This week we've got contests galore! We start things off with our recovering gamer, Frank. Two weeks of intensive board gaming (and platter after platter of denim tamales) was just what the doctor ordered. Now that he's had his fun, he's ready to take on scholarly pursuits. Suggest a really fun summer class for Frank to join (a matching userpic is a wonderful addition) and he'll send you his favorite study aid, a hypnotoad (up through the first 10 pages of comments)!

Header design contest

The last days of May bring with them the finalist poll for our June header contest. Fifteen finalists have emerged from our rigorous review process. We invite you to vote for the design you'd like to see on the top of LiveJournal during the month of June. We'll begin accepting entries for the next header design contest next week. All submissions that came in after the deadline will be automatically entered into the next contest. We thank you, again, for making LiveJournal your canvas!

Did you know?

We all dance to the beat of our own drummer. Sometimes that beat has an irresistible rhythm and infectious grooves. Whether you like to 'Rock the Casbah' or peer out from behind your 'Poker Face,' music is a fun and creative way to add your personal touch to a LiveJournal post. When posting, add your current music by typing it into the Music: text box provided below the body of your post. If you signed up for a Last.fm account and installed the Last.fm widget for your music application, you can also autofill that field from Last.fm scrobbler information. You'll need to enter your Last.fm username under Contact Info on your Edit Profile page for the name of the currently played song on your computer to autofill the Music text box.

For more fun with photos, LJ_Scribe, and Frank & Meme, we'll catch you under the cut! ( Collapse )




Thanks for stopping by. See you next week!

We're going to keep this short and sweet (Frank and birthday vgifts will be back next week). You've probably seen the updates to our main menu. Don't be alarmed. You'll find everything you need, just in slightly shifted format. Just so you know, we based these changes on input from both experienced and new users who were not familiar with LiveJournal. Our goal was to reduce barriers to usability and make LiveJournal more accessible and easy to navigate. Please note that this is a work in progress. We welcome your detailed suggestions in lj_feedback. We thank you, in advance, for helping us improve your LiveJournal experience.

We've updated the global navigation menu:

Here's a quick breakdown of what you'll find where:

• Scrapbook can now be found under Profile (thanks for your feedback, btw), along with Settings, Stats, and Edit Profile.
• You'll find all the tools you need to post and update entries under Journal, which includes posting and editing entries, managing comments and tags, and customizing your journal's style.
• Friends contains all of your friend settings, from filtering your Friends page to adding, removing, and finding new and existing friends on LiveJournal.
• Under Communities, you'll find links to manage your communities, accept community invites, and create new communities.
• Explore includes search features, RSS feeds, Question of the Day, and FRNK radio.
• Under Shop, you'll find links to upgrade or give a paid account, buy virtual gifts, purchase LiveJournal merchandise (like T-shirts), and view your payment history.

LiveJournal Mobile update:

We've enhanced LiveJournal's mobile site to improve usability and load times. We've made more of LiveJournal's features accessible via mobile, including posting comments, uploading photos, reading and commenting on friends' posts, finding and messaging friends, and more. We look forward to reviewing your feedback and recommendations for future improvements.

Other important changes:

• You can lock comments to prevent further commenting on a post, while leaving existing comments visible.
• We replaced the "Tell a friend" link with a new "Share This" widget that lets you share LiveJournal posts on other social media sites, including Facebook, Digg, Twitter, etc.
• We changed some of the icons on entries (you can hover over the icons to view descriptions).
• You'll see a Tag count on your Tag management page.
• You'll now see the 10 most recent vgifts on your profile page. To remove vgifts, left-click on the vgift and choose whether you want to remove the vgift from your profile or delete it entirely.
• We've added options to help you control receipt of vgifts, which you'll find in My Stuff under Edit Profile. You can now enable vgifts from friends or everyone and disable anonymous vgifts.

We've got your fix:

• UPDATE: Rolling several updates into one listing here -- 1) Scrapbook should be back and working again. 2) The problem with the Update Journal page in IE6 and IE7 should be fixed now. 3) The problem with the userpic add-on package pricing has been fixed and refunds issued to anyone who was overcharged while the erroneous prices were in place.
• Non-conforming images will now be automatically resized for custom mood themes.
• Line breaks no longer count as two characters against your entry's character limit.
• We fixed a bug on the Manage Tags page so you can clear all tags and add new tags.
• We corrected the UI for the update.bml page so it displays properly in IE8.

Thanks again for joining us. Frank and company will be back next week!

