I hate mornings like this. I fell asleep on the vanpool in, but traffic was so light I didn’t get in a full cycle, and as a result, I’m drowsy this morning. This makes it hard to focus. (Of course, it could partially be a benedryl hangover from last night). In any case, I don’t like it.
In other news…
The rumors and gossip about the planned acquisition of LiveJournal by Six Apart are starting to fly. Personally, it doesn’t bother me that much. I enjoy LJ and all that (and I’m a paid user, as it doesn’t cost that much and I believe in supporting useful tools), but if it went away, I’d just gravitate back to Usenet or BoardGameGeek as a time sink. In any case, it will likely be OK: they need the user base. My guess is that the primary affect will be on the free users: you’ll likely see some form of advertising added to the layouts available to free users. I think you’ll see more of a push to get the free users to pay something, as opposed to alienating the paid user base by increasing fees. There is significantly more benefit in moving someone from free to paid, than upping paid by $5/year.
However, the “powers that be” at LiveJournal should do some damage control to reassure people before they start losing folks. Ideally, a statement should be posted to the news or paidmembers communities. If membership goes below a critical mass. that could be a big problem.
UPDATE: The following was on Slashdot. I’ve bolded the last sentence, as I think that is key. I still think they need to make a public statement.
Aaron B. Russell writes “Om Malik reports that Six Apart are looking to buy blogging community LiveJournal.com. Rumour? I hope so. I seriously hope so. Neither Six Apart nor Danga Interactive (the company behind LiveJournal) have commented on the situation yet. What impact will this have for the users and volunteers over at LiveJournal? Chris Schmidt, a volunteer at LiveJournal, hypothesizes here(1) and here(2) .” Sources close to LiveJournal creator Brad Fitzpatrick say this is just a rumor, and that LJ is not being sold.
UPDATE #2: LJ is being sold; an announcement was posted to news. Over 2600 comments so far!
