Just when I was making myself at home...

LiveJournal ... has cut about 20 of 28 employees — and offered them no severance (spotted via nicnac). As veterans of the last dotcom crash know, websites have a nasty habit of disappearing overnight, leaving a deafening silence in the void.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd highly suggest backing up all entries, and figuring out an alternative solution for blogging, just in case. Which is a huge shame, because the friends-feature on LJ is something I just have not found anywhere else. Any suggestions for backups or alternatives?

Anyway, in case the Nostromo signs off, I'm also to be found on almostwitty.com

UPDATE: Backup options available from LJ, LJBook and LJArchive

UPDATE 2: The end is not yet, in fact, nigh. at least not yet.

LJ: Don't panic...

Apparently, according to rhodri (who writes for the Independent, who are in partnership with LJ UK), the LJ redundancies are as a result of the company moving operations from Los Angeles to Moscow. Which, given that LJ is now Russian-owned makes sense.

Also, according to this LJ post, the numbers aren't quite so huge. "13 let go, 17 kept in total, and 12 let go and 12 kept in SF"

Even so, it's always better to backup than not to backup! here is a backup guide for PC users

Also, apparently some of the LJ developers had been working on Dreamwidth, a LiveJournal 2.0 - I imagine development on this will now kick up a notch...