Six Apart unloads Live Journal to SUP.com, a Russian media company. Some interesting storylines:
Russia vs. USA
It’s interesting to see more and more Russian media companies taking an interest in foreign assets and want to maintain a grip of local audiences. There is a mirrored storyline with regards to what is going on in the world of politics and militarism, the struggle for the world’s natural resources and what is going on in technology…
Focus
Six Apart invariably could not have maintained a battle on four fronts: Movable Type, Typepad, Vox and Live Journal. This move to unload Live Journal will allow it to focus on areas where it has an ability to win. But,
Open-Source vs. Closed-Source
There’s a place for closed source solutions and let’s face it, not all individuals and companies will really want to embrace open source… but with regards to blogging, I think the community-supported tools, bells and whistles really make it hard for Six Apart to compete with Automattic’s Wordpress.
Technorati’s Lessons
Remember when Technorati turned down a bunch of buyout offers and today can’t give itself away… I think Six Apart might risk the same thing: yesterday it was the blogging platform du jour, but today there’s definitely a lot of momentum in Automattic’s camp. Ultimately, however, I think…
M&A on the horizon?
Automattic recently turned down a massive acquisition offer, and instead sold more equity to VCs which provided founder Matt Mullenwag with a founder’s liquidity clause. This allowed Matt to continue to build Automattic independently, which is key for an open source blogging platform, but this suggests that interested parties are circling around Six Apart… perhaps this was an example of Six Apart sprucing itself up for a sale?
Time will tell.
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December 3rd, 2007 at 12:22 pm
[…]“It’s about our desire at Six Apart to really do right by the LiveJournal product and to have it have as strong of a future as possible. SUP will be able to invest (in LiveJournal) in 2008 more than Six Apart would have. Likewise, we’ll be able to invest more in our three properties than we would have.” — Six Apart CEO Chris Alden[…]