Scribbling in circles
sure gets tiresome

Six Apart, the developers of Movable Type and TypePad, has sold its blog property LiveJournal to Russian firm SUP, according to a company statement. Financial terms were not disclosed.

SUP has been running LiveJournal in Russia as part of a licensing agreement. The company will set up shop in San Francisco to help guide LiveJournal's future.

After SUP licensed LiveJournal for the Russian audience, Russian accounts about doubled to 1.35 million. Active bloggers are comprised of about 523,000 Russian accounts — almost one-third of LiveJournal's active user base (1.7 million).

According to Chris Alden of Six Apart, the sale should be taken as a blessing, rather than a cause for worry. "We have very ambitious and aggressive plans for TypePad, Movable Type and Vox. We have to focus on the areas where we really want to be great," he said.

LiveJournal served as one of the first blogging communities, harking back to 1999. Founder Brad Fitzpatrick remained with LiveJournal even after Six Apart's purchase.

He left Six Apart for Google earlier this year. Fitzpatrick was 19 years old when he launched LiveJournal.