Don't panic

[cleolinda]

Obviously I'm behind from my internet being out last night, but I just have to jump in with this (via my friend David):

The Russian Bear Slashes a Social Network.

The bubble in social networking has burst, decisively. LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut about 20 of 28 employees — and offered them no severance, we're told.

... The company's product managers and engineers were laid off, leaving only a handful of finance and operations workers — which speaks to a website to be left on life support. Matt Berardo, a Yahoo executive hired on last summer, is also believed to be gone.

... The brutal, abrupt cuts suggest something different: That Sup founder Andrew Paulson (above), who paid an estimated $30 million for LiveJournal a little over a year ago, has realized his expensive mistake in buying at the top of the bubble.

I don't think this is the end of the world per se; pulling the plug entirely would just lose them more money. Sure, LJ's "on life support," but it's still here, and you never know what might happen. This could be a weird blessing in disguise, if a company that had no clue what to do with LJ ends up dumping it on someone who does know. (Hint: "We're gonna be the next MySpace!" is not the way to run it.)

That said, it's time once again to look into archiving your journal (try LJBook or LJArchive, the one I use). You know... just to be safe.

ETA: Only 13 employees laid off? (Thanks, jdotmi.)

Comments

[evilsimon.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, it's meant to be Mac-only, I think. Also, if you can get it running, there is an option to just back it up to your computer, so that you could re-upload it to your livejournal later, or to whatever journalling service you might sign up for later. InsaneJournal seems to be the choice one lately.

[neveth.livejournal.com]

Ah well. Back to waiting for LJBook to not be overloaded. *makes a very rude gesture at LJArchive*