So, our beloved LJ is turning 25 – quite a serious date! They say a human personality is finally formed at this age. And what about LJ? Our personality is… you, dear users. We’re ready to share some more news about you and us – enjoy the reading!

We’ve found out that 95% of LJ bloggers are trying the platform’s new features – functions, designs, services – while 5% stay loyal to the original functionality. We value both parties! So in honor of the platform’s 25th anniversary, we’ve prepared two new achievements — Keeper of traditions and Pioneer of changes.

How to be a Keeper? If you’re using the old LJ design, old editor, and your style is NOT the AIR, you’re in business! Perhaps somewhere in a library full of paper books you’re sitting in a cozy chair, in the candlelight, and writing impeccable lines with your quill.

How to become a Pioneer? The new website design plus the modern editor plus the AIR style — and here comes the achievement. And that’s how we picture you: wherever you are, as soon as a new notification of an available update arrives – you gladly push ‘Accept’ and utilize it in a new entry right away.

What do the Pioneer-required functions give you?

- Modern LJ design: an intuitive interface, convenient navigation, and nothing in excess. This is a version that doesn’t remain dormant – it gets timely updates, new functions, and has even more new content.

- AIR style: exactly what’s in its name. It’s really very lightweight. It’s easy to adapt it to your needs and taste, show your personal touch, and you don't need to dig into complex settings for that.

- Modern editor: everything you need to write posts comfortably. Nothing distracts you from creating, and all the useful tools are at your fingertips. BTW, you don’t need to know html to format the text.

And photo albums: clear, nice, genteel, and way more spacious than before.

A nice bonus that would make perfectionists happy: if you enable the modern LJ version and AIR together, all the pages of your blog will be visually related to each other.

Get new achievements and go on celebrating with us!

Folks!

LiveJournal turns 25! We’re inviting everyone to celebrate the jubilee together by participating in the #LJ25 hashmob! Authors of the best entries will get rewards from LiveJournal!

Over numerous years spent together, we’ve gotten to know each other quite well; but in the new #LJ25 hashmob you’ll have a chance to view your blog pals from a new angle! Use our 25-point questionnaire to tell the world about yourself and your LJ blog, or collect your own set of 25 interesting facts about yourself!

Now let’s have a look at the details!

How to participate:

1. In a new LJ post, tell 25 curious things about yourself and your blog. Choose a more convenient option:

• Fill out the 25 point questionnaire. Click to open and start completing it in your blog;
• Compose your own 25 point questionnaire about yourself and your LJ blog.

2. Add the #LJ25 hashtag to the entry. This will let us locate your posts (please make sure that ‘Minimize my journal's inclusion in search engine results’ box is unchecked in the privacy settings).

3. The number of entries per participant is unlimited.

Hashmob schedule:

15 April – 12 May – participants are publishing entries,

13 – 15 May – the jury is reviewing the entries,

15 May – hashmob results are published in the news,

16 May — the award distribution.

Prizes and awarding procedure:

Entries will be reviewed by the jury comprised of LJ staff.

The assessment criteria are the following:

• how complete the answers to the questionnaire are;
• quality and uniqueness of the entry content.
• how popular the entry is: the number of Likes and comments (an auxiliary criterion).

5 winners will get Professional packages that will let them use the full extent of the LJ services:

? one 12-month package,

? two 6-month packages,

? two 3-month packages.

? A jubilee hashmob wouldn’t do without nice surprises! Each participant* will receive a special gift from LJ – a symbol of strong friendship and love for many years to come!

*provided that the participant’s post complies with the proposed hashmob participation conditions and does not violate the LJ user agreement.

Join the #LJ25 hashmob!

Let’s celebrate 25 years of LJ together!

Folks!

Hurray! Today LiveJournal turns 25!

Over all these years, you’ve been passionately telling stories, reading them, discussing them in the comments, learning new stuff, making friends, sharing impressions, traveling... Thank you for staying with us!

Of course, none of this would be possible without the efforts of LiveJournal creator Brad Fitzpatrick brad. Brad, congratulations and lots of love!

