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
