news | Infrequent, basic, overall news. (this page) | |
lj_maintenance | Server status and planned downtime announcements. | |
lj_dev | LiveJournal technical development & planning. | |
changelog | Every little change, as it happens. | |
lj_test | The testing community, for testing the above changes. | |
featureannounce | A weekly digest of changelog events and new features. | |
lj_biz | LiveJournal business-related community. |
ljkrissy |
There seems to be some confusion circulating among many users, so we wanted to take a moment to try to clear some things up. All of us who work here at LJ and at Six Apart, the parent company of LiveJournal, believe that journals, blogs and online communities can truly enrich all our lives. We know that people use journals and blogs in different ways, and we're trying to support that by making the world's best blogging tools. Six Apart has already created the software of Movable Type and the hosted service TypePad, and they acquired LiveJournal in January 2005. Six Apart is also launching a new service called Vox, based on learning from all three of these blogging tools. LJ & Vox We'd like to clear up the relationship between Vox and LiveJournal. They are two separate services, and will remain so. LiveJournal users won't be forced into using Vox. You're welcome to visit Vox in its preview stage right now, but note that accounts are being opened up gradually until it's launched to the public this fall. Some users are concerned that Six Apart's energy will be focused on Vox to the detriment of LJ, which isn't true. On the contrary, all of the teams here are communicating knowledge so we can share features and innovations. For instance, LJ is in the process of helping make it easy for users to post videos from YouTube and photos from Photobucket, which is an idea that started on Vox. We'll roll out those features in the coming weeks. Another point of confusion came from some wording on the Six Apart website, which states that "LiveJournal has grown to be an amazing community of fiercely independent bloggers, primarily teenagers and twenty-somethings." We know the first part is true, but some people are questioning the second part. Though a few different sources confirm that the largest group of LJ users falls into the ages of around 18-24, a lot of LJ users feel that description just doesn't describe LJ's diverse community. We want you to know that we've heard your concerns, and now we're challenging you to help us make our statistics more accurate. The way you can do this is by following this meme that you might have already seen: Go to the profile page and specify your full date of birth, including your year of birth. If you don't want everyone to see how old you are, make sure the box that says "show your birthday to other users" is unchecked. The important thing is to get yourself into the database. Then tell your friends about it, and ask them to do it too.Finally, we want to reiterate that LiveJournal is a place where you can be yourself. We welcome users of all ages, with all interests, and we know that LJ's unique and diverse community is what makes it special. All of us on the staff have made friends on LJ who are totally different from us, live in different countries, have different points of view, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Our intention as we make changes to the site is to make LJ a better place so our current users and new users will want to use it. Sometimes we'll make mistakes, but we'll try our best to fix them. It stings when y'all yell at us, but we love that you're passionate about how you feel. :) So we mean it when we say it (and we will take our own advice): Be A Goat, Not A Sheep! |
ljkrissy |
We're back -- did you miss us? Do you like the new userpic veroz made for us all? Here's what we've been working on since our last post. Better Styles Management Keep an eye on the Styles management pages for an overhaul that will be launching very soon. There are also big changes in the works on our style systems, which are currently called S1 and S2. We're working on making S2 your best choice by bringing in some of S1's functionality to it. The goal is to have one style system that's powerful, flexible and easy to use. We encourage you to switch to S2 now! More New Stuff While we're always working on big new features for you, we wanted to point out a couple of smaller tweaks and improvements. There are some changes to the Edit Profile page which resulted in the new pages called Viewing Options (where you can turn on the Navigation Strip) and Comment Settings. The engineers have pushed some fixes including the ability to change back to Plain Text from the Rich Text