Six Apart (Typepad) Buys LiveJournal
Sarah Perez on January 8th, 2005
What does it all mean?
- What does this mean for LiveJournal? LiveJournal development and support will
continue, and will probably even accelerate, as we grow the team. We’ll
continue to work on speed, reliability, and new features. LiveJournal won’t become paid-user-only or anything crazy like that. We’re
not going to raise prices.The most immediate changes will be that we’ll start to get prettier… more
styles, themes, etc. Six Apart is really good at that and we’re not. - Does this mean LiveJournal will finally get TrackBack
support? LiveJournal will get TrackBack. Actually we’d been planning it anyway,
and we’ve even done a partial implementation recently. - Are prices changing? Nope.
- Will LiveJournal become TypePad or TypePad become LiveJournal? Nope. We have no plans of forceably merging the two sites and communities
into one, either…. that just doesn’t make sense.
According to Six Apart (Typepad):
- Will the purchase of LiveJournal affect me as a TypePad subscriber? No. TypePad and LiveJournal will remain separate products.
LiveJournal will be run as a separate division within the SixApart
product family with its own engineering and development team. - Will you be integrating any LiveJournal features into Movable Type or TypePad? We will not be directly integrating any LiveJournal features into
our current platforms but we are dedicated to having LiveJournal’s
strong community focus and reliable scalability influence both Movable
Type and TypePad. - What does this mean for Six Apart and our existing products? It means that Six Apart now offers top quality blogging software
for every type of blogger on the planet. With LiveJournal, we now have
a blogging service intended for individuals to interact with family and
friends, bringing us a new audience that is distinct from the one for
our current product line.
Note from me: All that was quoted directly from both websites…entirely without permission….
Are you LJ’ers excited yet?
Follow the conversation at YackTrack!
Sarah, I use typepad, but I guess it just depends on which format the user is comfortable with. I think typepad is too rigid in some areas, especially in their lack of design choices to use for the backgrounds on their blogs. Also, their software can be confusing to manage at times. So it was good to read that they’re planning to keep Live Journal as it is and not integrate the two. I haven’t used LJ before, maybe I’ll check it out!
As a livejournal user since 2001 and a MT user since 2002, I know the works behind both systems. They are both good in their own ways. What I hope is to have MT people see the benefits of grouping by interest and that closer connection LJ makes between friends; and I hope that livejournal people exposed to other types of blogging solutions and the way the technology works in general, you wouldn’t believe how many people on LJ don’t know what a blog is or that they are blogging. May the revolution begin.
I’m just excited because hopefully LJ won’t run as slow anymore and/or lose my entries right after I’ve posted them!
I use both and they’ve both got their good and bad points. One thing I’d love to see them do is allow people who comment in MT use their LJ login instead of TypeKey to authenticate themself.
Trackbacks in LJ will also be cool.
Both systems need an easier way to customize their appearance and themes, etc.