As the Web’s oldest social network, the media often skips over LiveJournal to cover shinier, younger communities like Facebook. So when LiveJournal was featured in Fast Company last week, the social network’s staff thought it would raise morale among users.
However, the piece had the opposite effect. Hundreds of LiveJournal users are up in arms about the article’s concluding paragraph, which implies the site’s existing base of users matters little to the company’s success:
“LiveJournal’s leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service’s current small-but-loyal membership.”
LiveJournal spokesperson Tom Byron said he was surprised by the reporter’s conclusion. He said he didn’t think LiveJournal’s general manager, Anjelika Petrochenko, said anything in the interview to imply users weren’t a priority.
“Indeed, the writer was doing okay until that last paragraph,” Byron told the Daily Dot. “That’s the part that set a lot of people off. We don’t know why he threw that in.”
Now, Byron is doing damage control. On LiveJournal’s Facebook page and staff blog, hundreds of users are making their anger known.
“Yes, let’s link to an article that blatantly states that you could give a shit about the ‘small but loyal’ fanbase that’s kept you in business for over a decade. Brilliant,” wrote roseredhoofbeat.
“Oh my god, lately I’ve been regretting paying for my account, but now I’m outright embarrassed,” wrote casey_leigh.
Byron said his employer bears some of the blame. LiveJournal has kept quiet on its redesign, rolling out just a little at a time. For example, LiveJournal recently revamped the community’s commenting interface, which also resulted in user uproar. Byron said they’ve yet to come out with an official response, which contributed to users’ feelings of neglect.
“I guess this piece combined with our admitted lack of substantive response regarding the commenting changes, plus the fact that we’re recently purging inactive accounts … I guess it’s making for a sort of ‘perfect storm’ for conjecture,” he said.
Byron said he wants to assure users that the Fast Company writer’s conclusion is not LiveJournal’s intention at all.
“People genuinely think we’re abandoning the current user base for something completely different and new, when in fact everything we have planned for LiveJournal.com is designed to improve things for everyone,” he said.