theamazingjosh

http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/83519.html

Not sure what to think! I guess we will all have to wait and see what happens.

Yesterday (or rather, early this morning) I read the following article:
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5124184/the-russian-bear-slashes-a-social-network
Sounded pretty bleak right?

Today a more reputable news source in my opinion reported this:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10132684-36.html
Not great but a little less dire.

I'd be really saddened if Livejournal died. I started this journal in December of 2000. There has been a lot of life recorded in here. I would be very sad to lose all of this data. I have thus far been unable to figure out a good way of backing my journal up. The most appealing to me is the LJ Book option that transforms the whole thing into a gigantic PDF, but I wasn't able to get it to work for me. Probably due to other people panicking about it. With close to 3000 entries, a lot of which are graphics laden it seems a bit daunting to me.

If it did go offline I'm not sure if I'd continue blogging elsewhere. Of course I'd continue with my business blog, which despite it being rarely updated we are in the midst of changing it over to wordpress probably by the end of the month. Once that happens I intend to be much more prolific with it. Still it will be professional, and really only there to document the business side of my photography. There may be some personal aspects to it, but they will be reserved and censored.

Livejournal is pretty unique, I am able to control my audience here, and the interaction is quite a bit more personal. The vast majority of my journal isn't public, so for the most part I do not have to be super concerned about what I say. The real me can come out, creating a cathartic outlet for my stresses in life. Not only that, but I have met so many great people from livejournal, including a best friend. It's strange to think it's existence is finite. Maybe to some it's just a website, but for me it's become a part of my life.

If any of you have suggestions on what to do to preserve this recording, or suggestions on alternative blogging communities I'd be interested to know. I'm not sure if the writing is on the wall right now, and I certainly have no desire to jump ship if it's not sinking. But I also don't want to be caught off guard.