SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- 12/03/07 --
Six Apart, the world's leading
independent blogging software and services company, today announced that
SUP, an international media company, has acquired LiveJournal (LJ), the
pioneer of social networking communities online used by millions of people
around the world to connect through personal journals and topic-based
communities. SUP has established an American company, LiveJournal, Inc., to
manage and operate LiveJournal globally.
This agreement builds on the established and successful relationship
between Six Apart and SUP, which entered into a licensing agreement in
October 2006 permitting SUP to manage LiveJournal in Russia. The Russian
LiveJournal community is second only to the U.S. in number of accounts, and
has been influential enough in that country to make "LiveJournal"
synonymous with "blogging" in Russian.
"We have a tremendous respect for the LiveJournal community, and are
pleased to see that LiveJournal, Inc. will continue to build on
LiveJournal's rich user experience. We have been impressed by the expertise
and enthusiasm that SUP has brought to LiveJournal in Russia. They have
introduced new features, nearly doubled the number of users, invested in
key product enhancements, and have done justice to one of the most
innovative online social networks in the world. Judging both by SUP's track
record and their eagerness to create a new user advisory board to oversee
the community's interests, this is clearly a good fit," stated Chris Alden,
CEO and Chairman of Six Apart.
"Having gotten to know LiveJournal in Russia over the past year we see
enormous potential in developing the business worldwide; it has already
showed its durability in America. We believe this is a great opportunity,"
said Andrew Paulson, CEO of SUP.
Six Apart acquired LiveJournal in January 2005 from its founder, Brad
Fitzpatrick. From its founding, LiveJournal popularized many of the
fundamental innovations of social media, such as friends lists and powerful
privacy controls. Under Six Apart, the number of LiveJournal accounts
nearly tripled from 5 million to over 14 million, and dozens of new
features were introduced to the site, including
-- a powerful email/IM/web notification system;
-- LJTalk, a completely open-source Jabber-based instant messaging
platform;
-- user-to-user messaging and tremendous improvements in comment
management and editing;
-- a vastly expanded mobile feature set, including a dedicated mobile
client; and
-- dozens of new visual themes and a completely new, simplified site
design and navigation system.
Six Apart will continue its active investment in and promotion of the
signature open source platform technologies created by the LiveJournal
team, such as Memcached, Mogile, Perlbal, and OpenID, all of which have
been adopted by other leading web properties from Craigslist to Facebook to
Wikipedia. LiveJournal, Inc. will also carry on LiveJournal's strong open
source tradition.
Six Apart will also continue to represent LiveJournal to advertisers and
sponsors for at least the coming twelve months. Brand owners interested in
advertising on LiveJournal or Six Apart's Vox may visit here.
http://www.sixapart.com/about/advertising
"While we'll miss being LiveJournal's home, this is a great milestone for
LiveJournal and also lets us focus on the core products invented at Six
Apart: Movable Type, TypePad, and Vox," said Alden. "We are investing
heavily in the products and have substantial growth plans for 2008."
For more information about the acquisition, please visit
http://community.livejournal.com/LJ_2008/
About Six Apart
Six Apart Ltd. provides
award-winning blogging software and services that change the way millions
of individuals, organizations, and corporations connect and communicate
across the world every day. Founded in 2002 by husband and wife team Ben
Trott and Mena G. Trott, Six Apart is a global company with its
headquarters in San Francisco, CA, and offices in Europe and Japan. The
company continues to lead in the blogging and social media industry with
the Movable Type Publishing
Platform, the TypePad hosted blogging
service, and Vox, a free blogging service
for friends and families. For more information visit the Six Apart
corporate web site at http://www.sixapart.com/.
Six Apart Media Contact
Jane Anderson
Mobile: 650.440.0450
Office: 415.344.0056 x 107
Email Contact
SUP Media Contact
Tim Smith
Mobile: 415-350-3019
Office: 415-321-1880
Email Contact
