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Om Malik has reported that Six Apart (the company that makes MovableType, the software that I [used to] use to run this site) is going to announce that they’re buying LiveJournal, one of the major free blog competitors to Google’s Blogger.

What does this mean? I have no idea. What I hope, as an ex-livejournal-user, is that LiveJournal gets better software, better default templates, and allows its users’ websites to have a bit more individuality, outside of garish color schemes. SixApart, obviously, gets a brand new customer base to which they can try and sell their own TypePad service, which from what I’ve heard is excellent.

It would be too much to hope for if LiveJournal became a free TypePad, though some LiveJournal diehards would probably not like that much. LiveJournal has evovled into a cross between a blog and a huge cross-connected forum network. For many, it is a community, which although it’s nothing new in and of itself, LiveJournal is unique in that its forums and community spirit aren’t supporting some commercial enterprise, other than the community itself.

In this respect, LiveJournal has been more successful than the “online community” industry itself, represented by Friendster, Orkut, and MySpace. While those sites may be more of a commercial success, in terms of sheer userbase, my impression is that LiveJournal has them all beat. (Note, I have no real numbers for comparison, so if any of the above listed wishes to set the record straight, feel free to let me know).

Which is not to say that LiveJournal doesn’t have its critics. Of registered users that have reported a gender, women outnumber men by more than two to one, with an age distribution heavily favoring 14-22 year olds. It has developed a reputation for drama, and even has its own support group for it. Not everyone is a teenage drama queen, though, and it remains to be seen what effect SixApart’s acquisition will have on the dynamics of the site.