The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

[thatcrazycajun]

BusinessWeek's take on the just-announced sale of LiveJournal to Russian firm SUP is online here. Makes it sound like LJ was an albatross around Six Apart's neck, both financially and perceptually.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

It was, in a way. See, in the dog-eat-dog world of publicly-owned corporations and wannabes, if you're not biggering and biggering and biggering, making profit Hanover Fiste, you're third-rate, also-ran, a midden-heap. And there's no way to make money on a site like this. The users won't put up with ads. The subscriptions cover your expenses, but it's not a home run, and Corporate America doesn't believe in small ball. There's no data mining to be done. The users are cranky and need a LOT of hand-holding. It's not an albatross, it's a boatanchor. I don't know what SUP thinks it's doing, maybe running a company realistically instead of like a corporate sociopath? Anyway, the whole Advisory Board thing has me hopeful... some folks are more cynical than I, but some folks are *generally* more cynical than I, and that's OK.

[mdlbear]

The Advisory Board is very encouraging, and especially Brad's presence on it. In part because he's known to be working on tools for decentralizing the social network -- if anyone is in a position to lead a mass exodus if things go sour, it's him. That gives him quite a lot of leverage.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Good point. Very good point, in fact.