I posted this to the website tonight... I know you want to see it!

News of the economy took a surprisingly awful turn yesterday when Livejournal announced that its parent company laid of 20 of its 28 employees. They're saying that livejournal will continue on as usual with minimal staff, but most articles I've read are saying that the future looks bleak.

But I wanted to post this open invitation to anyone who's scared that they will have no home, to tell you about a place where everyone can be your friend and you can write all you want about just about anything... Spacefem.com!

Since 2002, Spacefem.com has operated smoothly with a professional staff of zero. Even if I tried to lay off some established members I wouldn't be able to, because they're already not working here. Our server costs have stayed low, because we efficiently cut out any crap that we think is hogging the bandwidth. We have a dedicated group of volunteer moderators who can answer all your questions about anything (ask them about the War of 1812), dozens of original emoticons that are cooler than anyone's, and lots of happiness. And when you're not happy, lots of ranting. We even have a Members Only forum where you can pretend you're writing friends-only livejournal entries... because the only friends that matter are our Members, right?

I'm not trying to inspire panic... I personally am a little feeling a little on my own. My own lj has been updated 1-10 times per week for the last eight years. But why slave away writing your thoughts on a blog no one reads when you can come to Spacefem, write the same thing, get it shown on the main page of a place that's frequently visited by lots of people, and get comments from the smartest people ever? True, you won't be writing *your* blog. But you'll be with us... a happy community of sharing, which is way better. It's free to join and easy to post topics.

No corporate blogging machine can ever love you like we do.

That's all I'm saying.

I made a "poll matrixer" for livejournal:

http://spacefem.com/ljpoll/

Basically, you cut/copy/paste the answers from two poll questions where you hit "view answers", and it merges the two together into a little table. It's still sort of in beta, so tell me what you think.

It works best with polls that have multiple radio options, like this one.

Oh, and if there's already something like this out there, will you tell me so I don't look stupid announcing it to the world?

apparently there's a "livejournal strike" on Friday - I won't be participating. For the record, if I forget to post, it's because I forgot to post, not because I'm supporting some insane "strike". For those who don't know, the movement is happening for the following reasons:

1) Livejournal no longer offers free, no-ad accounts for new users. When you sign up you chose between ads on your journal or a paid account. There used to be the "basic account" choice, which had fewer features but it was free and didn't show ads. brad, who invented livejournal, said that basic accounts were set up so there'd be more users and more content. Well, we're there. Livejournal has lots of users and content. So when the basic account types are whining that their friends can't set up the same accounts (existing users aren't even losing theirs, just whining!) I fail to see what ammunition they've got. I've run big websites - you do nice things in the beginning to encourage new members, then when the site gets more expensive you make it harder for freeloaders. That's the price you pay of being a freeloader. You're doomed to wander from website to website, contributing to their beginnings. That's the choice you make. If you hate it, start your own website.

2) Users are also mad that they weren't pre-told about basic accounts going away. Um, there'd be a rush on basic accounts? Again, the whining.

3) They're mad that "sex" doesn't show up in the list of most popular interests, it's filtered out. I can think of so many other things to care about.

One-day strikes are incredibly ineffective. My favorite are the gas strikes... people still drive their cars and use gas, but due to some e-mail forward, they think that taking a day off will stick it to big oil. Of course, oil companies issue quarterly statements like everyone else, so the daily ups and downs don't make a bit of difference, but no one talks about that, and no one talks about driving less. It's slacktivism at its finest.

So if you hate livejournal, GO. Move to the next website and drink in its free years, that's the way the internet works. You cannot convince a company that its decisions are bad, when they're basing their opinions on business and you're basing yours on, well, yourself. Somebody's gotta pay the bills around here, if you can't. Deal.