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hyounparkSo, SUP bought LiveJournal (or Zhivoi Zhurnal as our Russian friends call it). And Livejournal seems to think that it's a good thing. And, to be honest, there are both good aspects and bad aspects to this sale. Being the perky and sunny ray of sunshine that I am, let's start with:
The Good Things
Why did SUP buy Livejournal in the first place? There are two main reasons. First, Livejournal is one of the premier Russian blogging tools and Russians represent 28% of Livejournal's audience, or about 4 million accounts. Also, Russia's economy is growing insanely quickly right now compared to the United States and Russia is getting tons of capital investment. So, the Russians have a ton of money and are looking for places to spend it. Why not spend it on one of their own leading blog tools? Part of the expectation for a Russian firm is that they want their investments to grow at least at the same rates as the capital/stock markets, if not faster. That's why you make private investments: higher risk, but also potential higher return.
So, the good news is that SUP wants to increase the number of people on Livejournal. And to do that, they need to provide value. To that end, SUP does have some incentive to prove that their blogging tool is the best product for their users. Since the American blogging market has traditionally been privacy-sensitive, there's some hope that SUP sees the importance of keeping its American audience happy since they're still the largest population, so they aggregately have more disposable income than the Russian audience.
SUP's CEO, Andrew Paulson, has said that he's planning to spend between $10 million and $100 million on Livejournal. And this is in addition to the reported $30 million that SUP paid for Livejournal. I think there will probably be significant technical improvements to Livejournal features because SUP will be a more active and effective owner than Six Apart's pathetic alternating between benign neglect and active destruction over the past couple of years.
(As an aside, for all of Six Apart's supposed "expertise" and "intelligence" in the blogging world, Chris Alden, Barak, Ben, Mena, Anil, and the rest of that brainy crew sure seemed clueless in running the one part of their portfolio that allows the greatest amount of collaboration, social interaction, and community. They may talk about openness and communication, but if their Livejournal management is any indication, they're really better off working in simpler closed communities, IMO.)
So, um, that's the good part, I guess. We'll get some of the Russian Livejournal goodies and there will be some incentive to innovate. So, that just leaves...
The Bad Things
Apparently, they're creating an Advisory Board to allay customer concerns about both privacy and the lack of clarity in determining what is and isn't LJ kosher. To me, this is just another layer of abuse/support and not an actual board that helps shape the company's strategic direction. I have a hard time believing that this board is going to be legitimate or have equal footing with the actual investors of the company. So, obviously, the LJ Advisory Board needs to sell its importance.
To that end, Livejournal's big coup on that front is supposedly that founder Brad Fitzpatrick is on the board. Color me unimpressed. Brad has been useless on end user concerns for years. His concerns are in improving the technology and making money and he's good at both of them. Being a business student and tool-in-training, I can't really say that I disapprove entirely with his philosophy. But as a human being, I think other humans should be a little more well-rounded than that.
I'm not sure why Livejournal end users have the idea that Brad actually cares about the social issues or the intellectual networking potential of social networks, because I've never seen that kind of concern from him other than how to make it work from a technical perspective. Specifically, I'd point at his flippant dismissal that selling Livejournal to a Russian company could possibly threaten independent reporters or be problematic in any way. I do think he's a talented developer, but he's no social visionary or operational business genius or marketing/customer service wizard. So, the idea of having![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brad on the new LJ Advisory Board is probably a minus from my point of view.
And Livejournal has a 100 day plan. Although as I read it, the plan looks like "fix everything and add more interactive goodness." #1 is vague without the kinds of specific deliverables and claims of responsibility that we in the project management world would like. And #2 isn't really in the spirit of the journaling that I think of as the basis of Livejournal. So, um, not too impressed.
Also, this big capital investment in Livejournal means that SUP will be looking for significant monetization of Livejournal for the ~1 million active Livejournal users that are out there. I don't see how you make 40-130 million dollars + a rate of return back without adding significant click-through advertising to the site. I suppose it's possible that they'll make it very unintrusive and/or get the buy-in of the majority of Livejournal to do it. And I also don't see how SUP will like dealing with permanent accounts since people like me are sunk costs: we get all the paid services but add no incremental income. From a business perspective, I know that sunk costs need to be "fixed" from an operational perspective. So, I'm not looking forward to seeing how my account will be fixed.
