sold down the Volga?

[15_the_circle]

[OT from cottage renovations]

---

a snippet from an email that came in today? 

>
> ... you *do* know that we got sold to the Russians,
> all of us on Live Journal? No more blogging in there
> for me. ....
>

to which I replied:

"yes, I keep LJ news in my flist so I had seen the announcement as soon as it went out, as well as some of the hysteria that followed.  personally I was a lot more concerned about the previous sale to 6 Apart than the current transaction to SUP and as long as the servers and the operations remain in the US I don't see any reason to jump, at least not just yet. 

"LJ doesn't seem to turned out as the money spinner that 6A probably hoped it would be and maybe that's why support, development and the maintenance of a sense of community haven't been all that stellar.  overall there just hasn't been a clear direction -- though it could just as well have been the other way around.  not that it matters what the limiting factor actually was:  LJ usage has continued to decline and the giant sucking sound was that of the young folks all going off to TheirSpace and AssBook. 

"LJ's real success, more likely from word of mouth than from much direct effort, has been in the Russian and other former soviet republics and it doesn't take a business genius to figure out they're better off doing more of what they do well than of what they don't; and that SUP is in a better position to make it happen.  but a lot of that success has been predicated on LJ being offshore to that part of its user base: they'd be fools to mess with that aspect so for the time being there's no cause for alarm.  situational awareness, yes, but not panic. "