jeff.hume.ca

A rumor has popped up that SixApart, the makers of the popular MovableType software (that powers this site) and TypePad, are soon to acquire Live Journal, creating a weblogging company with close to 6.5 million users.

I have not been a big fan of Live Journal in the past due to the kinds of content it tends to attract. It is characterized by angst ridden teen journals which feature an utter disregard for spelling and grammar. However, I will not hold this against the community as a whole and I won't be like silly Slashdotters and associate this kind of content with weblogs or, in this case, Live Journal in general. In fact, I enjoy reading a few Live Journals of friends. I will even go so far as to say that although I may not enjoy teen angst it can be justified if the writers are simply writing for themselves.

As such, while I'm not a fan of the teen angst content on Live Journal I think it would be an interesting and likely beneficial move for SixApart to branch out and expand their position in the weblog space.

However, there are two big questions I see arising in such a deal. Firstly, will Live Journal accounts be converted over to a form of SixApart software? SixApart runs the hosted TypePad service for a fee. What kind of features and back-end would a SixApart owned Live Journal have? Depending on how extensive this is, would this cannibalize the TypePad? I am of course, running under the assumption that SixApart will do the "good thing" and keep all Live Journal accounts running at the same or greater functionality as they do now for no extra cost.

Secondly, what will happen to the Live Journal Open Source community when merged with SixApart as a corporate entity and what becomes of the current Live Journal software?

Needless to say, this will be an interesting development if it is true.

This is, indeed an interesting proposition. While I do not know a great deal about the technical end of this, I do know that Live Journal is a very popular weblogging tool among teens especially.

The content which is found in many Live Journals is beyond absurdly brutal, nevertheless, it still attracts many users which indicates its popularity. For SixApart, this would probably be a good business deal.

Good job as always Jeff,

-Dave

My biggest concerns are the haphazard way LJ seems to be run. Yes, I know it's huge, but it is also laggy, bad with communication when there is a problem, difficult to customize, and just a cumbersome site to use. (I have been using it for years.) Their new photo section is a nightmare.

I have had so many problems with abuse and customer support, too, and compared to the wonderful people at Typepad, I am wondering if the unprofessional attitude at LJ will pollute Six Apart at all.

LJ might be good at getting the people in, but I 'graduated' from LJ to MT.

I will admit I like the comment threading/notification on LJ, the friend's page concept, including adding rss feeds.

I hope a definative answer is given soon. Uncertainy drives me up a wall.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/lj_maintenance/97600.html

Note Brad joking around in the thread, but ignoring questions about any buyout. He could have simply said, "Not true" but didn't.

I think it's a good move, if in fact the rumour turns out to be true. Gaining that amount of user base would be a force to be reckoned with. I just hope that the big company that emerges doesn't get bought out by Microsoft. They'd make it proprietary and fully functional only on Windows.

From what I've seen, there are a lot of mac users over at SixApart. I highly doubt they'd sell out to Microsoft.

A great number of the internet power users and content creators are moving to alternative platforms and web browsers. The great majority of referrals I'm getting to this entry are coming with a browser that is not IE. Since a lot of the people working at SixApart are of this sort, I don't see Microsoft as being a company they'd want to sell too.