As for the social contract of Livejournal? Gone. Any expectations of what Livejournal was five years ago should go out the window. Livejournal is now a profit-seeking social networking site, albeit with a nicer interface than many of its counterparts. But I would assume that any loyalty to the culture of Livejournal will inevitably result in disappointment. At this point, you're here for the friends and social network that you already have here and for the technical goodies that LJ provides. There's still a significant product there, IMO, but there isn't the social guarantee of "Do no evil" that once existed.
I don't think that SUP will actively start adding malware or track down Americans, but I do expect them to track behavior more closely than the old regime. The marketing information in Livejournal in and of itself is probably worth at least a few million dollars and SUP would be fools to not monetize that information either through intra-company use or by providing it to marketing firms.
And, as some have noted, Aleksandr Mamut, the money behind SUP, is one of the most powerful men in Russia and a good friend of the Kremlin and Putin. If push comes to shove and Putin is looking to quash dissent with independent reporters and political rebels, do you think SUP is really going to think twice about using their database to chase after individuals? To me, this is the worst part. I don't think the American population will be affected significantly other than some Facebook/Beacon-like disappointments, but the Russian population is completely getting screwed over considering that LJ offered Russians a less biased media channel than the Kremlin-controlled TV and newspapers.
Between my lack of spare time and the constant drama caused by LJ ownership fundamentally not understanding its own customer base, I have to admit that I've been getting a little weary of LJ even if terrific people likethatabbygrrl are posting again. I still love reading about all of you and knowing how you're doing, but there's just that lack of trust in knowing whether the network will remain here or whether somebody at the top will do something stupid.
I still think it's a good tool, but it's hard to maintain trust in management that clearly has no clue on how to shape social networks and merge those challenges with the real world, which I think is vital to creating a social internet network that is truly interactive with the real world from a legal, social, and communicative standpoint. Real networks have sparklepony drama and people who create completely unexpected problems that fall in quasi-legal or politically controversial territory. In the face of the biggest challenge that the social internet faces, Six Apart fell completely flat on their face. In some ways, it's a relief to think that SUP probably won't even try to capitalize on the community aspects of Livejournal and will concentrate on greater personal small group interactivity and targeted marketing.
FWIW, I hope I'm wrong about all this. I hope SUP ends up making both technological and social contract progress and is an innovator in both regards. But there's just nothing in SUP's background in my admittedly limited experience that indicates that the respect for personal information or privacy are there.
The Good Things
Why did SUP buy Livejournal in the first place? There are two main reasons. First, Livejournal is one of the premier Russian blogging tools and Russians represent 28% of Livejournal's audience, or about 4 million accounts. Also, Russia's economy is growing insanely quickly right now compared to the United States and Russia is getting tons of capital investment. So, the Russians have a ton of money and are looking for places to spend it. Why not spend it on one of their own leading blog tools? Part of the expectation for a Russian firm is that they want their investments to grow at least at the same rates as the capital/stock markets, if not faster. That's why you make private investments: higher risk, but also potential higher return.
So, the good news is that SUP wants to increase the number of people on Livejournal. And to do that, they need to provide value. To that end, SUP does have some incentive to prove that their blogging tool is the best product for their users. Since the American blogging market has traditionally been privacy-sensitive, there's some hope that SUP sees the importance of keeping its American audience happy since they're still the largest population, so they aggregately have more disposable income than the Russian audience.
SUP's CEO, Andrew Paulson, has said that he's planning to spend between $10 million and $100 million on Livejournal. And this is in addition to the reported $30 million that SUP paid for Livejournal. I think there will probably be significant technical improvements to Livejournal features because SUP will be a more active and effective owner than Six Apart's pathetic alternating between benign neglect and active destruction over the past couple of years.
(As an aside, for all of Six Apart's supposed "expertise" and "intelligence" in the blogging world, Chris Alden, Barak, Ben, Mena, Anil, and the rest of that brainy crew sure seemed clueless in running the one part of their portfolio that allows the greatest amount of collaboration, social interaction, and community. They may talk about openness and communication, but if their Livejournal management is any indication, they're really better off working in simpler closed communities, IMO.)
So, um, that's the good part, I guess. We'll get some of the Russian Livejournal goodies and there will be some incentive to innovate. So, that just leaves...
The Bad Things
Apparently, they're creating an Advisory Board to allay customer concerns about both privacy and the lack of clarity in determining what is and isn't LJ kosher. To me, this is just another layer of abuse/support and not an actual board that helps shape the company's strategic direction. I have a hard time believing that this board is going to be legitimate or have equal footing with the actual investors of the company. So, obviously, the LJ Advisory Board needs to sell its importance.
