LiveJournal Selects Their New Board Members; Meet Jennifer Brady and Zafar Khashimov

We reported earlier this month that blogging platform LiveJournal was seeking a new member for their board of directors and were running a contest to find that person. The winner of the election is Jennifer Brady of Mesa, Arizona and she will join the board effective Sunday. You can read Brady’s winning essay submission to learn more about her and how she plans to help the LiveJournal community.

Brady notes that she wants LiveJournal to be clear with its’ members why they make certain decisions and also to create a usable site search. Asked to define the value of LiveJournal, Brady noted:

When speaking about value, I feel that the irresistible value of LiveJournal is in its community. We are what makes LJ valuable. The users who post about their day, about their kids, about their last BDSM encounter, about sex and food and everything under the sun. Without its users, LJ is nothing but an empty husk. To continue being valuable, LJ needs to work on retaining existing users by keeping the aspects of the site that are most valuable to them, while at the same time attracting new users by making new features available and taking advantage of new ways of thinking.

Brady will join current Advisory Board members danah boyd, Esther Dyson, Brad Fitzpatrick and Lawrence Lessig.

As for the Cyrillic-speaking LiveJournal community election, Mr. Zafar Khashimov won and will join the board as well.