We, the LJ team, have prepared for you the LJ 25 festival with a ton of activities and nice surprises. We’ll be sharing all this with you throughout the holiday week.

Today we’ll talk about just a few. Let’s celebrate the anniversary together!

‘25 facts about 25’ project

The 25th jubilee is a great opportunity to tell you what makes the number 25 so special. Behold the anniversary project “25 facts about 25”!

Just a few facts you’ll learn from the project:

• It takes 25 years for a stalactite to grow by 7 cm. On average, its growth rate is 3 mm per year;
• during their lifetime, on average a person spends 25 years sleeping;
• A massive update of core technologies occurs every 25 years. This is called Kuznets swings.

Tap the link to learn more entertaining facts. Share them in blogs and social media!

Congratulate and earn achievements

Traditionally, the jubilant gets gifts and congratulations on their birthday; so we’ll be glad to hear some kind words from you in the comments to this post. In return, we will gift you a holiday achievement!

We'll have a new batch of news soon! Stay tuned!

With love??,

LJ team

Folks,

April the 15th is coming! What makes this spring date so special? Well…

On April 15th, 1999, 19-year-old student Brad Fitzpatrick opened a new page in history – he registered the livejournal.com domain. And the most attentive will notice that almost 25 years have passed since then!

For the LJ anniversary, we’ve prepared a holiday festival – LJ 25! We'll be sharing festival activities and news with you for the whole next week!

Don’t miss it. See you on April the 15th!

With love ??,

LJ team

Folks,

It's April — so, LJ is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary! This time we want to organize something special — not a mere birthday party, but a real festival with raffles, gifts, and unique jubilee memorabilia.

There will be a ton of activities in April. Here comes the first one we'd like to tell you about — LJ birthday festival achievements!

Getting some of them will be a piece of cake, and others will require imagination. Go for it! ?

Meet 3 festival achievements:

• for 25 entries published in April;
• for 25 comments posted in April;
• for 25 Likes you've given in April.

There are lots of amazing activities ahead. We'll talk about them as they are launched.

With love ??,

LJ team

Folks,

Let us distract you for a moment from the holiday preparations: we still haven’t run out of good news! And we can’t wait to share them with you!???

Each of you can get a card with a personal creative review of the year 2023.

That’s how you can do it!

Together, in 2023 we’ve written millions of posts, posted and received millions of comments and reactions. But it’s still interesting what your personal contribution is, right?

Tap here to get a card with your own year review card.

Share your achievements in the blog and social media!

We wish you all happy holidays – Christmas and New Year! Let 2024 be filled with creative endeavors – write, take photos, film videos, share your impressions and ideas with the world!

With love ???,

LT Team

Folks,

we've considered different ways to thank our active authors. These brave people who don't forget about their audiences despite all the holiday fuss, all the gifts, mistletoe, and roasted birds!???

For a month we'll disable ads for all the LJ authors who remain active from December 14 till January 8! Those who have the Professional package will have it extended for a month.

You can learn more about the ad-free month in the LJ FAQ.

With love ???,
LJ Team

Folks,

We've got a couple things to tell you: how to decorate your blog for the winter time and how to share photos only with the nearest and dearest. Let's go!

? #1. Cover the blog from the cold!

Some news for those using the standard journal design style — Air. We've added a few covers filled with the spirit of winter. There are holiday-themed, winter-themed, and simply cozy ones. The choice is yours!

You will find more covers in the Air style settings. The settings button is right on the main page of your blog.

? If you wanna try the style with shifting covers, you'll first have to enable the Air style. It can be done on the journal style settings page.

? #2. A new privacy type — link-enabled LJ Photos access

Traditionally, you can make LJ posts and photos public or private (only for the blog owner), accessible for friends or friend groups. We've added a new level of privacy for LJ Photos — one allowing only those having a private link to access the private album.

So basically you can now create private photo albums in LJ Photos and show them to your inner circle by using private links.

You can generate a private link in your album's 'Share' menu.

? IMPORTANT: if you want to disable previously granted access rights, you can deactivate the link. Nobody will be able to view the album via the link anymore.

Folks, we hope that these novelties will be of use to you. Read you later!