Our Haiti vgift and our charitable gift drive brought in over $11,000 for UNICEF and CARE! Thank you so much for your generosity. We're proud to announce that we've been working with help_haiti to promote two new charitable vgifts, which they've designed especially for LiveJournal! Priced at $9.99 each, when you give either of the Help_Haiti vgifts (shown below) to a friend, they'll automatically receive two months of paid account time. We'll donate 100 percent of the money we raise to Partners in Health, who are already on the ground providing emergency healthcare. We wish to thank help_haiti for all of the amazing work they've been doing to heal the suffering in Haiti.

We've got a fair amount of news to share this week. So buckle up, and we'll get rolling.

Stuff you should know:

1. For paid users, the tag limit has been increased from 1,200 to 2,000.
2. We heard from gregstoll that there's a new LiveJournal app for Palm WebOS devices that allows you to view and comment on posts, visit friends pages, upload images, and more. You can read details on Palm's app page.
3. We've made a series of improvements to notifications, as follows:
   • Replies to journal comments and community entries can be delivered to your LiveJournal Inbox, Jabber, and other external messaging services;
   • You can choose NOT to have subscriptions delivered to your LiveJournal Inbox (only your personal messages must be delivered to your Inbox);
   • Maintainers of paid communities can subscribe to get notifications for all new comments posted in their communities: Be sure to check the subscriptions on your Account Notifications page, since some of the contents may have shifted during our recent upgrade;
   • Only those items listed in the Subscription Tracking area of your Accounts/Notifications page are counted towards your subscription quota.
4. The maintainer of a non-paid community can upgrade to a paid community by clicking the Account link for the community on the Manage Communities page.
5. We fixed an outstanding bug in the Gift Shop, so, after you complete a gift order, your shopping cart will automatically clear so you can place a new order.
6. You can delete a comment you made in a community that has since disabled comments on the Manage Comments page (found under the Journal tab in Horizon).
7. When you search under schools, other users currently attending the school will display.
8. We fixed the issue causing some vertical ads to break horizontal frames.
9. A voice post can be transcribed by the original poster no matter how many other users have already transcribed it.
10. Embedded YouTube videos that are larger than 320 pixels preview correctly.

For this week's winning photo and more fun with Frank, we'll catch you under the cut!( Collapse )

Thanks, again, for joining us. We'll see you next week.

We want to acknowledge all of the amazing work you've been doing to support relief efforts in Haiti. We've already raised over $4,100 from the sale of our Haiti vgift! Thank you for the wonderful suggestion!

We were so inspired by your compassion that we've decided to run a two-day charitable vgift drive. Beginning next week, from Thursday, January 28th, 4pm, through Saturday, January 30th, 3:59pm, PST, we'll donate 100 percent of the proceeds from all vgift sales to CARE and UNICEF (we'll cover the credit card processing fees). And, remember, for each $10 you receive in vgifts during a two-week period, you'll get two months of paid account time. For more info, read this FAQ. To meet other LiveJournal users who are committed to making a difference, check out help_haiti, which has already raised over $16,000! If you hear about other LiveJournal communities that are supporting Haiti, we encourage you to get the word out in the comments below. We hope you'll promote our charitable vgift and next week's fundraising drive in your journals and communities.

Stuff you should know

• AOL notifications are back! You should resume getting timely notifications via AOL email addresses for journal entries and all other selected activities. Just FYI, we cannot resend notifications that were purged by AOL before they hit your LiveJournal inbox.
• There are a few other outstanding issues involving missing notifications. We're aware that some LiveJournal messages are being intercepted by built-in spam filters coming from your ISPs and mail programs. If you're not receiving notifications, please check your filter settings, then contact your ISP or email provider to find out if they've blocked LiveJournal.
• Just in case it got lost in the holiday shuffle, we wanted to remind you to try out My Stats (for paid users) and My Guests (for all users). My Stats provides instant reporting on who's been viewing your Journal, entries, and comments, and displays friending and RSS history. My Guests lets you see who's been checking out your journal (while allowing you to opt out and stay hidden should you prefer to fly under the radar). Both are listed under My Stats in the Journal menu. Love it? Hate it? Tell us what you think!
• DON'T FORGET: We'll be taking down the site for a few hours this Friday evening, from around 7pm to 10pm, PST, to perform backend maintenance. Depending on where you live, this window will fall between Friday and Saturday, January 22nd to 23rd. For further details, please read this entry in lj_maintenance.
• In anticipation of Valentines Day, we're collecting stories from LiveJournal users who found their Significant Other and/or Best Friend Forever on LiveJournal. Tell us how you met, and we'll send you and yours a Valentines vgift!

