State of the Goat 2008
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:
Paid members now have the ability to:
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.
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 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
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.