With love ??,
LJ Team

Folks,

each photo is a kind of a time machine — it can deliver us to the past and remind about long forgotten events and sensations.

We're inviting you to take part in the 2023 Photochallenge that will go on till December 3, 2023. All participants* will be rewarded with camera-wielding userheads.

I wanna participate. What should I do?

1. Pick a few (or all five) photos from the selection on the challenge page. Is the selection not to your liking? Then just generate another one!
2. Tap Share in post and accompany the photo with whatever text you want: where or when it was taken, who you were with, what the weather was like, how you felt... Or maybe tell the story of the items and people depicted. Tell it the way you enjoy!
3. Publish the entry. The #photochallenge2023 hashtag will be added to it automatically. It will also help you find other participants' posts.

Join us! Accept the photochallenge!

Rewards are issued every week!

Detailed challenge rules

* Participants' posts must comply with the challenge rules

Folks,

we've got some good news to share. Let us introduce the updated photo albums — otherwise known as LJ Photo!

What's new?

LJ photo has received a brand new interface that will let you enjoy your photo collection in its full glory.

In the album, photos are presented in their original scale and in the new 'mesh' — connoisseurs of horizontal and vertical shots will appreciate it.

Pressing the photo will open it for a full screen view. You can also zoom it with the mouse wheel!

What else?

The photo management process has become much handier. Now you can:

• upload photos via the interface button as well as by dragging all of them into the browser window;
• move photos from one album to another;
• add descriptions to pictures;
• set images as album covers;
• manage your albums' and photos' privacy.

The new albums deserve more to be told, but we'd rather you tried yourselves — the link is in the website header, in the dropdown menu!

With love ???,
LJ team

Friends,

Today LiveJournal turns 24. Balloons are in the air, candles are lit – it’s time to celebrate!

We’d like to share this glorious day with you, our dear users. Thank you for being with us throughout all these years, sharing your joys and pains on the journal pages, breathing life into the digital space. It is your love and support that help us improve and grow. And we are happy to do our best for you ??

Tell us about your LJ life, share your experiences and memories in the comments to this entry. Each Like and comment are a gift for us, and our beloved frank will surely give you a hug in response.

With love,
LJ team

Friends,

you often asked for an opportunity to express your creative side with the Air design style. So, we're proud to report that it's done! Now you can tune up your blog design to reflect all that's dear and interesting to you! Let's have a look!

The main page of a blog using the Air style can look like this:

What features are available to blogs utilizing the Air style:

• Set up a blog cover (select one from the pre-set range or upload your own image)
• Update the blog description (to engage new readers or help search engines understand what your blog is about)
• Pick the best way to tell about your audience (show the number of subscribers, the total audience number, or show no numbers at all)

Don't hesitate! Spring demands a new look (for a blog as well).

Spring update: instruction

Step 0. How do I start?

First of all, you have to enable the Air blog style on the style settings page.

If it's already on, you can begin — the settings page is right on your front page.

Step 1: Updating the visuals

In the settings you can upload a new cover, pick one from the roster, or hide it.

You can upload a new userpic or pick the main one from those you uploaded earlier.

Step 2: Getting to the point

Here you can update your blog description and change the header.

Step 3: Tell everyone about your audience

You can also decide what blog stats will be displayed in the description. Now there are 2 options available for blogs:

1. Total number of journal entries
2. Blog audience — here you can show the total number of subscribers and friends, or show your monthly average from LJ statistics; by default, subscribers will be displayed (if permitted by your privacy settings).

Communities also have an option to show the number of participants.

Press Save, and it's done!

?? Don't forget to share your design change experiences in a new entry with the #springupdate hasthag, and frank may visit you for a hug.

With love ??,
LJ Team

Friends!

We have upgraded the comment reactions. Now there are sixteen of them! A whole treasure trove of feelings.

Prologue

Comment reactions were introduced in LJ more than three years ago. And we all got used to the fact that our intense feelings could be expressed without trivial words, just by picking a reaction. Yet this approach, however quick and succinct, had a flaw: there were too few reactions! Human emotion range is so wide, it cannot fit into just 7 smileys. So...

