Suhel Seth joins LiveJournal as member of its global advisory board

US-based community blogging platform LiveJournal.com has appointed Suhel Seth, managing director of Counselage and a well known marketer, writer and actor, as a member of its global advisory board. The board already has Silicon Valley expert Professor Larry Lessig and investor Esther Dyson as its members.

Annelies van den Belt, CEO of SUP, the company which owns LiveJournal, has said, “We are thrilled to have Suhel on our Advisory Board. He brings a breadth of knowledge, understanding and creativity that we have already started to benefit from. We have made good progress in India with new communities and users coming on board; I know that with the help of Suhel and other supporters in India, we will continue to grow.”

“In a world, where elections are being run through networking sites and where communities are being created along philosophy and interest, LiveJournal is the more realistic and interactive face of community building,” Suhel Seth has said. “As a marketer I believe, LiveJournal will not just change the way brands engage with consumer clusters but equally will re-define the space of community building: from pleasure to business and pleasure.”

LiveJournal has also launched two new India focused communities on cinema and sport designed to provide forums for informed and intelligent user-generated content. According to the company, while the India Movies community will be moderated by Deepa Gahlot, national award winning film critic from Mumbai, the India Sport community will have G Rajaraman, one of the most credible sport editors in the country, as its moderator.

The new communities will build upon on earlier LiveJournal initiatives in India that focused on writing, travel , Bollywood and US elections. Under the India Writing project, which was LiveJournal’s first local India project, the company had launched the Quick Tales Flash Fiction Contest that generated more than 1,000 entries. LiveJournal has just announced the winners of this contest.

For its US Elections 2008 community , LiveJournal had partnered with the business daily Mint, as one of the media partners from India, along with The Independent from UK and Gazeta.ru from Russia. This global community asked LiveJournal users their views on the US elections and their contributions were showcased by the media partners.

LiveJournal has also partnered with Zoom Television for its Bollywood Club , which gives contestants on the TV show, by the same name, a chance to engage face-to-face with viewers.

Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, director of corporate development, SUP, has said, “We have already run a very successful writing contest which generated more than 1,000 entries. We are now pushing on with more plans to support the development of self-publishing in India. We believe that the strength of the Indian online scene and the richness of India culture provide a perfect backdrop for us to grow in the market with the help of new and existing users.”

According to SUP, LiveJournal in India currently has 70,000 unique visitors a month; 800,000 page view a month and 40,000 registered members. LiveJournal also says that its user base in India is currently growing at 25 per cent.