Yes it's true. Six Apart, makers of the highly acclaimed Movable Type publishing platform and TypePad personal weblogging service, today announced that it has acquired Danga Interactive, Inc., the operators of the popular service LiveJournal, for an undisclosed amount of stock and cash (MT is what powers this weblog).

As per Barak Berkowitz, Six Apart's chief executive officer, "We are now the only company to offer the full range of weblogging tools to the market. We have a service intended for individuals to interact with family and friends through LiveJournal, a hosted service for avid webloggers who want more flexibility and power with TypePad, and the leading server-based solution for power users, corporations and institutions through Movable Type."

The acquisition of LiveJournal makes Six Apart the industry's largest independent provider of weblogging tools. As of 6th January 2005, the combined user base of both companies exceeds 6.5 million users, with thousands more added daily. In addition, MT co-founders Ben and Mena Trott recently were included in a very small and elite group of PC Magazine's People of the Year, DEMO has named them among the 15 World-Class Innovators of the past 15 years, and they featured on the cover of Fortune Magazine. Impressive.