To that end, Livejournal's big coup on that front is supposedly that founder Brad Fitzpatrick is on the board. Color me unimpressed. Brad has been useless on end user concerns for years. His concerns are in improving the technology and making money and he's good at both of them. Being a business student and tool-in-training, I can't really say that I disapprove entirely with his philosophy. But as a human being, I think other humans should be a little more well-rounded than that.
I'm not sure why Livejournal end users have the idea that Brad actually cares about the social issues or the intellectual networking potential of social networks, because I've never seen that kind of concern from him other than how to make it work from a technical perspective. Specifically, I'd point at his flippant dismissal that selling Livejournal to a Russian company could possibly threaten independent reporters or be problematic in any way. I do think he's a talented developer, but he's no social visionary or operational business genius or marketing/customer service wizard. So, the idea of having
brad on the new LJ Advisory Board is probably a minus from my point of view. And Livejournal has a 100 day plan. Although as I read it, the plan looks like "fix everything and add more interactive goodness." #1 is vague without the kinds of specific deliverables and claims of responsibility that we in the project management world would like. And #2 isn't really in the spirit of the journaling that I think of as the basis of Livejournal. So, um, not too impressed.
Also, this big capital investment in Livejournal means that SUP will be looking for significant monetization of Livejournal for the ~1 million active Livejournal users that are out there. I don't see how you make 40-130 million dollars + a rate of return back without adding significant click-through advertising to the site. I suppose it's possible that they'll make it very unintrusive and/or get the buy-in of the majority of Livejournal to do it. And I also don't see how SUP will like dealing with permanent accounts since people like me are sunk costs: we get all the paid services but add no incremental income. From a business perspective, I know that sunk costs need to be "fixed" from an operational perspective. So, I'm not looking forward to seeing how my account will be fixed.
As for the social contract of Livejournal? Gone. Any expectations of what Livejournal was five years ago should go out the window. Livejournal is now a profit-seeking social networking site, albeit with a nicer interface than many of its counterparts. But I would assume that any loyalty to the culture of Livejournal will inevitably result in disappointment. At this point, you're here for the friends and social network that you already have here and for the technical goodies that LJ provides. There's still a significant product there, IMO, but there isn't the social guarantee of "Do no evil" that once existed.
I don't think that SUP will actively start adding malware or track down Americans, but I do expect them to track behavior more closely than the old regime. The marketing information in Livejournal in and of itself is probably worth at least a few million dollars and SUP would be fools to not monetize that information either through intra-company use or by providing it to marketing firms.
And, as some have noted, Aleksandr Mamut, the money behind SUP, is one of the most powerful men in Russia and a good friend of the Kremlin and Putin. If push comes to shove and Putin is looking to quash dissent with independent reporters and political rebels, do you think SUP is really going to think twice about using their database to chase after individuals? To me, this is the worst part. I don't think the American population will be affected significantly other than some Facebook/Beacon-like disappointments, but the Russian population is completely getting screwed over considering that LJ offered Russians a less biased media channel than the Kremlin-controlled TV and newspapers.
Between my lack of spare time and the constant drama caused by LJ ownership fundamentally not understanding its own customer base, I have to admit that I've been getting a little weary of LJ even if terrific people like
thatabbygrrl are posting again. I still love reading about all of you and knowing how you're doing, but there's just that lack of trust in knowing whether the network will remain here or whether somebody at the top will do something stupid.I still think it's a good tool, but it's hard to maintain trust in management that clearly has no clue on how to shape social networks and merge those challenges with the real world, which I think is vital to creating a social internet network that is truly interactive with the real world from a legal, social, and communicative standpoint. Real networks have sparklepony drama and people who create completely unexpected problems that fall in quasi-legal or politically controversial territory. In the face of the biggest challenge that the social internet faces, Six Apart fell completely flat on their face. In some ways, it's a relief to think that SUP probably won't even try to capitalize on the community aspects of Livejournal and will concentrate on greater personal small group interactivity and targeted marketing.
FWIW, I hope I'm wrong about all this. I hope SUP ends up making both technological and social contract progress and is an innovator in both regards. But there's just nothing in SUP's background in my admittedly limited experience that indicates that the respect for personal information or privacy are there.
