LiveJournal appoints Yahoo alum as new exec
The blogging platform, owned by Russian media company SUP, will now be overseen by former Yahoo international business director Matthew Berardo.
LiveJournal, the blogging platform that was a few years ahead of its time, announced Thursday that it has appointed Matthew Berardo, most recently the senior director of international business and product management at Yahoo, as its vice president and general manager.
Berardo had been at Yahoo for years, seven of which were spent in its London office at Yahoo Europe. A new senior management team has been brought on board along with him, which includes former employees of Expedia, virtual worlds developer Millions Of Us, and telephony start-up Jangl. Berardo will report directly to SUP CEO Andrew Paulson.
Founded in 1999 by OpenID creator and current Googler Brad Fitzpatrick, LiveJournal wasacquired in December by the Russian media company SUP after a stint as a property of Bay Area software company Six Apart. The nearly three years of Six Apart ownership didn't go too well, insiders explained, and a new buyer was sought out. Considering nearly 6 million of LiveJournal's 20 million users are in Russia, SUP made sense; LiveJournal remains headquartered in San Francisco.