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Welcome to LiveJournal news. If you crave more frequent and detailed news, check out the following communities:

[info]newsNew features, site changes, overall news. (this page) RSS Feed
[info]lj_maintenanceServer status and planned downtime announcements. RSS Feed
[info]lj_releasesRelease info on code updates and new features. RSS Feed
[info]feedbackProvide feedback in staff polls and surveys. RSS Feed
[info]lj_designBe part of the creative discussion at LiveJournal. RSS Feed
[info]lj_devLiveJournal technical development community. RSS Feed
[info]changelogEvery little code change, as it happens. RSS Feed


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May News

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 -- 5:49 pm

theljstaff
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.

Winners of the HP 'What Do You Have to Say?' Theme Design Contest )

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 [info]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 [info]lj_2008.

Advisory Board Nominations Open

Monday, May 5th, 2008 -- 10:56 am

theljstaff
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 [info]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.”


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

Banners + code for you to use! )
 
Current Mood: chipper

April 2008 News

Thursday, Apr 24th, 2008 -- 4:19 pm

theljstaff
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 [info]lj_2008. We'll post in [info]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 [info]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

Tuesday, Apr 1st, 2008 -- 12:09 am

theljstaff
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: [info]lj_2009
 
Current Mood: excited

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

Thursday, Mar 27th, 2008 -- 1:30 pm

theljstaff
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. 


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 [info]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!

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