Special offer from Blurb

In honor of the unrivaled creative talent on LiveJournal, Blurb is extending an exclusive discount to help you turn your journal or community into a book. If you're interested, you can use the following codes at checkout:

• USD$ Promo Code: BOOKMYBLOG (save US$10)
• GBP£ Promo Code: BOOKMYBLOG2 (save £6 )
• EUR€ Promo Code: BOOKMYBLOG3 (save €8)
• AUD$ Promo Code: BOOKMYBLOG4 (save AUD$12)

P.S. Don't forget to check out our fantastic anthology, LiveJournal: The First Decade!

For more fun updates, meet us under the cut!( Collapse )

Thanks, again, for joining us. We'll see you next week.

News and Noteworthy: 10.22.09

We're in the process of giving the LiveJournal newsletter a slow, full-body massage. We’ll still keep you posted on key product developments, but from now on we’ll turn more of our attention to you. In the upcoming weeks, we'll expand our focus on original user content, including Writer’s Block responses, photos, and more. If you have fresh ideas about what you'd like to see here, we'd love to hear from you! Please keep in mind that this is a work in progress. For those who crave technical detail, you can join lj_releases to stay in the loop. We look forward to seeing you more often.

Super-search

After months of research, we're proud to announce a beta release of a state-of-the-art search engine on LiveJournal, powered by the Russian search engine leader, Yandex. When you run a keyword search using our beta search tool at the above URL, it will comb through ALL public areas of LiveJournal pages, including journals, communities, comments, and friend pages, to help you find specific info and other users around the world who share your interests. Rest assured that LiveJournal respects user privacy settings and will only display public content. Just so you know, this is a soft launch. You will still see the old search box on the LiveJournal homepage until we've had an opportunity to work out all the kinks with the new search tool. We look forward to hearing your feedback.

Email verifications battle spam

To cut down the amount of spam cluttering your comment pages, inboxes, and friends pages, LiveJournal now requires validated email addresses for all accounts. If you do not have a validated email address, you will not be able to engage in any activity beyond setting up your profile and account settings. In other words, you will NOT be able to send private messages, add friends, post journal entries, community entries, or comments. This is just one of the proactive measures we're employing to reduce spam on LiveJournal. We appreciate your continued patience and support. Together we can can spam!

We've got your trick or treat!

We've added more Halloween vgifts. You can check them out here!

Conquer Writer's Block

Nothing sparks debate like posing a provocative question to the eclectic LiveJournal community. That's why we update Writer's Block daily. You can flex your creative muscles, comment on other responses, or kick back and be entertained. It's also a great way to connect with old and new friends. Now you can add Writer's Block to your friends page or set up a notification to get your daily Writer's Block question on the LiveJournal homepage. Check out excerpts from last week's most popular question!

What is your biggest fear? Have you tried to overcome it?

1. Clowns. And of course not, clowns are gross and scary.
2. Spiders. Those creepy crawlers just freaked me out.
3. Bees. The flying fluff balls with stingers on their butts. Don't like them, don't like the sound they make, don't like that they kind of slither and hop when they land like they should be swarming ...
4. My biggest fear is 2012. I'm terrified of the end of the world ...
5. I have a fear of being buried alive, speaking in public, spiders, snakes, and sharks.
6. My biggest fear is to live anonymously and die anonymously. I don't think I can overcome this.
7. My biggest fear is height. And how do I overcome it? By not looking down.
8. Not living up to my own expectations.
9. Being buried alive with rabid, radioactive armadillos.
10. My biggest fear is that I'll run out of popcorn while I watch LJ discussions unfold.

Spotlight community of the week

For those who think Halloween is a nice day for a black wedding, you'll find tips, photos, and support to help you celebrate your eternal love in wickedelic style.


halloweddings

Introducing photo of the week

Submitted by amyty.

We want to see your stuff! We're working on a formal submission process. In the meantime, if you'd like us to consider your original photo for an upcoming newsletter or homepage spotlight, please post it to LiveJournal and send us a public link using the comments section below.

Curtains

Hey, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next week with more product news and community highlights from the wonderful world of LiveJournal!

LiveJournal News: 10.15.09

TxtLJ with Verizon makes a comeback
Amped up TxtLJ notifications
Bag some Halloween vgifts
Calling all videogamers
Support Blog Action Day!
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Find Your Friends
Pingbacks
Russia!
LJ Birthday Book
Featured V-Gifts
And More

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