Om Malik reports Six Apart will acquire Live Journal and the deal should close by the end of the month. WOW. Om has been correct in every scoop I have seen, so I consider this news very accurate.
Update: It’s official. From Mena: “While the code bases will remain separate (since LiveJournal is of course remaining Open Source), we will have unification through APIs, syndication formats and shared functionality (i.e. TrackBack support).”
Big news! I wonder if all the LiveJournal employees will move to San Francisco, but some personnel will inevitably be lost. When a company is trying to grow as fast as Six Apart is, sometimes acquisitions are as much about the personnel acquired as the property. Managing the code base of TypePad, Movable Type, and Live Journal will not be easy. I assume this acquisition will slow the development of Movable Type long-term due to limited resources and a large user base to retain and upsell.