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Empresas y finanzas

SUP Acquires LiveJournal From Six Apart


    SUP, an international media company based in Moscow, today
    announced that it has acquired LiveJournal from Six Apart, Ltd.
    LiveJournal is one of the world´s leading global online communities,
    with a monthly audience of more than 18m(1) unique visitors in nearly
    every country in the world. Additionally, SUP today launched a new
    U.S. company, LiveJournal, Inc., based in San Francisco, which will
    manage and operate LiveJournal. More information on the acquisition is
    available at http://community.livejournal.com/LJ_2008/.

    This deal is the second agreement between SUP and Six Apart. In
    October 2006, SUP concluded a licensing agreement with Six Apart to
    support and develop the large Russian segment of LiveJournal, which
    now represents 28%(2) of its monthly audience. In the past twelve
    months, SUP and Six Apart have worked in close collaboration to
    improve LiveJournal for Russian users during which time the community
    has almost doubled(3).

    "Having gotten to know LiveJournal in Russia over the past year we
    see enormous potential in developing the business worldwide; it has
    already shown its durability in America. We believe this is a great
    opportunity," said Andrew Paulson, CEO of SUP.

    New LJ community to highlight plans launched

    The new management team outlined their plans for the service in a
    new LiveJournal community - LJ_2008 - dedicated to addressing
    questions and concerns from users, and serving as a forum to discuss
    anything related to the acquisition. Also at LJ_2008, users will find
    details about LiveJournal, Inc.´s goals over the next 100 days. These
    goals include planned upgrades as well as new features and services
    for the LiveJournal community. The team will focus on such items as
    service performance, usability, socialization and discovery features.
    LiveJournal, Inc. is encouraging users to post on the community new
    ideas for improving the service.

    The LiveJournal community was informed of the news yesterday
    afternoon. SUP promised significant new investment in LiveJournal in
    the coming months and years. SUP also reassured the community that
    while subscribing to a minimalist approach in managing the site, it
    will establish clear and concrete policies with regard to
    communication and consultation on issues vital to the community.

    LJ in Russia

    When SUP established a licensing agreement with Six Apart to run
    LiveJournal in Russia in October 2006 Andrew Paulson said at the time:
    "LiveJournal is a very important Russian social and cultural
    phenomenon; our first duty is to ´do no harm,´ LiveJournal is the
    ´blogosphere´ in Russia, and being the caretaker of this service is a
    great privilege and a huge responsibility."

    Commenting on SUP´s track record in Russia since taking over the
    Russian segment Chris Alden, CEO and Chairman of Six Apart said, "We
    were very impressed with SUP´s management of the Russian LiveJournal
    community over the past year and are confident that they will bring
    resources and energy to develop the product and expand the community."

    LJ Management Team and Advisory Board

    SUP and Six Apart will work together in the coming months to
    transfer operations to LiveJournal, Inc. The existing team that worked
    exclusively on LiveJournal at Six Apart has moved to LiveJournal,
    Inc., and new general manager, marketing and sales teams will be
    recruited.

    LiveJournal, Inc has announced the formation of the LiveJournal
    Advisory Board, which will be comprised of both industry experts and
    members of the LiveJournal community. One of the key members of the
    Advisory Board will be LiveJournal´s founder, Brad Fitzpatrick, who
    recently left Six Apart for Google. Positions will also be reserved
    for two members of the LiveJournal community on a rotating basis via
    an open online election process.

    About SUP

    SUP is an international online media company with established
    partnerships with businesses across the globe. It was founded in the
    summer of 2006 by an international management team with Russian seed
    capital. SUP set itself the goal of building a portfolio of
    high-traffic-generating projects based in Moscow from which to expand
    worldwide.

    Since its launch SUP has generated Russian-language traffic and
    sold advertising inventory on its own sites and others inside Russia.
    These projects include:

    -- LiveJournal.ru, the most popular blogging platform and social
    network in Russia;

    -- Championat.ru, currently one of the top three sports news and
    entertainment services in the Russian internet;

    -- +SOL, a media sales house which is SUP´s internal commercial
    department and also sells online advertising for a number of
    high-profile Russian and international Web sites (Yahoo!,
    Last.fm, The Times, amongst others);

    -- Victory S.A., a full-service online advertising agency which
    devises and delivers online marketing campaigns for leading
    Russian and international brands.

    For more information, please visit http://www.sup.com/en/.

    (1) Omniture

    (2) Omniture

    (3) LiveJournal internal logs