[BRIEF NOTE] LzheYuzery, Part 2
Dec. 6th, 2007 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldBy now, everyone knows that Russian media corporation SUP Fabrik bought Livejournal earlier this work.
In what I am sure is a not-unconnected event, two Russophone bloggers on my friends list deleted their Livejournal accounts.
It's surprising easy for non-Russophones to overlook the heavy Russian presence on Livejournal; even I had forgotten that Semagic, my Livejournal client of choice, began as a Russian client. Looking at the statistics, the second-commonest nationality among Livejournal users are Russian. Including LJ users from Ukraine, Belarus, and Israel, a high proportion of which are likely to be Russophones given patterns of migration and language use in those three Russians, there may be somewhere in the vicinity of six hundred thousand Russophone Livejournal users.
Andy at Siberian Light suggests that Livejournal's success in the Russophone world might be attributable in part to its headstart over other platforms and its ease of use. Regardless, as Eugene Gorny suggests in his 2004 Powerpoint presentation, Russophones on Livejournal have managed to build up quite a substantial presence, avoiding the trivializing of Livejournal that's frequent among Anglophone bloggers and developing a highly integrated community. As
Is the acquisition of Livejournal by a Russian community a matter of concern? It depends. I wrote last October about the possibility that all Russophone bloggers, bloggers in the former Soviet Union, and bloggers writing in the Cyrillic alphabet might be automatically hived over to a Russophone administration service. Others at the time noted that quite a few Russophone bloggers would be concerned about the possibility that their Livejournal blogs could potentially by subject to surveillance from the Russian state.
I'm not personally worried about this, if only because I'm an Anglophone living well outside of Russia without any especially confidential information. (Well, I am gay. Or bisexual, depending on your definition. Don't tell!) That said, I'm not one of those six hundred thousand Russophones. While I'm not convinced that this acquisition is an attempt by the Putin administration to surveil and manipulate the Russophone blogosphere because it seems a relatively indirect way to do so, given the past tendencies of the Russian state and the country's current model of state-directed capitalism I'm might well be concerned if I was a Russophone, especially if I was resident in Russia. All that I can say on this front is that I hope the most serious fears won't be realized and that attitudes like the ones that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
arpad linked to among at least one Russian employee of SUP won't influence the administration of Livejournal. At worst, there are now plenty of non-Russian-owned blogging platforms out there
Moscow-based SUP announced Monday it has bought blog-hosting firm LiveJournal as part of a plan to cultivate an international community of people that author such online diaries.
The Russian media company said it acquired LiveJournal from Six Apart Ltd. in San Francisco and that it will operate the blogging firm from this California city.
A party celebrating the deal is planned for Monday night in a chic San Francisco restaurant and the guest list includes the Six Apart mascot, a live goat.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
SUP began licensing LiveJournal blog-managing software from Six Apart slightly more than a year ago.
The Russian component of LiveJournal nearly doubled in users during that time period and now represents 28 percent of LiveJournal's more than 18 million monthly visitors, according to SUP.
"Having gotten to know LiveJournal in Russia over the past year we see enormous potential in developing the business worldwide," said SUP chief executive Andrew Paulson.
"We believe this is a great opportunity."
Along with a new management team, SUP promises "significant new investment" in LiveJournal.
Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal in 1999 as a way to let his high school friends stay abreast of his life. Six Apart bought the company that operated LiveJournal in 2005.
Fitzpatrick recently left Six Apart for a job with Northern California Internet colossus Google but will remain on a LiveJournal advisory board created to oversee the firm's transition to SUP.
Online media company SUP was founded in 2006 with Russian capital and an international management team.
SUP operates popular Russian social networking website LiveJournal.ru; sports and entertainment website Championat.ru, and online advertising operations +SOL and Victory S.A.
In what I am sure is a not-unconnected event, two Russophone bloggers on my friends list deleted their Livejournal accounts.
It's surprising easy for non-Russophones to overlook the heavy Russian presence on Livejournal; even I had forgotten that Semagic, my Livejournal client of choice, began as a Russian client. Looking at the statistics, the second-commonest nationality among Livejournal users are Russian. Including LJ users from Ukraine, Belarus, and Israel, a high proportion of which are likely to be Russophones given patterns of migration and language use in those three Russians, there may be somewhere in the vicinity of six hundred thousand Russophone Livejournal users.
Andy at Siberian Light suggests that Livejournal's success in the Russophone world might be attributable in part to its headstart over other platforms and its ease of use. Regardless, as Eugene Gorny suggests in his 2004 Powerpoint presentation, Russophones on Livejournal have managed to build up quite a substantial presence, avoiding the trivializing of Livejournal that's frequent among Anglophone bloggers and developing a highly integrated community. As
Is the acquisition of Livejournal by a Russian community a matter of concern? It depends. I wrote last October about the possibility that all Russophone bloggers, bloggers in the former Soviet Union, and bloggers writing in the Cyrillic alphabet might be automatically hived over to a Russophone administration service. Others at the time noted that quite a few Russophone bloggers would be concerned about the possibility that their Livejournal blogs could potentially by subject to surveillance from the Russian state.
I'm not personally worried about this, if only because I'm an Anglophone living well outside of Russia without any especially confidential information. (Well, I am gay. Or bisexual, depending on your definition. Don't tell!) That said, I'm not one of those six hundred thousand Russophones. While I'm not convinced that this acquisition is an attempt by the Putin administration to surveil and manipulate the Russophone blogosphere because it seems a relatively indirect way to do so, given the past tendencies of the Russian state and the country's current model of state-directed capitalism I'm might well be concerned if I was a Russophone, especially if I was resident in Russia. All that I can say on this front is that I hope the most serious fears won't be realized and that attitudes like the ones that
arpad linked to among at least one Russian employee of SUP won't influence the administration of Livejournal. At worst, there are now plenty of non-Russian-owned blogging platforms out there