Now there will be more reactions, and you can pick which ones to use! Behold!

16 reactions to choose from

You have 16 reactions to select from! By default, the standard set is available; you can add new reactions or remove some in the blog settings:

Here's what the LJ mascot frank thinks about it:

We've been asked to add some of these reactions for ages. All good things to those who wait!

And if your journal is a serious place on serious Earth where funny pictures aren't welcome, you can just switch off the comment reactions.

Folks, set up our new reactions, use them, tell frank what other reactions you want... And keep reacting!

With love,
LJ team

Friends,

we have good news! From now on, it’s become easier to support your favorite LJ blogger and send them a donation.

What is a donation, how to send one, and how to add a button for receiving donations if you’re an author? You’re gonna learn soon!

What is a donation?

It’s a small monetary gift awarded to a content creator. According to Wikipedia,

A donation is a gift for charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause.

We believe it’s a great way to thank your favorite author for their works.

How can I support an author?

If a blog owner has enabled donation reception, their entries will be given a special button – ‘Donate to this author’. Tap it to send a donation. You’ll be redirected from LJ to the donation service the author has selected.

You’re the one to decide the size of the donation!

The ‘Donate to this author’ button can be found inside entries and in the deep blue navigation bar at the top of the screen.

Should any errors appear, we advise you to get in touch with the donation service’s support team. Besides, it must be noted that an active VPN may affect the service’s performance.

I’m an author! How can I add the donation button to my LJ blog?

To add the donation button to your blog, complete these steps:

STEP #1

Register with one of the donation services: DonationAlerts, FanTalks, Patreon, PayPal, Ko-fi or QIWI Donate.

Each service has its own terms of registration, sending donations, and withdrawing funds – study them carefully and select a service you find the most convenient.

STEP #2

After signing up with one of the services, you’ll get a link for sending donations. This link can be posted in your LJ account settings in the ‘Extensions’ tab.

After the settings are saved, your audience will see the ‘Donate to author’ button in all the blog entries as well as the navigation bar.

If you’re already using one of the supported services, just skip the step#1 and add your link to the LJ account settings — there’s no need to create a new link.

You can learn more about enabling donation services in the LJ FAQ.

STEP #3

In a new entry, tell your readers about a new way for them to support you.

Let us know if you’ve got any questions, and good old frank is always ready to help!

With love ??,

LJ team.

Dear Friends,

Another year is coming to an end. 2023 is just around the corner!

This year the LiveJournal Team has put a lot of effort into making our platform and mobile app better and more comfortable for you. And we plan to do much more in the future!

You are our most valuable treasure and we are so happy to have all of you. We wish you all the love and happiness, the best subscribers and posts, many comments and likes in the coming year and always.

We wish you a Happy New Year!

With love,

LJ team

Friends,

we have really great news for you today!

Sometimes emotions are so overwhelming that there are no words to describe them. And that's where GIF would be the best choice! From now on, it is possible to add a gif image to your comment directly from the comments form. Just click on the GIF-icon in the comments panel, choose from the suggestions or type in the search form what you want to get. So easy!

Gifs are provided by the famous GIPHY service.

Share your thoughts in the comments below. Maybe even in GIF. See ya!

Heartily,
LJ Team

Friends, we have a couple new features for those who uses LJ on desktop:

QR-code

Now you can easily login to your LiveJournal account on desktop if you are logged in your account on your smartphone!

Open log in page on computer where you want to log in and click "QR-code button"

Scan this QR-code with camera on the smartphone where you're already logged to your account in browser or LJ App (don't forget to update it to the latest version!)

On iOS QR-code will be recognized automatically. On Android you may need special app to read QR-codes.

Is it safe?

Yes, QR-code works only a short time and you have to confirm logging in on your smartphone every time. And you don't have to type your login and password manually.

Community entries list

If you use modern post editor you can manage all your community entries at one page.

Entries on this page are in the chronological order as you actually published them (like in communities). Also you can select one community to see your entries there.

Friends,

this summer we've accumulated a few interesting changes in comments that we haven't had a chance to tell you about yet. We've updated the commenting field, added the ability to quote phrases from posts in comments, and share comments in posts via embeds. You can also now protect yourself from nasty comments.

