Blogging pioneers Six Apart, LiveJournal to break apart
SAN FRANCISCO -- Blogging pioneer Six Apart is breaking apart from LiveJournal, another trailblazer that helped bring online journals to the masses.
The nearly three-year marriage is dissolving with Six Apart's sale of LiveJournal to Russia-based SUP a deal expected to be announced Monday. The financial terms aren't being disclosed.
SUP, which already been running LiveJournal in Russia as part of a licensing agreement, plans to set up a new company in San Francisco to steer LiveJournal's global growth.
"We are very much a 'rest-of-the-world' company," said Andrew Paulson, SUP's chief executive. "We believe there are high growth opportunities outside North America."
Since SUP took over LiveJournal's licensing rights in Russia, the number of registered accounts in that country has nearly doubled to 1.35 million. About 523,000 Russian accounts are considered to be active bloggers, representing nearly a third of LiveJournal's roughly 1.7 million active users.
About nine Six Apart employees who worked on LiveJournal will move to the newly formed company. Six Apart will be left with about 150 workers worldwide.
Despite LiveJournal's robust growth in Russia during the past year, the United States remains its largest market.
But LiveJournal has been facing a stiffer challenge in the United States as more of its core audience -- teens and adults in their early 20s -- flocked to hugely popular Internet hangouts like Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace to express themselves.
More Web surfers are poring through the content on social networks, curtailing the growth of LiveJournal's U.S. audience. In October, LiveJournal attracted 3.9 million U.S. visitors compared with 72 million for MySpace and 32.9 million for Facebook, according to the latest data from comScore Media Metrix. Paulson maintains Media Metrix underestimates LiveJournal's audience.
The rapid rise of social networking prompted Six Apart to introduce its own twist on the genre last year with Vox.com, which also includes blogging tools.
Six Apart's main businesses consist of its primary blogging service, TypePad, and a popular software package called Movable Type. Both of those products helped turn blogging from a once quirky concept to a common communications tool.
LiveJournal established one of the first blogging communities shortly after its then 19-year-old founder, Brad Fitzpatrick, set up the site in 1999, about three years before the husband-and-wife team of Ben and Mena Trott launched Six Apart. The Trotts were born six days apart, inspiring the name of their company.
Fitzpatrick continued to work on LiveJournal until leaving Six Apart earlier this year to work for Internet search leader Google Inc. Paulson said he hopes to bring Fitzpatrick back into the fold as part of LiveJournal's advisory journal under the new ownership.
Selling LiveJournal will enable privately held Six Apart to concentrate on its strengths, said Chris Alden, Six Apart's chief executive. "We have very ambitious and aggressive plans for TypePad, Movable Type and Vox. We have to focus on the areas where we really want to be great."