i-node one

Sysloggin' one day at a time.

Meta

Pages

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

You are here: Home / 2005 / Archives for January 2005

Archives for January 2005

LiveJournal announces sale to Six Apart

By

Xeni Jardin:
It’s official. LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick says:

Why is Six Apart buying LiveJournal? Lots of reasons:

* Our companies are more alike than different.

* We both use Perl.

* Together we form super robot that’s stronger than the sum of its parts.

* Super robots can fight super companies.

* They respect us, we respect them.

* We have a number of features they don’t.

* We have experience with making “inward-facing” community sites, whereas their sites/products tend to be “outward-facing”. They want some of that inward-facing action.

* Because we’re awesome.

What does this mean for LiveJournal? Nothing earth-shattering. LiveJournal development and support will continue, and will probably even accelerate, as we grow the team. We’ll continue to work on speed, reliability, and new features. LiveJournal won’t become paid-user-only or anything crazy like that. We’re not going to raise prices. We’re not going to cancel permanent accounts, etc, etc. And we’re not going to spam or sell your information. You own your journals, not us. Really you shouldn’t see any negative changes. The most immediate changes will be that we’ll start to get prettier…
more styles, themes, etc. Six Apart is really good at that and we’re not.

ent. (thanks marginalia and
…excerpt from: www.boingboing.net…

The Cultural Divide Between LiveJournal and Six Apart

By

Excerpt from:
apophenia: The Cultural Divide Between LiveJournal and Six Apart
If Brad is willing to sell, i suspect that this rumor is definitely true. It doesn’t require a brain to know that buying LiveJournal would be a brilliant move on Six Apart’s part. That said, i’m not sure that i like this move at all.

Live Journal is a culture, not simply a product or commodity that can be bought. From an outsider’s perspective, it might appear as though they are similar properties – they are both blogging tools, right? Wrong.

Jump inside LJ culture. People who use LJ talk about their LJs, not their blogs. They mock bloggers who want to be pundits, journalists, experts. In essence, they mock the culture of bloggers that use Six Apart’s tools. During interviews with LJ/Xanga folks, i’ve been told that MovableType is for people with no friends, people who just talk to be heard, people who are trying too hard.

LJ folks don’t see LJ as a tool, but a community. Bloggers may see the ethereal blogosphere as their community, but for LJers, it’s all about LJ. Aside from the ubergeek LJers, LJers don’t read non-LJs even though syndication is available. They post for their friends, comment excessively and constantly moderate who should have access to what.

While you cannot generalize about LJers, a vast majority of them are engaged in acts of resistance regularly (think: subcultures, activists, youth rebels, etc.). They value LJ because it values them. They value LJ because it is a tool of resistance, an act of going against mainstream and representing those already marginalized by society – the geeks, freaks and queers among us. They don’t want to be mainstream. They don’t want their parents/authorities/oppressors using the same service. At the same time, LJ provides shelter, support, community. When someone threatens to commit suicide, LJ doesn’t throw up its hand and scream “not my problem.” There are folks who actually work to help friends help each other. They’re not just an anonymous service – they care.

I would love to know why people donate to LiveJournal. My hunch is that it has to do with cultural identity. When you donate, it says so on your page. When you donate, you signify that you value LJ. Forget increased features, you’ve just made the ultimate commitment to a community – a commitment of money. And aren’t you jealous of the permanent members and early adopters?

There’s No Leopards Like Snow Leopards…

By

Excerpt from:
Plastic: There’s No Leopards Like Snow Leopards…
Thus, illegal poaching constitutes one direct threat to the animal. Another threat is the loss of habitat to desperately poor farmers and herders. These people, living on the margin as it is, kill leopards either to reduce leopards using their farm animals as prey or for the income the leopard pelt will bring. Professor Oleg Mitropolsky, a zoologist working in Uzbekistan, says the GEF project has had a profound effect in improving basic services to farm communities. Farmers and herders have also been persuaded that alternative crops and products can produce income for them without encroaching on the snow leopard’s habitat. According to Mitropolsky, other illegal poaching has been discouraged due to activities funded by the project.

The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac was Made — An Interview with Andy Hertzfeld

By

Excerpt from:
MacDevCenter.com…: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac was Made — An Interview with Andy Hertzfeld
When I first flipped through the pages of Andy Hertzfeld’s Revolution in The Valley, I realized that I was not merely stepping back into the history of the Macintosh, but into the genesis of personal computing itself. Regardless of what you think about Apple Computer — its personalities, hardware, or approach to design — there’s no denying that Apple engineering and marketing had a profound impact on the evolution of the PC.

Andy jumped in with both feet in 1978 when he spent his life savings on an Apple II. The price tag was $1,295 plus tax. By August 1979 he was an Apple employee. In 1981 he joined the engineering team that designed the Macintosh, which was introduced in January 1984 with arguably the most remembered Super Bowl ad of all time.

During his years in Cupertino, Andy worked closely with, and befriended many Apple employees who are now legends in personal computing history. But it’s not easy to write a book about those who had confided so freely with you as a coworker, not a historian. As a result, only recently has Andy felt comfortable telling the stories that shaped many of our lives.