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Timeline of LiveJournal

This is a timeline of events in the history of the virtual community LiveJournal.

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

  • January 19, 2006 — Due to web browser related security concerns, the URL scheme for users' content was changed, making what used to be an optional Paid only feature a standard feature for all users.
  • February 10, 2006 — Introduced Virtual Gifts. For a small cost, users can now send "gifts" such as roses or balloons to a friend's userpage, where they will remain for two weeks before fading away. The feature was originally introduced for Valentine's Day, but is to continue after the holiday has passed.
  • March 15, 2006 — In a gift to paid account users, the userpic limit was raised to 30. Also, loyalty userpics were added, giving extra userpics to paid users who have supported the site over the years. Permanent account holders were given the maximum of 132. Two new Virtual Gifts were added, a Good Luck Clover and Bubbly Brew, to celebrate the St. Patrick's Day holiday. A Flash player was added to voiceposts, assisting users by allowing them to play posts in .mp3 format right in the post. Finally, a new intern, user burr86, was added to assist with the site bug and issue database.
  • April 10, 2006 — Site reaches 10 million accounts.
  • April 18, 2006 — "Sponsored+" accounts are introduced, which feature ads. http://news.livejournal.com/91919.html
  • May/June, 2006 — Controversy arises when LJ Abuse team warns several users to remove default user pictures containing images of breastfeeding. The owners of some of the user pictures feel that they should be permitted to keep them because they depict breastfeeding rather than "explicitly sexual content", the latter being the phrase used in the Terms of Service. LiveJournal changes its long-standing policy on inappropriate default user pictures, but some users, feeling the policy is wrong, elect to allow their journals to be suspended or delete them themselves. Others start to display protest userpics, write letters to LJ Abuse and Six Apart. https://web.archive.org/web/20070505053017/http://www.thebloggingtimes.com/content/index.php/2006/06/01/livejournal-restricts-breastfeeding-photos/ http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/1728673.php
  • June 6, 2006 — A number of users staged a one-day boycott of LiveJournal in concern about LJ's abuses policy on breastfeeding images and about the broader issues of ToS and Customer Service. Participating users temporarily deleted their journal for a time spanning from 12:01 am to 11:59 pm in hopes that the drastic drop in journals on that day would bring attention to their cause.
  • August 25, 2006 — With help from parent company Six Apart, LiveJournal offers new layout options to both "Plus" and paid accounts. "Plus" users receive partial access to the new Expressive themes (paid accounts may use any), as well as the previously paid-account-only Component. "The Boxer" layout remains the sole Paid-account only layout.
  • August 28, 2006 — Site reaches 11 million accounts.
  • September 29, 2006 — LiveJournal announces "sponsored communities" and "sponsored features" http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/237534.html.
  • October 11, 2006 — TxtLJ, a feature for interacting with LiveJournal through SMS text messages sponsored by Amp'd Mobile, was opened up to paid and permanent members.http://community.livejournal.com/paidmembers/18587.html
  • October 12, 2006 — LiveJournal officially announces its integrated XMPP service LJ Talk, with the ability to post journal entries through instant messaging, username icon Contextual Hover Menus for LJ Talk login status and user links, and optimized XMPP client Gizmo5 for LJ Talk.http://news.livejournal.com/94350.html
  • November 4, 2006 — Servers managing LiveJournal blogs suffer a massive power outage. Six Apart makes an "offline" page visible through the entire LiveJournal network, which some users considered to be crude. http://community.livejournal.com/lj_maintenance/114884.html

2007

2008

2009

  • January 6, 2009 - LiveJournal lays off around a dozen staff in San Francisco and Moscow, including its vice-president.

2014

  • May 18, 2014 - After a decade of a consistent layout, LiveJournal launches a new user interface and homepage, with a focus on ranking journals by popularity.

2017

  • April 4, 2017 - Control of LiveJournal as a blogging platform has been transferred to SUP Media LLC, a legal entity based in the Russian Federation. LiveJournal's new terms of service are in the Russian language, with a non-binding English translation also provided. They require compliance with Russian laws banning political solicitation, criticism of the Russian government, or promotion of homosexuality. They also require high-volume journals (with 3000 or more visitors per day) to conform to a "draconian" Russian media law requiring registration with the Russian government and banning anonymous or pseudonymous publication. It is no longer possible to prevent ads from appearing to other readers of a journal by paying for the journal; instead, advertisements are now shown on all LJ pages unless the person viewing the page has a paid account and is logged in. Professional accounts now have 100GB of disk available while Permanent accounts have 1TB available. Current pay as you go accounts have their duration extended by 50%.

References