Orkut and so on
Of course, the blogosphere has been all het up over orkut lately, at least partly because it has the google seal of approval, and everyone loves google.
2 million LJ users
According to this LJ status post, livejournal has passed 2 million users, half of which are active "in some way". they hit 1 million only 9 months ago (and for most of the intervening time, new memberships were throttled by the invite code/pay requirement). That's a lot of people.
Another view of LJ
something awful gives LJ the finger
No further comment.
openmind.org
URL-sharing
Snej comments on del.ico.us, a social URL-sharing site, comparing it to livejournal's friends mechanism (but just for URLs, not full-blown blogs).