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 outré 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.

The company's product managers and engineers were laid off, leaving only a handful of finance and operations workers — which speaks to a website to be left on life support. Matt Berardo, a Yahoo executive hired on last summer, has also left.

The company's Moscow-based management has told employees it blames the "global economic downturn" — the kind of pat excuse every boss is giving for layoffs, even when mismanagement or a bad business plan is really to blame. The brutal, abrupt cuts suggest something different: That Sup founder Andrew Paulson (above), who paid an estimated $30 million for LiveJournal a little over a year ago, has realized his expensive mistake in buying at the top of the bubble. Someone familiar with the company tells us Paulson lost the CEO job last summer to Annelies van den Belt, a former News Corp. executive, and was given the meaningless title of chairman; he's essentially out of the company now.

Executives at Six Apart, the blog-software company which sold LiveJournal to Sup, are happily counting the money in its bank. And they should consider themselves lucky that Vox, the LiveJournal knockoff it started, hasn't been more popular. At this point, having a larger social network in the portfolio would be a drag on the company's value.

LiveJournal, founded by engineer Brad Fitzpatrick in 1999, predated most blogging services and social networks, and anticipated many of their features. (Some of Fitzpatrick's software is vital to the operation of Facebook and other large sites today.) But Fitzpatrick never figured out how to turn it into a business. Instead, he sold it to Six Apart, which didn't have much more luck.

The weakest in the herd are always the first to fall. Facebook and MySpace, so far, have resisted layoffs. A host of also-ran social networks — Hi5, MyYearbook, and other obscurities — could be next. It's only a matter of time before investors reach the same apparent conclusion as Paulson: that there's a lot of fuss in running a social network, but not that much money.

Anker, LiveJournal founder Fitzpatrick, Sup CEO Andrew Paulson and some of his Russian engineers, a passel of Six Aparters, and one slightly bewildered goat held a bash at 111 Minna to celebrate the split. Also there: Fitzpatrick's omnipresent ex, Pownce engineer Leah Culver. Culver was in good spirits, though, despite the rumor Fitzpatrick's seeing someone in Russia. She too has a new beau, Justin.tv's Kyle Vogt. We're just waiting for the inevitable Leahcast.

Culver wasn't the only camera-friendly type there. Natali Del Conte, CNET's newly hired TV personality, stole the spotlight with a sparkling appearance just as I was leaving 111 Minna.

LiveJournal's boisterous users taxed Six Apart's already stretched management. Fan-fiction writers, whose output was often not for the squeamish, made the site a home. So-called "griefers," apparently dissatisfied with a tightening of site policies, published executives' Social Security numbers. Founder Brad Fitzpatrick noisily quit the company to join Google. Users mocked an ill-conceived advertising campaign by sending then-CEO Barak Berkowitz 527 virtual "gifts" of Diet Pepsi Max icons, defacing his profile.

Berkowitz stepped down in September, replaced by Chris Alden, an executive who ran the company's money- and sense-making business, the paid blogging products TypePad and Movable Type. With the sale of LiveJournal, Alden's reign looks likely to be far less entertaining than Berkowitz's. That's a good thing for Six Apart, if not for gossips.

As for LiveJournal, Sup has made grand promises about respecting the community and appointing an editorial advisory board. Sup already operates the Russian-language version of the site, and is run by Andrew Paulson, an American entrepreneur. But let's be real: This is a company operating in Vladimir Putin's Russia, where the media increasingly is falling under state control, either explicitly or tacitly. One does not need to be a conspiracy theorist to find this prospect discomfiting.

Whatever happens to LiveJournal and its users won't be Six Apart's problem. Ben and Mena Trott, Six Apart's founders, are far too polite to say this about their LiveJournal adventure. But they should: "Goodbye, and good riddance."