News
Press Releases
LiveJournal User Elected to Advisory Board
Inaugural User-Representative Election Concludes With Long-Time LiveJournal Member Joining danah boyd, Esther Dyson, Brad Fitzpatrick and Lawrence Lessig
SAN FRANCISCO -- Election results are in today as LiveJournal, Inc. concluded its inaugural LiveJournal User-Representative Election. The winner is Jennifer Brady of Mesa, Arizona. Ms. Brady will formally join the LiveJournal Advisory Board on June 1, 2008.
As announced on April 24, LiveJournal opened up the nomination process for LiveJournal members to join the Advisory Board. Having LJ members as active participants on the Advisory Board is a critical component to the success of the Advisory Board.
Ms. Brady is a long-time LiveJournal user. Her current LiveJournal account is under the name of legomymalfoy. After garnering the required number of endorsements, Ms. Brady announced her candidacy on May 16. Following her election victory, Ms. Brady will join current Advisory Board members danah boyd, Esther Dyson, Brad Fitzpatrick and Lawrence Lessig.
LiveJournal, Inc. is one of the world's leading online communities. As previously announced, LiveJournal allocated two positions on the Advisory Board for elected representatives from its user base. This is unprecedented for a major social network and will offer LiveJournal users a defined role in the development of the service for the first time. Having LiveJournal uses represented on the company Advisory Board was one of the stated objectives of SUP, following SUP's acquisition of LiveJournal in December 2007.
More details on the election process are available here.
"LiveJournal is a precious and important community made up of talented and passionate individuals," said Andrew Paulson, CEO of SUP, the owner of LiveJournal.com. "We are privileged to have one of those members now join the Advisory Board to represent the user base, challenge the management and suggest improvements to the service. I'm very much looking forward to working with Jennifer."
Voting concluded on May 29, 2008 at 9:00 p.m. PST. Ms. Brady received 36.5% first place votes, which led to an instant run-off under the terms of the election.1 Under the terms of the instant run-off, Ms. Brady was the ultimate winner. Candidates 'jameth' and 'rm' came in second and third, respectively. All told, 25,875 votes were cast in the election.
In her election post, Ms. Brady announced that she was running "to essentially be an advisor" to LJ, and "not running to push any agenda." As a long-time LJ member, as an active participant in numerous communities, and as a volunteer for the LJ Abuse Team, Ms. Brady is extremely well-versed in both the passion that makes the LJ community so strong, and the practicalities of keeping the business of LiveJournal on track.
Ms. Brady was elected for a term of one year, with the right to then run for re-election. Her term begins on June 1, 2008. The Advisory Board will hold quarterly meetings via conference call, meet at least once a year to consider the challenges and opportunities for the LiveJournal community, and be available as needed for counsel.
In a separate announcement, Mr. Zafar Khashimov was also appointed to the LiveJournal Advisory Board, representing the Cyrillic-speaking LiveJournal community. The electorate has been split into two constituencies to reflect the global nature of the LiveJournal community. One position on the board was set aside to represent the Russian constituency of LiveJournal users, with the other for the victor in the non-Russian section.
1 From LJ_Election: "If no user has more than 50% of the first-choice vote, we will begin using an Instant Runoff process. The user with the lowest tally for first-choice vote will be eliminated, and the second choice candidate on those ballots will be substituted as first choice. This process will continue (drop lowest candidate, reassign to next vote, tally again) until any user has more than 50% of the vote."
About LiveJournal
LiveJournal is one of the world's most respected community publishing platforms. Since its launch in the United States in 1999, LiveJournal has become the online home to a wide array of creative individuals looking to share common interests, meet new friends and express themselves. LiveJournal encourages community and personal expression by offering users both a user-friendly interface and the ability to deeply customize their journal. The site allows users to set up their own virtual diary and communicate with their friends by posting and receiving comments on each other's entries. In many countries the site's most popular functionality is the community aspect which allows users to engage each other on issues of common interest.
LiveJournal has registered more than 16 million accounts since its founding, and currently has a worldwide monthly audience of 20 million of whom 5.7 million are Russian based (Omniture, TNS Gallup). LiveJournal Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.livejournalinc.com
