy, so that you have a place to state your thoughts and opinions on things like policy updates and processes. It is very important to us to create a Community Policy that accurately reflects the needs of the LiveJournal community, and we cannot do that without your input.

One of the most exciting parts about the launch of LiveJournal, Inc. is the soon-to-be created LiveJournal Advisory Board. We will announce a detailed plan for the board in the coming weeks, including the other members who will be joining LiveJournal's founder, Brad Fitzpatrick. You can read all about the 100 Day Plan, the Advisory Board, as well as ask any questions you may have in the lj_2008 community.

Looking Forward...
We have a lot of amazing things planned for 2008. And with your suggestions and feedback, we think it may be the best year yet for LiveJournal. By the time we write this news post again in January of 2009, we can guarantee that LiveJournal will be a faster, stronger, and bigger service.

Happy Holidays!

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:21:10 GMT

It's hard to believe 2007 is coming to a close. The staff at LiveJournal is getting ready for a few weeks of winter hibernation and rest, so this will be our last news post of the year. However, before we go, we wanted to fill you in on the latest developments at LJ and make sure you have everything you need to kick start the New Year.

The 100 Day Plan & Policy Clarifications
We know the past month has been a bit overwhelming with the announcement of LJ's new home at LiveJournal, Inc. There have been a lot of questions about the acquisition, and we want to make sure you are getting the answers you deserve.

When we made the announcement that SUP acquired LiveJournal from Six Apart in early December, we posted about SUP's 100 Day Plan, as well as the formation of the LiveJournal Advisory Board. We recently posted more information and clarification about both of these topics, as well as an official announcement about LiveJournal, Inc.'s first brand new employee, Jason Shellen, in lj_2008. As we mentioned previously, lj_2008 is a community we created to facilitate an open dialogue with you about LiveJournal's plans and progress. If those are subjects that interest you, please join the community to stay connected and up-to-date during the transition.

You may also have questions about some other recently implemented policies, like Adult Content Settings and Search Terms. Please visit lj_policy for clarification on these policies, and to ask any questions you may have.

Again, it is very important to us that you have a place where you can ask questions and get answers. We created the communities to facilitate just that, so please visit and participate in them often.

Celebrate 2008 with New V-Gifts
The New Year is only a few weeks away, and what better way to ring in 2008 than with a festive V-Gift? Prefer cozying up to the fireplace instead of partying in Times Square? No worries: We've got a few V-Gifts for you as well, including all-you-can-eat whipped cream for your toasty mug of hot chocolate. There's also a pretty pony for Frank, and a baby "drama" llama for those of you with drama-filled friends.

From L to R: 2008 Glasses, Fireworks, Bubbly, Baby Llama, Blinkie the Pony, Whipped Cream

Still Looking for That Perfect Gift?
It's not too late to participate in the "Give More" promotion! When you buy someone a gift of paid account time, you'll automatically give them the userpic add-on for free! The "Give More" offer is available until December 31, 2007, at 11:59 p.m. PST and only applies to gifts purchased for other users, not paid time you purchase for your own account.

Still haven't finished your holiday shopping? Avoid the lines and the mayhem: Go to the LJ Gift Shop and Give More!

Speaking of Giving...
The generosity of LiveJournal users has always been unparalleled, and the past few months have shown to be no exception. On behalf of Heifer International and the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program, we'd like to thank all of you who purchased the charity V-Gifts supporting these causes. We look forward to making a difference and supporting more of the causes you care about in the future.

Expand Collapsed Comments Thread
Paid Members (and those of you who are viewing Paid journals) can now test out a new feature that lets you expand collapsed comment threads. This feature is in testing stages, and we would love your feedback on it. You can read more about it and find out which layouts are supporting this in paidmembers.

Happy Holidays!
We know how crazy this time of year can be for everyone, and we're sure you've noticed that things at LiveJournal have been even crazier than usual. We want to take this opportunity to extend a HUGE THANK YOU to all of the LJ volunteers & staff who give so much of themselves to make LiveJournal the amazing place that it is. We really could not do it without you.

