LiveJournal

Time you got around to sponsoring a child

LiveJournal (often abbreviated LJ or lj) is the name of a website where Internet users can keep a journal or diary, as well as the name of the server software that was designed to run it. It is one of many sites that come under the term blog, or weblog.

A number of features distinguish LiveJournal from other blog sites, one of which is the "Friends Page," a list of the most recent posts from people a user has added to their "Friends List" — turning LiveJournal into a community of interconnected weblogs, and shifting it toward being social network software. Another such distinguishing feature is the employment of the S2 template system to allow users to customise the appearance and behaviour of their weblogs.

Similar to other online services, users may upload a small graphical icon (by LiveJournal users referred to as user picture or userpic) by which to define one's self to the rest of the community. This optional small image may take a maximum viewing size of 100 by 100 pixels. LiveJournal's free users, which account for approximately 94% of the network, may have a limit of 3 interchangable ones. Paid accounts may have many more (over a dozen), and can pay additional fees for additional user picture slots.

One's icon, if present, will appear next to your username when others view your post on their friend's page, as well as on your main Livejournal site at a specific location dependent upon the layout.

The software running the site is open source and is used by other sites.

Table of contents

1 History

1.1 Invite codes

2 Community
3 Frank the Goat
4 Other sites running the LiveJournal engine
5 LiveJournal timeline
6 See also
7 External links

History

LiveJournal was started in 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick as a way of keeping his high school friends updated on his activities.

LiveJournal is owned by Danga Interactive, which is in turn owned by Fitzpatrick.

Invite codes

From September 2, 2001 until December 12, 2003, because the number of users was increasing faster than the server architecture could handle, the growth of LiveJournal was put under control by an "invite code" system. New users needed to either obtain such an invite code from an existing user, or buy a paid account (which reverts to a free account at the expiration of the period of time paid for). The invite code system also had the side effect of helping prevent abuse, by deterring people from creating many throw-away accounts. The invite code system was lifted after a number of major improvements to the overall site architecture.

The removal of the invite code system met with mixed feelings and a surprisingly high amount of opposition. A number of users felt that the invite code system gave LiveJournal a touch of elitism, or a closed-community feel. Others, including LiveJournal's management, pointed out that when first introduced, the invite code system was intended to be temporary.

Community

As of July 2004, over three million accounts had been created, of which approximately 1,230,000 had been updated at some point in the last 30 days [1]. Of those users who provided their date of birth, the vast majority are in the 15-22 age group. Of those who specified their gender, almost two thirds are female. LiveJournal is most popular in English-speaking countries (although there is a language selection feature), and the United States has the most LiveJournal users by far. Following are rounded figures from July 2004:

United States - 1,800,000
Canada - 120,000
United Kingdom - 95,000
Russian Federation - 62,000
Australia - 42,000

Like most weblogs, people can comment on each other's journals and create a message board-style thread of comments — each comment can be replied to individually, starting a new thread from every one. All users, including non-paying users, can set various options for comments: they can instruct the software to only accept comments from those on their Friends list or block anonymous comments (meaning only LiveJournal users can comment on their posts), or not allow commenting at all. In addition, LiveJournal acts as host to group discussion boards, or "communities," encompassing a myriad of subjects. (For example, there is a community dealing specifically with Wikipedia [1].) A community is created as a regular journal account, and can then be converted into a community account. Each community has one or more maintainers, who have access to the options and settings regarding the community account.

LiveJournal relies heavily on user contributions and volunteer efforts. The LiveJournal Support area is run almost entirely by unpaid volunteers. Similarly, the website is translated into other languages by volunteers. Although programming is mainly done by employees and the original creator himself, user contributions in this area are also reviewed and considered.

Frank the Goat

Frank the Goat is LiveJournal's mascot. Frank is treated like a human, and even has his own site on LiveJournal (Frank the Goat) and his own journal. Frank is very well-known for his catch phrase, "Baaaaah."

Other sites running the LiveJournal engine

Because LiveJournal is an open source project, many other communities have been designed using the LiveJournal software. However, these, apart from DeadJournal, tend to be unstable and short-lived. These include, but are not limited to:

LiveJournal timeline

March 18 1999 -- LiveJournal starts (first entry ever: [1]; first version of the server code: [1])
November 17 1999 -- Creation of the news journal [1]
April 1 2000 -- Message boards (comments on entries) [1]
May 21 2000 -- Subject lines for entries
August 2 2000 -- Interests [1]
August 3 2000 -- First version of the Directory Search in beta test [1]
August 15 2000 -- First version of the Support board (earliest surviving support request: [1])
August 22 2000 -- Topic directory [1] (now defunct)
August 25 2000 -- Text messaging [1]
September 13 2000 -- First paid-account benefits [1]
November 14 2000 -- LJ user visions releases first version of his Windows client (now the most popular) [1]
December 1 2000 -- Creation of the changelog journal [1]
December 16 2000 -- Communities [1]
January 12 2001 -- Introduction of the dystopia site scheme [1]
March 18 2001 -- User polls [1]
March 24 2001 -- LiveJournal server code goes open-source [1]
May 16 2001 -- First support privilege: supporthelp [1]
September 2 2001 -- Invite codes are introduced [1]
November 4 2001 -- avva becomes first full-time employee [1]
January 5 2002 -- First purging run (freeing deleted usernames) [1]
February 2 2002 -- Database clustering [1]
April 1 2002 -- New support category: Communities [1]
April 14 2002 -- UTF-8 [1]
May 3 2002 -- Web interface starts getting translated into other languages [1]
July 3 2002 -- Zilla (bug and project tracking database) created (first entry: [1])
July 8 2002 -- RSS syndication [1]
August 22 2002 -- Support introduces interim privileges [1]
November 26 2002 -- Support category Customization closed [1]
December 29 2002 -- New support category: Syndication [1]
January 16 2003 -- Style System 2 (S2) enters beta-test [1]
March 18 2003 -- Introduction of the xcolibur site scheme [1]
April 11 2003 -- One million accounts reached [1] [1]
October 24 2003 -- Post by e-mail [1]
October 29 2003 -- New support category: Style systems [1]
November 12 2003 -- Post by phone [1]
December 12 2003 -- Invite codes are removed [1]
December 17, 2003 -- Unused Invite Codes can be used to obtain LiveJournal coupons until December 31 [1]
January 2, 2004 -- Secure logins and password changes [1]
January 29 2004 -- Two million accounts reached [1]
May 12 2004 -- LiveJournal wins "People's Voice" Webby Award in "Community" category [1]

External links

LiveJournal.com
LJDrama.org - Chronicles the various dramas that go on in the LJ world
"Journals might be gaining ground," The Mercury News
Changes in Support - like the timeline above, but specific to the Support area and far more detailed.