Get to know My Guests. Want to know who's checking you out? You can now view the 100 most recent, logged-in users who visited your journal during the past 30-day period with My Guests. For those who prefer to fly under the radar, you can update your My Guests privacy setting here.

Introducing My Stats. If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can now see detailed reports on how many people are visiting your journal, friends pages, and entries (wherever they're posted on LiveJournal). You can also view data on comments and RSS requests. My Stats is only available to Paid and Permanent account holders, but you can upgrade anytime. (FYI, an annual subscription costs less than a large pizza with everything on it, PLUS it's rumored to make you lose weight in your sleep!) For additional details on this feature, read this article in paidmembers.

Get ready to check your vital statistics!. To begin, mouse over Journal in the upper nav bar and select My Stats from the dropdown menu (Horizon) or select My Stats under Journal in the side bar (Vertigo). If you're using another design scheme, you can visit My Stats directly. You'll find My Guests on the My Stats tool bar.

Happy holiday promotion!

We're delighted to tell you about our holiday coupons, which will help you share the love with your LiveJournal friends! If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can send up to 10 LiveJournal Basic/Plus users a $10 coupon for an annual paid subscription now through January 15th, 2010. Recipients can upgrade for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25). Please note that these coupons are not transferable and cannot be used to renew existing paid accounts. If you're a Paid/Permanent user, you can send out your holiday coupons now!

Tweaks and Enhancements

1. The search is on: We've replaced our default search tool with one from Yandex, a leader in search engine technology. This means you'll get smarter, more granular results! To get started, enter your search terms and click the Go button to the left of the Find box on the upper right of the LiveJournal header. This will take you to the search landing page where you can further refine by Entries, Comments, People & communities, and FAQs. You can also access the search page directly.
2. Whitelisting: We've released a new option to help you moderate your busy communities more efficiently. If an entry contains a link to a whitelisted (i.e., trusted) site, it will be posted automatically without need for moderator approval. If a post contains a link that is not on the whitelist, you'll be prompted to approve. To access this option, please visit settings for any community you maintain and select the third option in the Community Moderation box (located in the lower left-hand corner). Click the enable link to custom-edit your community's whitelist, which has been prepopulated with trusted domains. You can manually add or delete URLs in the text box. Please note: If you're the maintainer of an unmoderated community, you may see the radio button for this setting checked, even though it's not active. This is a known issue. Please select whichever option you prefer and click Save Changes at the bottom of the page. If you're happy with your current settings, then no need to do anything!
3. TMI, dude: We've added some fun FREE sponsored vgifts! You can send up to 50 TMI vgifts to mutual friends (btw, you cannot send free vgifts to communities). If you're a Paid/Permanent user and you want to view sponsored gifts, click Show sponsored gifts on your homepage or visit the sponsored gift page. These vgifts will only be available through Wednesday, December 23rd.

You can view more awesome user content after the jump!

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Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Until next time, stay snug!

In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing 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!