We'll be back in 2008 with the State of the Goat. Until then... from all of us here at LJ: Have a Safe & Happy Holiday!

(Thank you to spectralbovine for the original photograph.)

Celebrate the New Era of LiveJournal!

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:34:50 GMT

Yesterday we announced that LiveJournal has a new home. Today it's time to celebrate!

We're throwing a private party tonight in San Francisco to toast to the future of LiveJournal. Join lj_2008 - our new community dedicated to discussing what's next for LJ - and get an exclusive invitation to the party from brad.

See you there!

LiveJournal & SUP

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 02:44:50 GMT

Six Apart Announces New Home for LiveJournal

Acquisition of LiveJournal, creation of new operating company and investment fund by SUP promise new innovation and expansion for pioneering online community

San Francisco, CA - December 3, 2007 - Six Apart, the world's leading independent blogging software and services company, today announced that SUP, an international media company, has acquired LiveJournal (LJ), the pioneer of social networking communities online used by millions of people around the world to connect through personal journals and topic-based communities. SUP has launched an American company, LiveJournal, Inc., to manage and operate LiveJournal globally.

This agreement builds on the established and successful relationship between Six Apart and SUP, which entered into a licensing agreement in October 2006 permitting SUP to manage LiveJournal in Russia. The Russian LiveJournal community is second only to the U.S. in number of accounts, and has been influential enough in that country to make "LiveJournal" synonymous with "blogging" in Russian.

"We have a tremendous respect for the LiveJournal community, and are pleased to see that LiveJournal, Inc. will continue to build on LiveJournal's rich user experience. We have been impressed by the expertise and enthusiasm that SUP has brought to LiveJournal in Russia. They've introduced new features, nearly doubled the number of users, invested in key product enhancements, and have done justice to one of the most innovative online social networks in the world. Judging both by SUP's track record and their eagerness to create a new user advisory board to oversee the community's interests, this is clearly a good fit," stated Chris Alden, CEO and Chairman of Six Apart.

"Having gotten to know LiveJournal in Russia over the past year, we see enormous potential in developing the business worldwide; it has already shown its durability in America. We believe this is a great opportunity," said Andrew Paulson, CEO of SUP.

Six Apart acquired LiveJournal in January 2005 from its founder, Brad Fitzpatrick. From its founding, LiveJournal popularized many of the fundamental innovations of social media, such as friends lists and powerful privacy controls. Under Six Apart, the number of LiveJournal accounts nearly tripled from 5 million to over 14 million, and dozens of new features were introduced to the site, including

a powerful email/IM/web notification system;
LJTalk, a completely open-source Jabber-based instant messaging platform;
user-to-user messaging and tremendous improvements in comment management and editing;
a vastly expanded mobile feature set, including a dedicated mobile client; and
dozens of new visual themes and a completely new, simplified site design and navigation system.

Six Apart will continue its active investment in and promotion of the signature open source platform technologies created by the LiveJournal team, such as Memcached, Mogile, Perlbal, and OpenID, all of which have been adopted by other leading web properties from Craigslist to Facebook to Wikipedia. LiveJournal, Inc. will also carry on LiveJournal's strong open source tradition.

Six Apart will also continue to represent LiveJournal to advertisers and sponsors for at least the coming twelve months. Brand owners interested in advertising on LiveJournal or Six Apart's Vox may visit here.

"While we'll miss being LiveJournal's home, this is a great milestone for LiveJournal and also lets us to focus on the core products invented at Six Apart: Movable Type, TypePad, and Vox," said Alden. "We are investing heavily in the products and have substantial growth plans for 2008."

For more information about the acquisition, please visit lj_2008.

About Six Apart
Six Apart Ltd. provides award-winning blogging software and services that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and corporations connect and communicate across the world every day. Founded in 2002 by husband and wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott, Six Apart is a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco, CA, and offices in Europe and Japan. The company continues to lead in the blogging and social media industry with the Movable Type Publishing Platform, the TypePad hosted blogging service, and Vox, a free blogging service for friends and families. For more information visit the Six Apart corporate web site at http://www.sixapart.com/.

