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SUP acquires LiveJournal from Six Apart

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livejournal.pngSUP, an international media company based in Moscow, has acquired LiveJournal from Six Apart, Ltd. LiveJournal is one of the world’s leading global online communities, with a monthly audience of more than 18m unique visitors in nearly every country in the world. Additionally, SUP today launched a new U.S. company, LiveJournal, Inc., based in San Francisco, which will manage and operate LiveJournal.

This deal is the second agreement between SUP and Six Apart. In October 2006, SUP concluded a licensing agreement with Six Apart to support and develop the large Russian segment of LiveJournal, which now represents 28% of its monthly audience. In the past twelve months, SUP and Six Apart have worked in close collaboration to improve LiveJournal for Russian users during which time the community has almost doubled.

More information on the acquisition is available at http://community.livejournal.com/LJ_2008/.

Originally posted on December 3, 2007 @ 10:58 am

Six Apart’s Berkowitz steps down, turns over CEO post to Chris Alden

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Six Apart‘s Barak Berkowitz is stepping down and turning over his post as Chief Executive Officer to Chris Alden, after leading the company for almost four years.

Chris Alden, who headed the company’s software unit after its acquisition of Rojo Networks, has been with the company for a little over a year. He was the former CEO (and co-founder) of Rojo.

San Francisco-based Six Apart is widely known for its TypePad content management software, now catering to over 40 million users a month, with about 150 employees.

“As we’ve brought the business to scale, the board and I have been talking about my desire to take on a smaller role,” Berkowitz said in a statement. “With the company so stable and on a great growth track, it’s a natural time to make a transition.”

Originally posted on September 15, 2007 @ 2:40 am

Six Apart launches TypePad for iPhone and iPod

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typepad.jpgSix Apart today announced the release of a mobile version of the award-winning TypePad blogging application customized for the Apple iPhone.

The TypePad iPhone application was designed from the ground up to be optimized for Apple’s innovative multi-touch iPhone display. TypePad bloggers can easily create new posts, edit existing posts, manage comments from their community, and configure settings to send photos directly from their iPhone to their blog. The TypePad iPhone application will also work on the recently announced iPod touch.

Originally posted on September 10, 2007 @ 1:29 pm

SixApart launches Movable Type version 4.0

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Movable Type 4Six Apart launches the fourth version of its publishing system, Movable Type, after its public beta version was released some time in June.

Now with more than 50 new features, Movable Type 4 makes content management easier, allowing users to choose from 30 new ready-made templates, administer multiple blogs, and publish content with a WYSIWYG editor that makes posting text, photos, audio, and other files with ease. MT4 also comes with a more community-focused interaction as it supports OpenID commenting, as well as third-party plugins.

While the new Movable Type comes out with significant improvements, comparing it with WordPress’ open source system is inevitable. Some experts who have already tested MT4 comment on its limited available themes (compared to thousands of WordPress themes), and its more complicated dashboard interface. MT4, however, is reported to be more user-friendly to those who wants to modify templates without the CSS know-how.

MT4 makes importing blog content from another platform easier too. However, for those who are already accustomed to WordPress, shifting to Movable Type could result to both advantages and disadvantages. Know more about MT4 here.

Originally posted on August 15, 2007 @ 5:27 am

Six Apart enhances TypePad blogging features

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typepad-updates.jpgPopular blogging software company Six Apart, in addition to launching Movable Type 4 Beta this week, also announced some updates for TypePad, its hosted blog service. These updates were among some of the most requested in a recent TypePad customer survey.

Prominent among the new features is TypePad pages. Pages found on traditional websites, said Six Apart, like “About Us,” “Our Products,” or “Contact Us,” can now be created in TypePad using a wide variety of new themes and layouts designed expressly for professional and business users. These new themes and layouts can also be used for blog pages as well.

Other new TypePad features include integration with Windows Live Writer and also enhanced visitor statistics such as a graphical presentation showing historical visitor information and a downloadable Excel file for deeper analysis.

Originally posted on June 8, 2007 @ 1:10 pm