LiveJournal Bought Out

LiveJournal, the blogging site, has been bought up by Six Apart, the company behind the MovableType weblog software. The buy-out will see staff working with Danga, the company which previously owned LiveJournal, move to San Francisco to work with the new owners.

LiveJournal's creator, Brad Fitzpatrick, said the move will mean "nothing earth-shattering" for the existing service. However, users are to get access to trackback for the first time. "They're not buying the site to spam you, screw you, destroy the community, or convert you en masse to their other paid services," Fitzpatrick said. "They just want to double our efforts and have a part in all types of blogging. "

Six Apart CEO, Barak Berkowitz, added: "We are now the only company to offer the full range of weblogging tools to the market," he said. "We welcome LiveJournal users to the Six Apart family, and promise to keep the LiveJournal culture and quality which has earned their devotion."

Fitzpatrick promised development of LiveJournal will continue after the move; prices would not rise and free accounts would not be scrapped, he said. Since it started up five years ago, LiveJournal has built up a community of over five million users - it currently claims to have just short of 2.5 million actively-updated blogs on its servers.

View: LiveJournal announcement