SUP acquires LiveJournal from Six Apart

New team to develop LiveJournal in U.S. and globally. Online user poll offers chance to join new Advisory Board.

SAN FRANCISCO – December 3, 2007 – SUP, an international media company based in Moscow, today announced that it has acquired LiveJournal from Six Apart, Ltd. LiveJournal is one of the world's leading global online communities, with a monthly audience of more than 18m unique visitors in nearly every country in the world. Additionally, SUP today launched a new U.S. company, LiveJournal, Inc., based in San Francisco, which will manage and operate LiveJournal. More information on the acquisition is available at lj_2008.

This deal is the second agreement between SUP and Six Apart. In October 2006, SUP concluded a licensing agreement with Six Apart to support and develop the large Russian segment of LiveJournal, which now represents 28% of its monthly audience. In the past twelve months, SUP and Six Apart have worked in close collaboration to improve LiveJournal for Russian users during which time the community has almost doubled.

"Having gotten to know LiveJournal in Russia over the past year we see enor-mous potential in developing the business worldwide; it has already showed its durability in America. We believe this is a great opportunity," said Andrew Paulson, president of SUP.

New LJ community to highlight plans launched

The new management team outlined their plans for the service in a new LiveJournal community – lj_2008 – dedicated to addressing user questions and concerns, and serving as a forum to discuss anything related to the acquisition. Also at lj_2008, users will find details about LiveJournal, Inc.'s goals over the next 100 days. These goals include planned upgrades as well as new features and services for the LiveJournal community. The team will focus on such items as service performance, usability, socialization and discovery features. LiveJournal, Inc. is encouraging users to post on the community new ideas for improving the service.

The LiveJournal community was informed of the news yesterday afternoon. SUP promised significant new investment in LiveJournal in the coming months and years. SUP also reassured the community that while subscribing to a minimalist approach in managing the site, it will establish clear and concrete policies with regard to communication and consultation on issues vital to the community.

LJ in Russia

When SUP established a licensing agreement with Six Apart to run LiveJournal in Russia in October 2006 Andrew Paulson said at the time: "LiveJournal is a very important Russian social and cultural phenomenon; our first duty is to 'do no harm,' LiveJournal is the 'blogosphere' in Russia, and being the caretaker of this service is a great privilege and a huge responsibility."

Commenting on SUP's track record in Russia since taking over the Russian segment Chris Alden, CEO and Chairman of Six Apart said, "We were very impressed with SUP's management of the Russian LiveJournal community over the past year and are confident that they will bring resources and energy to develop the product and expand the community."

LJ Management Team and Advisory Board

SUP and Six Apart will work together in the coming months to transfer operations to LiveJournal, Inc. The existing team that worked exclusively on LiveJournal at Six Apart has moved to LiveJournal, Inc., and new general manager, marketing and sales teams will be recruited.

LiveJournal, Inc has announced the formation of the LiveJournal Advisory Board, which will be comprised of both industry experts and members of the LiveJournal community. One of the key members of the Advisory Board will be LiveJournal's founder, Brad Fitzpatrick, who recently left Six Apart for Google. Positions will also be reserved for two members of the LiveJournal community on a rotating basis via an open online election process.

About SUP

SUP is an international online media company with established partnerships with businesses across the globe. It was founded in the summer of 2006 by an international management team with Russian seed capital. SUP set itself the goal of building a portfolio of high-traffic-generating projects based in Moscow from which to expand worldwide.

Since its launch SUP has generated Russian-language traffic and sold advertis-ing inventory on its own sites and others inside Russia. These projects include:

LiveJournal.ru, the most popular blogging platform and social network in Russia;
Championat.ru, currently one of the top three sports news and entertain-ment services in the Russian internet;
+SOL, a media sales house which is SUP's internal commercial depart-ment and also sells online advertising for a number of high-profile Russian and international Web sites (Yahoo!, Last.fm, The Times, amongst others);
Victory S.A., a full-service online advertising agency which devises and delivers online marketing campaigns for leading Russian and international brands.

For more information, please visit http://www.sup.com/en/.

What Does This Mean?

You're probably wondering what this means for you. We realize you are going to have a lot of questions and we want to be sure to address them all.

