Journal
Six Apology
5 April 2006 › 4 comments
In the beginning, there was MovableType, and it was good. In a world with precious few (good) options for online publishing, it was a beacon of light in the dark days of relying only on FTP updates. People flocked to it, and huge business / magazine sites were built upon it, as well as the blogs / portfolios of quite a few talented designers – For instance: Dan, Dave and Doug. Then, their licensing changed. There’s a whole history around that, which I won’t get into, but suffice it to say people were a bit upset.
Nearly overnight, people migrated their data angrily from MT to various other solutions out there, creating a backlash of near Microsoft proportions. Six Apart went from being hero of the everyman to evil corporation out to steal everyone’s wallet-filling. We as site designers started to look for other alternatives, complaining the whole time that someone actually wanted money for an established product. After all, this is the Internet, right?
Yes that’s true, but here’s the kicker – it’s their product. Not only that, it’s a dang good one. Without Six Apart, blogging would not be the phenomenon it is today. I have slowly come to realize this, after several years of basically branding them as untrustworthy, when really they’re just people like you or me, trying to make a decent living with the talents they’ve been blessed with. Anyway, that’s a long intro to what I’m about to say. I owe someone an apology. At this year’s South by Southwest, I attended a panel on new web technologies. One of the speakers was Mena Trott, president and co-founder of Six Apart. Going into this panel, I was already decidedly biased. In the panel, the topic of LiveJournal came up. They had acquired LiveJournal some time ago, but it still lacks the polish of say, Typepad.
During the SXSW panel, Mena acknowledged this fact, and talked about where their priorities are currently focused. So, I’m sitting there thinking they’re like any big company, buying out the competition, and just runing ‘em into the ground. This really is not the case, but I commented recently on Brian Bailey’s blog with the same mindset. I’m not sure at what point in my life I went from being anonymous, to people actually caring what I have to say, but this brought about quite a refutation by Anil Dash, a VP at Six Apart. In short, he is right and I was wrong to say what I did, how I did.
I have since talked to Anil a few times, and lo and behold – he’s a real person with feelings too. He was very gracious, and took my ranting in stride, handling it professionally and admirably. After several conversations with him, and of my own accord, I felt I should clear the air. So, while this doesn’t take back what I said, hopefully it will help to soften my off the cuff remarks. Again, my apologies to Mena and the hard working people of Six Apart.
Discussion + Dissension
Comments closed after 2 weeks.
#1 kartooner
You know Nathan, I was just thinking about this a few weeks ago, maybe after having attended that particular SXSW panel and honestly I too feel the same way.
However, I also realize that Movabletype got me where I am today, as far as blogging is concerned. I remember paying them, at the time which wasn’t too long ago, $20.00 for an installation because back then I wasn’t privy to changing permissions and modes, mostly due to my own innate fear of breaking something. Anyways, Ben installed it and got me set up and I remember they couldn’t have been nicer about it.
Yet, I knew that eventually they would “grow up” and evolve as a company and with that comes a lot of backlash from a community that supported something that seemed more grassroots. I’ve seen it happen with Flickr, a buddy of mine described how he just doesn’t post photos on there after the Yahoo acquisition. His response was that he was more comfortable supporting a smaller company than a huge corporation.
I’m sure a lot of good things have occurred because of Six Apart recieving funding and working more diligently on their products, but I kind of miss when it was just the Trotts and their “baby”. Such is life, we shudder at any kind of change because we put ourselves in comfort zones and this too applies to companies, etc.
#2 Nathan Smith
Erik: Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. I had to think about my own life too, being that I work for a large corporation. So, if I point the finger at big businesses, I have to also look at my own situation. Especially after talking with Anil, who is such a cool guy, I felt bad for having ripped on 'em so harshly.
#3 James Mitchell
Nathan – While I have never had the pleasure of using MT, I respect you for the way in which you have handled this situation. It takes a ‘big man’ to be able to admit a mistake and not only that but blog about it where it can be archived.
The bad thing about big businesses is that we want all our small businesses to become big and until that happens we don’t really respect or appreciate the big ones.
On another note: I can’t wait to be able to go to one of these conventions and actually meet the people who are making my web work easier every day!
#4 Nathan Smith
James: I think you hit the crux of what I was trying to say. We don’t understand big businesses, unless we ourselves have run them. I think Erik’s story about his $20 installation of MovableType shows how far they’ve come.
They have forged a mighty fine product, and gone “rags to riches,” by their own efforts. I’m just a user of Textpattern, so I’ve got not place for riding a high-horse when it comes to criticizing CMS’s, having never created one.