O NO LIVEJOURNAL GOT BAUGHTEN.

WE R RUNED!@!!!!!! [annoying ad required]

For a service whose active users number in the millions, LiveJournal's demographics skew athwart the mainstream: younger, more female and more resistant to the dominant culture. And in a business climate where the word "blog" is on every other Web observer's lips, even the tools used by the alienated have become desirable to investors. Thus the news, confirmed on Thursday, that the company had been purchased by the venture-capital-backed blogging technology start-up Six Apart. For those of us who care about keeping space open for anyone who veers from the straight and narrow, this business deal is cause for concern.

From here, the author goes on to say that LiveJournal's sale is A THREAT TO THE LIVES OF ITS DEPRESSED AND LONELY USER BASE. Well, that's practically what the article says. I guess a more responsible way to summarize it would be to say that the author expresses concern that Six Apart may not respect the differences between LiveJournal's user base and that of the general "blogosphere" (can we please come up with a better word for it?) and that this would be very bad for the "freaks, geeks and queers" who "need LiveJournal." Keep in mind that the next sentence in the article expresses the hope that Six Apart will "treat LJers with nonpatronizing respect." Oh, sweet irony.

edit 1: Anyway, I wouldn't consider myself an expert in blogging software, business practice, or sociology, but nothing about this deal screams out "disaster" to me. Is there a risk that Six Apart will totally screw up LJ? Sure, but I don't think that risk is much greater than it was before the sale, and Six Apart brings resources to the table that can greatly improve LJ, too. Things like linking LJs to TypePad and Movable Type blogs, which seem to scare danah boyd, those things appeal to me. I'd love to have track back support, more versatile publishing options, a larger support community, and an increase in users all contributing. So I guess I disagree strongly with the suggestion that this sale is inherently stupid or dangerous.

And what the fuck is up with the lower case byline? Your name is Danah Boyd, okay? e. e. cummings got away with that shit, but he was a fucking genius. YOU'RE NOT.

edit 2: I may have been a little harsh. Lowercase if you want to, ms. boyd, but most people are going to find it pretentious/precious/annoying. I guess you probably know that already, though, so carry on.