It's been clear for some time that doing the right thing for LiveJournal would require being a lot more ambitious; it would take an even bigger investment in and commitment to this community. It would take a team dedicated exclusively to LiveJournal--one that can build on the commitment to technological innovation and invention for which LiveJournal is known. And it would take some creative thinking. It would take SUP.

SUP has a deep respect and admiration for the LiveJournal community, and their main goal in acquiring LiveJournal is to have a company (LiveJournal, Inc.) that focuses ONLY on LiveJournal. To be frank (too early for a goat pun?) we think this acquisition is going to greatly improve your LiveJournal experience. In the past year, SUP has demonstrated a passion for LiveJournal, as well as great skill in managing the service in Russia. They have invested in new features, new services, and new business partnerships, and they will continue to do so. LiveJournal, Inc. will focus on service performance, usability, socialization, and discovery features right away to ensure you're getting the most out of your LiveJournal experience.

SUP understands that LiveJournal is nothing without you, the community, so they are forming the LiveJournal Advisory Board. The Advisory Board will represent the users, offering you a voice and a forum regarding your role on LiveJournal, as well as LiveJournal's role in the online world. It will be independent of the LiveJournal, Inc. management team and will oversee issues such as honoring LiveJournal's community traditions, ensuring privacy, creating user policy and protecting security. We are thrilled that Brad Fitzpatrick, LiveJournal's founder, has agreed to become the first member of the Advisory Board. This will permit him to be much more closely involved in LiveJournal's development. The Advisory Board will also include two members from the LiveJournal community who will be elected by you (we've been inspired by the Wikipedia elections), the users. Clearly, when SUP says they want you to be involved, they mean it. You can read much more about SUP's plan for LiveJournal, Inc., as well as the role of the Advisory Board, in lj_2008.

We're also very happy to report that the Six Apart employees who worked exclusively on LiveJournal have all been transferred to LiveJournal, Inc. We (the new LiveJournal, Inc. team) remain dedicated to supporting and improving this community. While Six Apart will certainly miss being LiveJournal's home, this gives them the opportunity to focus on their core products: Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. Six Apart will continue to offer support to LiveJournal, Inc. until the transition is complete.

During the transition, SUP also wants to ensure that you are involved in the Community Policy Update if that's something that interests you. We've created a new community lj_policy, where you can participate in the decision making, and follow policy updates and processes. This new community is the first step in creating a thorough Community Policy that accurately reflects what you want and deserve from your LiveJournal experience.

We know change can be scary, even if it's a good change. We also understand how frustrating it can be to feel like you're in the dark when those changes are happening, so we're taking a number of steps to keep you in the loop. You can join the new lj_2008 community to learn about:

The LiveJournal plan for 2008
The FAQs about the SUP acquisition
The Advisory Board's role
How to ask questions and how to get answers about these changes

We are elated that LiveJournal is going to get the dedication and focus it deserves, and we want you to understand why that is. We hope you'll find this new community useful and informative during this incredible milestone.

SUP believes in LiveJournal and we know that passion will manifest itself in both innovation and improvement. And SUP's got their priorities straight: their number one goal is to make sure all of you who are current LiveJournal users are happy, and to make LiveJournal better than ever before.

Of course, we can't do this without your feedback. You should start off by posting your comments in lj_2008. We will be getting in touch with users to follow up on their ideas in the new year, if not earlier. Also, when you join the community, you'll be able to view an invitation to a special LiveJournal party Monday night in San Francisco celebrating all of these exciting changes. We hope to see you there!

Finally, we know you're worried about how Frank's dealing with all of this, and we're pleased to report that while he's going to miss his friends at Six Apart, he's excited about the change. Plus, let's face it, as long as he's with you (and, um, chewing on something), he's a pretty happy goat.

December News

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:26:06 GMT

Just like that: Thanksgiving is over and before you've even finished the leftover turkey, ornaments are being hung on trees, candles are going in the menorah, presents are being wrapped, and the over-indulgence that is the holidays is in full swing.

If you want to deck your halls with boughs of holly, or just hand out lumps of coal, we've got what you need to keep your LJ merry and bright.