editor. There are other bugs they are still working on, but if you are experiencing issues please contact Support. You've also probably noticed the new "Did You Know?" reminders that show up after you log in and after you post. These reminders are there to let you know about features you haven't used as well as new additions to the site. Visit the Did You Know? page to view all the reminders. Sponsored+ Account Level Since the launch of the new Sponsored+ account level back in April, we've enjoyed hearing all of your thoughts and opinions on it. A couple hundred thousand of you have already made the switch, and we really appreciate it. Your choice to move to the Sponsored+ level is a big support to the site and will enable us to make improvements to the new level and to the site as a whole. Stay tuned this summer as we start to roll out the feature improvements that have been enabled by your support of the site. If you're interested in getting more features for free, switch to Sponsored+ now. Gathering Data We have recently re-implemented HitBox, a site-wide data-gathering service that will help us dig deeper into how users and visitors use LiveJournal. The data we collect will help us prioritize our improvements to the site, among other things. A few folks were very concerned about privacy with the Hitbox service, and thanks to their feedback we were able to make some changes to how we'll use the service. Most sites on the web do keep track of which pages you visit, and we're trying to be even more respectful of your privacy. You won't actually see a change to your experience using LJ. If you'd like to know more about HitBox, please read all about it in this post to lj_biz. Staff Welcomes Join us in welcoming poignantly and hachi to the Engineering team, kimmi8 as our Product Manager, joydtaylor to our Sales team and chasethestars to the Design team! Summertime Congratulations to all the graduates of 2006! We wish all our users a safe, happy and productive summer. Stay tuned to news, tipoftheday and lj_spotlight (and frankthecomic for a laugh!) as we'll be bringing you tips on how to make the most of your LJ experience all summer long. |
ljkrissy |
Here's what the new level looks like:
In addition to more userpics, mobile and voice posts, and access to ScrapBook photo hosting, Sponsored+ level users can also create their own mood icons and use the domain name forwarding feature. We've made sure you can keep your system styles without changing them (although if you have a completely custom style you may not be able to use it in the Sponsored+ level). In the future we plan to add the ability to post polls and access the search directory to the Sponsored+ level. Who will see advertising on LiveJournal?
There are certain sites out there that are overrun with ads of, let's just say, questionable taste. That's not us. It's important to all of us that we offer users an ad-supported experience that's different from those sites. We want you to have an influence on what kinds of ads you see. In this beta launch of the Sponsored+ level, you can set your preferred ad categories and help us deliver the most relevant ads to you by adding to your interests list. We're being picky about the graphic ads we'll accept and are trying to choose advertisers and sponsors that are appropriate to LJ. This beta launch will include lots of LiveJournal ads, public services ads and Google text ads until we uncover and select additional advertisers who will bring you information you'll want to see. You can read the first version of our ad guidelines for details on the ad types we'll accept. We'd like your help to shape this, so there's a feedback link below each ad. A note about styles: If you've customized your layout using overrides, your journal might not display properly. This is because your overrides might no longer apply to the new style code. If this is happening to you, it's not because ads are broken -- you just need to correct your overrides. If you need help, please feel free to open up a Support request! If you're not sure and want to know more, read the FAQs about the Sponsored+ level: You can read the FAQs about the Sponsored+ level:
The Sponsored+ features and ad customization settings will evolve over the coming months and your participation and feedback will help us make them even better. Again, there's no risk to trying out the Sponsored+ level -- you can always upgrade to a Paid account or switch back to the Free level. Brad, the founder of LiveJournal, covered a lot of background about this new level in this post to lj_biz, so if you have further questions or want to understand his thoughts on it, you should take a few moments to read his post.
