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 quirky site, part blog and part social network, is best known for its users' weird obsessions — like the troublesome clique of Harry Potter erotica writers, whose outre tastes ran afoul of LiveJournal's efforts to comply with U.S. child-pornography laws. (Oddly, the site also gained a following in Russia, which led to its acquisition by Sup.) All that adds up to an environment even more distasteful to advertisers than the typical social site.
