Russian (or, Russian born) company SUP acquires LiveJournal blog service from Six Apart. The two companies have been working together for the last six month or so, with SUP “taking care” of the Russian users of LiveJournal, which are an impressive 28% chunk of population.
How do I feel about this? Here are some points from the top of my head, that will give you an idea:
- I have an account with LiveJournal, but I don’t use it that much myself. There are a few blogs there that I read, but this is not by any means a vital service for my web life.
- I think that LiveJournal is lagging behind its competitors for some time now. It needed a “push”.
- I don’t think that SUP will be able to “push” it. For a number of reasons. (Russia lags in technological development and understanding.  SUP is company established by “an international management team”, not techies. And so on.)
- I don’t think that SUP (or any other Russian company for that matter) has enough trust to run a blogging service. I think that many bloggers (especially political ones) will look for alternative services.
- I have a feeling that monetization of LiveJournal will get a bit more aggressive in the nearest future.
- I think that it’s time for a lot of people to take a look around and learn about other excellent blogging communities, such as WordPress.com for example.