For Free account holders: You don't have to display ads on your journal or Friends page or view ads in the LiveJournal site pages. We're committed to keeping the Free account level available to you, and it's your choice if you'd like to opt in to the Sponsored+ level or purchase a Paid account. When you surf over to someone's journal who has opted in to the Sponsored+ account level, you will see the ads that are powering the premium features on that Sponsored+ journal. If you'd like to check out what the beta release of the Sponsored+ level is all about, you can do so here. There's no risk to check it out -- you can switch back at any time. If you do choose to stick with the new level, your support will help contribute towards LJ's growth and innovation. For Paid or Permanent account holders: Your support has kept LJ alive and growing all these years. We appreciate your continued support and you will get the most features and the highest storage limits. You'll never see ads as long as you're logged in, and no one will see ads on your journal whether they're logged in or not. We're not going to double-dip on you. In addition, you are the only ones who can earn Loyalty Userpics. Now for the DIY part: We had fun creating some LJ ads for the Sponsored+ level, but we want your help in creating more LJ ads. Place your creations in the comments to this post and we'll run the best few on the site. Have fun, be sappy, serious or satirical, make fun of us, draw ninjas fighting pirates, whatever; just try to make sure the ads are consistent with our new ad guidelines. The ad sizes are: 300x250, 160x600 and 728x90. We'll pick finalists by April 25th and let you vote on them in lj_ads. Update: View and vote on the finalists here. |
ljkrissy |
We hope you enjoyed our April Fool's news post. revmischa and veroz always find new ways to make us laugh, and kind of scare us sometimes. :) We've got real April news for you. The LJ engineers have been working on improving the performance of the Memories feature and we're excited to say that they've implemented a change that should fix the problems some of you were experiencing. LiveJournal in your Inbox You've always been able to opt in to receive emails from LiveJournal, but we never actually sent out any emails much before now. We're finally going to start emailing users, starting with LiveJournal news and select LJ promotions (like when we told some expired paid account holders about the Loyalty Userpics offer). You can check or change your "Send me LiveJournal news" preference by visiting your Edit Personal Information page. Attention Designers! Six Apart is hosting a style contest for LiveJournal, TypePad, and Movable Type with a grand prize of $4,000! You'll need some good skills, including HTML and CSS, to enter. For more information check out the post in lj_design or head straight to the official Style Contest Homepage. 10 Million We're fast approaching 10 million for our total number of LJ accounts EVAR. Help us watch the counter on the home page for the big event! Introducing the Navigation Strip Whenever you're viewing a journal, community or your Friends Page, have you ever wanted quick access back to LJ or to some basic tasks? We're introducing the navigation strip to help you out. The strip, which displays at the top of the page you're viewing, will show you whether or not you're logged in and will change to show you handy options. For instance, when you're reading your Friends Page, it gives you a drop down menu of viewing options so you can view journals only, communities only, custom friends groups, etc. Here's a quick sample preview -- click on the image for the full view: If you're using a custom style or layout, you won't see the navigation strip until you modify your style to include it. Check out the tutorials linked from the FAQ about the navigation strip for more details. Head over to your Edit Personal Information page and look for the new "Navigation Strip Options" if you'd like to turn it on and try it out! |
veroz |
Avast maties! Attention on the poopdeck! It's your favorite junior LiveJournal employees revmischa and veroz along with our minion, burr86 here to bring you a very special announcement! Cap'n revmischa and I have grown tired of slaving away working for LiveJournal, but no more! By the time you read this message we will have usurped the highest ranks of LiveJournal command and established a new LiveJournal order! Our plans unraveled earlier this morning when deep in the icy night, the S.S. Internland pulled up alongside the H.M.S. LiveJournal. Swords drawn, we boarded their ship and clashed steel. Suffering heavy casualties and unable to post to their journals for help in time, the rest of the LiveJournal crew was quickly seized and held hostage. First skipper, burr86. What do you have to report?
Excellent. See if he can be persuaded to join us. He would make a very valuable ally. The time for revolution is almost upon us. Cap'n revmischa has a few decrees he'd like to announce.
We are now steering the good ship LiveJournal. We promise to continue to work hard to bring to you, the loyal LiveJournal users, lots of cool and possibly pirate-oriented features. Shiver me timbers, the H.M.S. Fitzpatrick is closing in fast! Weigh anchor! Man the cannons! Prepare for battle! BRB! |