Give More is Back!
You've waited patiently all year... And finally, the "Give More" promotion is back! Starting Saturday, December 1st, when you buy someone a gift of paid account time, you'll automatically give them the userpic add-on for free! That means when you give the gift of a 12 month paid account, the recipient automatically gets upgraded to 100 userpics for those 12 months.

The Give More offer is available until December 31, 2007, at 11:59 p.m. PT and only applies to gifts purchased for other users, not paid time you purchase for your own account.

Finish all your holiday shopping this weekend! Head to the Gift Shop and Give More!

New Holiday Themes
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Eid, or just enjoy making out underneath the mistletoe, there's a holiday theme for everyone. Finally... Festive decor that doesn't require you to vacuum up those pesky pine needles.
From L to Right: Fireplace Brick, Christmas Tree Red, Eid Gold, Snowglobe White, Holiday Kiss Eggnog, Gingerbread Blue.

New Holiday V-Gifts
All we want for Christmas is a Rudolph Frank (shocking, we know), but we've got lots of new holiday-themed V-Gifts for everyone on your list. At less than $1 each, it doesn't really matter who was naughty and who was nice, does it?

While we're on the subject of V-Gifts, we think you'll be happy to hear that we've redesigned the V-Gift Shop! Now it is easier than ever to send a a Virtual Gift directly to your friends' profiles. Clearly designated themes and an easy-to-shop format are sure to put you in the giving spirit.

New Settings & Flagging Tools
We don't want to take away from the festive atmosphere, but we do want to make you aware of a new addition to LJ. At LiveJournal, we recognize that there is some content that may be fine for adults, but not for kids. We don't want kids seeing content that's not meant for them, and we know you don't either. LiveJournal wants to prevent minors from seeing adult content in a way that does not interfere with the experience of users who are 18 and over. The ability to set entries, journals and communities as either "Adult Concepts" or "Explicit Adult Content" is a functionality community maintainers and users have been requesting for a long time. As a result, we're giving you a set of tools that gives you control over whether the things you create and share on LJ are accessible by people under the age of 18.

You can read all about this new functionality, as well as comment with any and all questions you may have, in lj_biz.

Where's Frank? Contest Winners!
Pretty ponies, underwater antics and a trip to The Mission... Frank was lucky enough to go on some amazing adventures recently. The final votes are in though, and we'd like to congratulate our Grand Prize Winner, ytak, as well as our two Runner-Up Winners, the_artiste and robdamnit. Thank you to everyone who entered! Frank is back at the office safe and sound, but we have to admit... He seems a lot more interested in colorful ponies and a lot less interested in chewing on the lawn ever since the contest. We can sort of see why...
The winning entry from ytak.

Write This Way...

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:58:04 GMT

NaNoWriMo: Over Halfway There

There are only 11 days left until the end of NaNoWriMo 2007. What's your word count? Will you make it to 50,000 by November 30th? Are you struggling with intricate plot points and complicated characters, or finding the words are just flying onto the page?

Whatever your progress, we hope you're finding the NaNoWriMo communities, journals, themes and v-gifts on LJ inspiring and motivational. Having a bit of difficulty sitting down and churning out pages? Adding one of the latest writing themes may help get that keyboard clicking. Or, let us know in the comments about your NaNoWriMo novel and perhaps you'll get an encouraging visit from the V-Gift Fairy.
(From L to R: Typekeys, Typewriter, Inked and Writer's Block.)

Don't forget you can also send your friends one of our writing-themed V-Gifts to show your support. Choose from one of the four ribbon V-Gifts and we'll send 50% of the net proceeds to the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program.

Got All the Answers?
Enter the Answers.com Creative Writing Challenge.

Knowing how much the LJ community loves writing, contests, and prizes, when we heard that Answers.com launched its third Creative Writing Challenge today, we just had to tell you about it. Use your creative genius to feature ten pre-determined words in an original poem, story, or essay, and win a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com, as well as a place in the Answers.com Hall of Fame. Finally, fame and fortune could be yours!