New comment field

This summer we started a beta test of a new comment field. All users can participate and try this new functionality.

Click the "New Comment Field" button to switch to the new option.

If you don't see a button to switch to the new form - select the standard comment display in your style preferences.

What's interesting about the new form?

It's completely visual. Now you can see what the comment will look like after it's published while you're writing it.

Add pictures, highlight important words in bold and italic, and mention users using @

Quick Quotes

Want to mention a specific phrase from the post in your comment? Just highlight the phrase and click the button that appears above it.

The phrase you've selected will be added to your comment field as a quote.

Share a comment using the embed

Want to share a successful comment or conversely, discuss comments that were particularly unfair? Here you go!

Each comment has a <> icon now. When you press it, the embed code is copied to the clipboard. Now you can add it to a new post (or another comment) by embedding it with the usual CTRL+V shortcut.

And this is what it looks like:

And in the comments:

In the New Post Editor inserting a comment can be made even easier. Just copy the comment URL to the clipboard and add it to the editor on a new line.

Personal filter by keywords

Let's assume you don't like apples, but they write about them all the time! Now you can mute them! Set up your blog to filter negative words in comments.

On the personal filter settings page, you can add words, root words, or phrases that you don't want to see in your comments. Comments containing these words or phrases will automatically be hidden.

You should add each word from a new line!

This functionality is avaiable for users with Professional package of service

That's all for today. Share your thoughts in the comments below. See ya!

LJ Team

Friends,

LiveJournal turns 23! On April 15, 1999, the livejournal.com domain was registered.

We want to thank you all for your love and support. We'll do our best to live long and happily ever after.

Besides, we want to announce several important updates today: a tablet version of our mobile app and reposts to communities!

Shall we start? ?

App version for iPad and Android tablets

You asked, we did. Friends! Please welcome the new version of LiveJournal application for iPad and Android tablets!

Create entries, upload photos and videos, leave your comments and enjoy LJ blogs and communities on a big screen!

Reposts to communities

Share with your community members the interesting content from LiveJournal blogs!

Today we told you about the latest LiveJournal updates. What do you think? Please, share with us your thoughts!

We also want to say that we appreciate, love, and hug tightly you all! And please — take care of yourself. ?

With love,
LJ team

Dear Friends,

what do you prefer the most: buy the Professional package of service for a year at a discount, win a free month of it, — or both?! Well, we have good news for you then! Let us tell you!

Winter sale!

The annual winter sale has begun in LiveJournal Shop! You can buy everything but LJ coins with 21% off! You can purchase a Professional package of service for yourself or for your friend, change your userhead, rename your account or send a virtual gift!

Psst... frank has something to tell you!

He has launched a new contest... for the most beautiful Christmas tree! It was suddenly for us too, but we happily support his idea!

The rules are pretty simple:

Just take a picture of your tree and post it in your JL blog with the hashtag #holidayswithfrank ?

Works for the contest are accepted until 12:00 PM (MSK) 01/10/22! Read more in frank journal:

Happy New Year, friends!

With love,

LJ Team

Dear Friends,

Yay! We've made for you a personal New Year's Cards with a summation of your creative journey in LiveJournal. We've also picked a word of this year! Guess what it is!

Find out more on our new article!

Postcards for Bloggers!

We have prepared for you traditional postcards with the results of the year. This time the authors can "measure themselves" and rejoice in their "hours, days, and minutes" that will be required to read everything they have written this year! And for active commentators - the number of comments left ;)

If you have found a mistype or a translation error in your card — we kindly ask you to write DM to frank and tell him about it! We will appreciate that.

We — the Main Word of This Year

The community of LiveJournal is our main value and strength. We are so happy we have all of you. We are so happy we are together!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May you have the best and most interesting posts, subscribers, and many, many comments in the coming year!

See you Next Year!

With love,

LJ team

Dear Friends,

You can now easily report spam and dangerous content in entries and comments, specifically content about drug trafficking and manufacture, provoking suicide and methods of committing it, as well as pornographic materials with minors.

