LiveJournal News

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.

 New Customize Area
The new Customize Journal area has officially arrived. Finding the theme you want has never been easier. You can now search by theme, layout, or designer. Read all about it in lj_design. Thank you to janinedog and chasethestars who worked on it tirelessly, and to all of our beta testers for their great feedback. Now, go forth and customize! 


Searching for Something?
Aren't we all... Look no further than the control strip in your journal. We've added the search drop-down to all journal pages to make finding what you're looking for a cinch. 


Snap: In the Picture
A few weeks ago, we told you about a new tool from Snap.com that provides visual previews on external links within your journal. Based on your positive response, we've enabled these graphics for Basic and Plus users. (Don't worry: If you already disabled the graphic previews, you will not have to do so again. Also, if you don't want to see graphic previews, you can easily disable them within your journal on the Viewing Options page under "Graphic previews.")


Autumn Holiday V-Gifts (and New Halloween Themes)
Autumn is a time of giving, so we added several new autumnal V-Gifts, including a pumpkin pie, red lantern and Diwali lantern.
 
What better way to give than to send a friend our charitable Give Thanks Turkey V-Gift? All of the proceeds from the Turkey V-Gift go to Heifer International, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending world hunger.

Not quite ready for November? We understand completely. Which is why we added Bats & Ghouls to our spine-tingling Halloween themes.
 


NaNoWriMo V-Gifts & Themes
Ever dreamed of becoming a novelist? National Novel Writing Month is your chance to make that dream a reality. Participants begin writing on November 1st with the goal of writing a 50,000 word (175 page) novel by midnight, November 30th. 

We know a lot of writers on LJ participate in NaNoWriMo, so we've added some cool stuff to keep you motivated. One of our brand new writing themes may be just what you need to keep writing into the wee hours of the night. 
(fFrom L to R: Typekeys, Typewriter, Inked and Writer's Block.)
 

You can also show your encouragement with one of our new Writers' V-Gifts. Choose from one of the four ribbon V-Gifts and we'll donate 50% of the net proceeds to the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program. You can also send motivation in the form of an inkwell & quill or a typewriter.
 
Find out more about LJ's writers' themes and charity V-Gifts and connect with other NaNoWriMo writers. 
Are you participating? Let us know in the comments! 


Frank's Feeling a Little Grey
So why not put a little color in his life? You still have one day to enter LiveJournal's "Where's Frank?" photo contest. The Grand Prize winner will receive a $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com, and the Runner-Up winners will both receive a $50 gift certificate from Amazon.com. Go to lj_photocontest for all the official rules on how to submit your photo of Frank. 

Lastly, from all of us at LJ... HAVE A HAPPY HALLOWEEN! (And keep an eye out next week for a haunting Halloween site scheme.)

Trick or Treat: New V-Gifts
Your LJ trick or treaters will love our new V-Gifts. Because, really, who wants candy when he could have a black cat, a spooky ghost, an eyeball in a jar, a voodoo doll, a flying bat or a tombstone? We've also brought back the pre-nibbled candy corn and the flaming bag of poo (because it's not Halloween without a few tricks).



Our treat to Paid Members: A $1 coupon to use on a V-Gift for a friend. We've also implemented a much-requested new feature for Paid Members. You can now filter your journals by security levels. All the details are in paidmembers . Enjoy! 


Bewitching New Themes
Based on your feedback from the new themes poll, we created 33 new themes - a few of them quite spooktacular.



Plus Members may use Bookworm, Scraps, Talking Heads and Oddities, while Paid Members have access to all of those, as well as Space, Art Deco, Reading, Spider and janinedog's personal favorite, Scribble Dog Fudge. janinedog is an engineer at LJ and her adorable dog, Fudge (pictured below with Janine), was the canine inspiration behind our new Scribble Dog Fudge theme.
 


Back in Black
Look what the cat dragged in: The LiveJournal Spreadshirt store now has black shirts!

 


Community Policy Update
We know many of you are still patiently waiting for a clarification on our community policies and we wanted to let you know that we are working tirelessly to get you the information you want and deserve. Thank you for understanding that this is a complicated matter that deserves serious thought and attention. We hope to be able to update you soon. 


Blog Action Day

This Monday, October 15th, is Blog Action Day, an initiative for bloggers to unite and put a single important issue on people's minds. This year's issue: The Environment. Participating is simple: Just write in your journal as your normally would, but with the environment theme in mind. Find out more ways to get involved with this experiment at the Blog Action Day website. 


Donors Choose & The Blogger Challenge
Two weeks ago, we invited you to request gift certificates to apply to DonorsChoose.org, the non-profit organization where you can choose classroom projects in need of funding. As we mentioned last week in lj_biz, your response was amazing.

DonorsChoose.org reports that nationwide, participants raised $130,000 during the first six days of The Blogger Challenge. The money raised thus far will provide nearly 10,000 students from low-income families with books, art supplies, technology, and other much-needed educational resources.

On behalf of the students who stand to benefit, we cannot thank you enough. If you created a challenge, the comments are a great place to link to it directly so other LJ users can check it out and contribute. And don't forget, Six Apart is giving awards to the bloggers in the challenge who reach the most number of students. The winners will be announced at the end of the month.