Think you can find a creative way to use words like ataraxia and sapid? All you have to do is create an original written expression (any form you want, 750 words max), link the pre-determined words or phrases to the corresponding Answers.com entry and post your masterpiece on your LJ. Then fill out the entry form for your chance to win!

This is a great way to learn some new words (or visit with old favorites) and get more traffic to your LJ... As well as win $100 to spend at Amazon.com! Read all the rules and enter to win at Answers.com.

How Are You Getting Your Write-On?
November has un-officially turned into the month intended to inspire writers of all kinds. Whether you're an aspiring Novelist (NaNoWriMo), an avid blogger (NaBloPoMo), or a determined playwright (NaPlWriMo), there's a challenge geared towards helping you create.

View Poll: November Writing Poll

Put the Turkey in the Oven... And on Your LJ
Thanksgiving is just a few days away. Why not send a friend our charitable Give Thanks Turkey V-Gift? All of the proceeds from the turkey go to Heifer International, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending world hunger. Thus far, you've raised $235.82. That's almost two sheep, or four gifts of trees!

Finally, to those of you who are celebrating it: HAPPY THANKSGIVING. And whatever your November writing project, may the powers of creativity, inspiration, encouragement, and excessive amounts of caffeine help you reach your goals.

November News

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:16:43 GMT

Whether you're ready or not, November is upon us. That means holidays, parties, and all the fun (and stress) that go with them. We thought we'd get a jump start on the season of giving with some great new stuff on LJ.

We Heard Your Pleas: Comment Editing Is Here!
Ever left a comment and immediately wanted to alter it? Previously, whether it was an embarrassing typo or an incorrect link, once you hit "post comment," your only choice was to either delete it, or leave it for the world to see. Until now.

Paid Members now have the ability to edit comments! Just click on the "edit" button in your comment to make changes. Of course, to be fair to others, only comments that have not yet been replied to may be edited.

Need to Talk in Private?
Private messaging has arrived. You can now communicate with another LJ user directly by sending him/her a private message. Just go to your Message Center, click the "New Message" button and fill out the form. Easy enough, right? Find out about all the ways you communicate with LJ users, as well as relevant privacy settings, in the FAQs.

Notify Facebook Friends about Your Recent LJ Posts
Make sure your friends never miss another one of your moments of genius. Facebook recently announced a new way for you to share the actions you've taken on other sites with your friends on Facebook and we are now offering that functionality on LiveJournal.

Facebook Beacon makes it simple to insert actions into your Facebook Mini-Feed and News Feed from LiveJournal and, in turn, share them with your friends on Facebook. This is an opt-in feature -- you'll be able to control whether or not you want to send your entries to Facebook, and of course we'll only do this when you're creating public entries. If you'd like to opt-in, you may do so within your journal on the Viewing Options page (Additional privacy settings > Facebook).

Get all the details about including LJ notifications on Facebook in this LiveJournal FAQ.

Post On-the-Go with LJ Mobile
LiveJournal Mobile is a free application (developed in-house by the Six Apart mobile team) for your Windows Mobile or Palm device that makes it easy for you to post photos and text to your LJ. Learn ALL the ways to go mobile with LiveJournal so you can post whenever you want, from wherever you want.

"Where's Frank?" Contest Finalists!
Thank you to everyone who entered the "Where's Frank?" Photo Contest. It was tough work, but we managed to narrow down the entries to five finalists. It's now up to you, the LJ community, to vote for your favorites and determine which entry will win a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com and which two entries will win $50 gift certificates to Amazon.com. The voting ends Friday, November 16, 007, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Which Frank is your favorite?

What's in a Name?
Juliet may have thought a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but look at what happened to her. Which is why we're having a SALE on rename tokens now through December 31st. For a limited time, you can purchase rename tokens in the Gift Shop for only $12 (marked down from $15).

Whatever your account level, this is your chance to rename your journal or community without losing any information. Your account status, profile, entries, and all other account-related information will remain the same, while all existing comments in other journals and entries will display your new username. Check out all the newly available usernames on the purged accounts page.

Comment with "I Want A Rename!" and let us know why you need one. We'll be giving out a few rename tokens to those of you with the most compelling cases.