All users can now file a complaint about spam, not just the author of an entry, - this will make the fight against spam more effective.

As a reminder, the updated user documents of the service are located at the following URLs: Privacy Policy and User Agreement.

Dear Friends,

In October we presented you integration with Unsplash.com and promised you a collaboration with another cool service. Finally, it's time to show our hands!

From now on you can create collages, images with text & infographics with Canva.com without leaving the page!

Let us begin!

Probably, you've already know Canva.com:

Canva is a free graphic design platform that's great for making invitations, business cards, Instagram posts, and more.

Now you can see the Canva button in JL entry instruments

Click it! And you'll see other hidden functions.

1. Create blog banner with Canva
2. Create a collage with Canva
3. Create infographics with Canva

If you didn't use Canva in the past, you need to sign up.

Let's talk about features you can use in your blog!

Create an image with the text

1. Choose a template from those suggested in the left column
2. Edit text
3. Choose colors and images to your taste
4. When everything is ready - click the "Publish" button
5. The image will appear in your post and be saved to your photo album.

How to use images with text?

1. You can make a header image at the beginning of the post, which will be displayed in ratings, friends' feeds, and when sharing on social networks;
2. You can use this template as a rubricator in a long read - start with a picture of a part of a post;
3. Or to draw attention to some issue.

Here is an example of using such an image with text. Its dimensions are 1920x1080 pixels:

Creating collages

Do you like collages? Because we do! It's a great opportunity to show other users more images at once. Upload your pictures at Canva.com and create fabulous collages. Faster and more simple!

1. Choose a template;
2. Pick up photos or upload your own, adjust the text of the template, change the proportions or position of objects as you like;
3. When everything is ready - click the "Publish" button;
4. The collage you've created will appear in your post and be saved to your photo album.

Tip: You can edit any templates, change the proportions of objects, add, delete, reshape and resize it.

Creating infographics

Do you have the information you want to draw attention to? The data that would look greater in a graphic form? Create an infographic!

1. Choose a template from Canva.com
2. Edit the layout and texts
3. When everything is ready - click the "Publish" button
4. The created infographic will appear in your entry and will be saved as an image in your photo album.

Tip: Infographics can not replace the text! Remember, that all the information you've presented in the created infographic must be duplicated in the text of the entry. Otherwise, search engines simply won't find your post. They can't read texts on images!

That's all for today!

More news in December! Stay tuned :)

With love,

LJ team

Dear Friends,

Friday is a good time for some great news — in fact, we have three of them! From now on you can view big-size photos closer, put the reaction not only on an entry or a comment but on pictures in the entries too! And the cherry on this cake is — quotations of entries. Now you can quote any phrase you like from the entry in the comments below!

Let's See More Closer

Now you can view images in full resolution — just click on them!

If the image is not enlarging, then it's already presented at its maximum size.

Put Reactions on Images

We've already introduced the feature to comment on images in posts, and now we've added the ability to react to them. Put everything you like from the "Like" to "I am sad"! :)

Every reaction becomes a comment.

Quote It!

Sometimes you want to answer to a specific line. And special for this case, LiveJournal has made it possible to quote words or even lines!

Select the text you want to refer to, click on the "quote" button that appears and add your opinion to the comment.

That's all for today!

More news coming soon! Stay tuned :)

With love,

LJ team

Dear Friends,

we have a little good news today! We've launched a collaboration with the coolest free photostock website unsplash.com and have added an emoji button in the comments!

Unsplash & LiveJournal= ????

You know better than anyone how important it is to draw attention to the entry using interesting photos. Now you can choose any illustration you like on a free photostock website unsplash.com in the blink of an eye!

Probably, you've already seen a little tip in the Post Editor ;)

You can search for anything!

Of course, the stock photos will never replace photos made by you, but at the same time, they can help you to illustrate the entry if you don't have anything at hand at the moment.

Enjoy! :)

??????? in the comments

And some new little features... The emoji bar was added to the comment section! For those who like to express themselves visually. ??

From now on you can also mention users in the comments via '@'. Just like in the entries! :)

That's all for today! See you next time with more great news!

With love,
LJ team