Dreamwidth is a Livejournal fork, run by former LJ employees. It's open source, so you can check out how it works, or even run a DW instance of your own.
It's one of the few websites I can wholeheartedly advocate with zero qualms or conditions.
(My journal is sario528.dreamwidth.org if you want to keep up with my once-every-other-year posting)
Dreamwidth
Re: Dreamwidth
oh!!!!! I'm really glad you posted this because I miss LJ *all* the time and I'm always looking for something like it. Will go check it out!! presumably gonna be something like `gremlijns.dreamwidth.org` haha