Six Apart Sells LiveJournal

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

In a LiveJournal community post Sunday night, Six Apart announced it has sold LiveJournal to Moscow-based media company SUP (pronounced “soup”). Six Apart had acquired LiveJournal in in January 2005. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Why would it jettison LiveJournal? According to the post Six Apart wants to focus on its core business, which consists of Movable Type for businesses and TypePad and Vox for consumers and small business.

SUP had already acquired the rights for LiveJournal in Russia, and was managing it there. LiveJournal Russia had 28% of the global monthly LiveJournal audience, while only about 20% of registered members reside in the U.S.

The new company, LiveJournal Inc., will be based in San Francisco. An advisory panel, including industry experts and LiveJournal’s founder Brad Fitzpatrick (now at Google) will be formed.

At the same time the announcement was made, a 100-day plan was announced, focusing, it says, on service performance, usability, and socialization/discovery features.

Significantly, the FAQ of the announcement addressed privacy issues:

LiveJournal, Inc. is an American company based in California and is subject to the laws of the state of California, USA. All relevant state and federal regulations will apply.

We Say: However, it’s clear there is concern among users over the Moscow-based takeover, as some comments on the post explicitly asked about privacy now that Putin seems to have strengthened his iron grip on Russia in the elections today.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some leave LiveJournal based on these concerns.