LJ stuff re: SUP

[marishna]

I have absolutely what this takeover means for us. I'm confused, moreso than a lot of other people. But I just looked up SUP to see what I could find and I have some links, if you're interested.

- The post in news, for those who have NO idea what I'm talking about when I say LJ's been bought out.
- SUP's website
- Brad's view of the partnership between Six Apart and LJ from November 2006
- A (Russian?) blogger's view of the partnership from 2006
- Another blog about it from 2006
- dolboeb - A guy who works for SUP, I believe. A CEO?
- Wiki on the guy who founded SUP, Andrew Paulson
- Mention of the LJ/SUP partnership (SUP bought the Russian part of LJ last year) and the attempt to change Russia's image in the US
- Last year's post about the LJ/SUP partnership from news
- Six Apart news release on the matter

I don't know if these links will help anyone but there's what I could find in two pages of Yahoo-ing.

I think what I kind of get from all this is that everything that's happened in the past eight months has been put in a new perspective. I don't know what to think right now about it and I have no idea if I think of the past eight months (re: adult flagging, adult content under scrutiny, the deletions, etc, etc) in a better or worse light. It'll all depend on what the next few days bring, obvs.

If anyone has any other information or POVs to bring up or persuasive arguments one way or the other, I'd LOVE to hear them. All this stuff confuses me so if you can make it clearer or give me other ways to look at it, please share them.

Comments

[affectingly.livejournal.com]

I just find the whole thing utterly fascinating. When LJ was first sold to 6A, I flapped a bit, but at this point I'm just like, "Whatever!" If it ends up sucking worse that when 6A owned us (which, dear god, is that even possible?), I'll just pack my shit and head for JF and GJ, ya know? Not much else to do. As for now, I'm just going to sit back and watch. (Also, I'm thoroughly enjoying all the Soviet Russia/Vodka jokes. ALL OUR BASE ARE BELONG TO THE MOTHERLAND.)

[marishna.livejournal.com]

I reeeeeeeeeeallllllyyyyy don't want to leave. I don't know if I have the energy to go somewhere else and start over. Well, not OVER over, but you know. I'd go wherever everyone else was going. *CLINGS LIKE A BABY MONKEY*

I'm cautiously optimistic about this but I would like to know if the past eight months of bullshit figure into this in any way, if it was done in preparation for this buy out.

[affectingly.livejournal.com]

Actually, my feeling is that LJ's US user base became too much of a liability to 6A and its shareholders (vis-a-vis the past eight months). Perhaps this is something SUP wanted to do from the beginning, but 6A was reluctant because they still felt like they could turn a profit from us. With the way everything was poorly handled this year, perhaps they finally decided to dump us while they still could.

[marishna.livejournal.com]

I hope that is the way it all went. I hope they just got fed up and saw a losing battle and gave up. That would be... slightly comforting. It would certainly prove that fandom does, indeed, count.

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

according to Wired (http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2006/11/72060), LJ hasn't been sold be 6A but some licensing agreement entered into. Mind you the same article says LJ is a brand associated with 'freedom of seech" ORLY?

anyway i'll be staying here at LJ until they turn th elights off. Given everything that's happened over the past year, fandom has shown it's unwillingness to move.

[marishna.livejournal.com]

That was last year's stuff. I guess this SUP took over all the Russian LJ stuff (as LJ is HUUUUUUGE in Russia and it was a good money making thing) and now 6A has unloaded it totally. That's how I understand it. When I was looking for info all the stuff I ran across was from last year's deal.

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

Ahaha! I'll read more of your links about the imapact SUP had on the Russian LJ.

[fly-meaway.livejournal.com]

I might have to take a look at those links and I'm reading through some comments at lj_policy that are all really good comments and mostly get to the bottom of my complaints too.

The question is if SUP will listen to the users, it says that it will and I mean, it knows how livejournal worked in Russia, so I have some faith in the fact that they realize that it's all about the users and the community. They probably have more money to do things? I don't know, I'm still a bit iffy on that and exactly why this takeover now. It sounds like they just have more money, more abilities to make changes. This is a huge change though, but so far I'm not that concerned yet. I'm sure that by the time I read more, I might.

[rathamahata.livejournal.com]

"A (Russian?) blogger's view of the partnership from 2006" - that was my post, and yes - I'm a Russian citizen/resident.

[jade-kadir.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. I don't know what to think of it yet, but I hope things don't get out of hand again.