Six Apart Ltd., sometimes abbreviated 6A, is a software company known for creating the
Movable Type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
blogware,
TypePad
Typepad is a blogging service owned by Endurance International Group, previously owned by SAY Media (from the merger of Six Apart Ltd and VideoEgg). Originally launched in October 2003, Typepad is based on Six Apart's Movable Type platform, and ...
blog hosting service
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
, and
Vox (the blogging platform). The company also is the former owner of
LiveJournal
LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary.
American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as ...
. Six Apart is headquartered in Tokyo. The name is a reference to the six-day age difference between its married co-founders,
Ben
Ben is frequently used as a shortened version of the given names Benjamin, Benedict, Bennett or Benson, and is also a given name in its own right.
Ben (in he, בֶּן, ''son of'') forms part of Hebrew surnames, e.g. Abraham ben Abraham ( he, × ...
and
Mena Trott
Mena Grabowski Trott (born Philomena Frances Grabowski on 16 September 1977, now Mena Grabowski Lazar) is a co-founder of Six Apart, creator of Movable Type and TypePad.
Career
Trott was president of Six Apart. The company name originates from t ...
.
History
The company was founded in September 2001 after Ben, during a period of unemployment, wrote what became
Movable Type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
to allow Mena to easily produce her weblog. When version 1.0 was put on the web, it was downloaded over 100 times in the first hour.
2003–2006
In 2003, Six Apart received initial
venture capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
funding from a group led by
Joi Ito
is a Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is a former director of the MIT Media Lab, former professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT, and a former visiting professor of practice at the Harvard Law School. Ito has re ...
and his Neoteny Co., which allowed the company to hire additional employees, acquire a French weblog publishing company, and unveil plans for what was to become its hosted weblog publishing system, TypePad. In 2004, Six Apart completed a second round of funding with
August Capital
August Capital, legally August Capital Master Management Company, LLC, is a venture capital firm founded by David Marquardt and John Johnston (venture capitalist), John Johnston in 1995. It is focused on information technology and is based in Men ...
, which allowed it to make acquisitions of other companies. In January 2005, Six Apart purchased Danga Interactive, parent company of
LiveJournal
LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary.
American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as ...
, from owner
Brad Fitzpatrick
Bradley Joseph Fitzpatrick (born February 5, 1980) is an American programmer. He is best known as the creator of LiveJournal and is the author of a variety of free software projects such as memcached, PubSubHubbub, OpenID, and Perkeep.
Early l ...
, who was named Six Apart's chief architect. In March 2006, Six Apart announced the acquisition of the SplashBlog camera phone blogging service. June 2006 saw the release of their new
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...
blogging platform,
Vox.
Its
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
is
Chris Alden
Christopher J. Alden is an American entrepreneur best known as a co-founder of ''Red Herring'', a magazine focused on the business of technology, and Rojo.com, an early web-based RSS reader. Alden was chairman and chief executive officer of the ...
. Prominent weblogger
Anil Dash
Anil Dash (; born September 5, 1975) is an American technology executive, entrepreneur, Prince scholar and writer. He is the Head of Glitch and VP of Developer Experience at Fastly.
Career
In 1999, Dash launched his personal weblog, dashes.com ( ...
joined the company in 2003, as did former head of Wired Digital Andrew Anker. Six Apart's board of directors consists of Barak Berkowitz, Mena Trott,
David Marquardt
David F. Marquardt (born February 1, 1949) was a co-founder of venture capital firm August Capital in 1995. He has served on more than 35 boards of directors during his 40-year venture capital career including Microsoft, Sun Microsystems (acquir ...
,
David Hornik
David Martin Hornik is an American venture capitalist, lawyer, educator, art collector, and philanthropist. He is a founding partner at Lobby Capital, a Silicon Valley-based firm. Prior to founding Lobby Capital, Hornik was a General Partner at Au ...
,
Reid Hoffman
Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for prof ...
, and Jun Makihara.
On September 6, 2006, Six Apart bought Rojo.com. President Chris Alden became executive vice president of Six Apart and general manager of
Movable Type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
.
CTO Aaron Emigh became executive vice president and general manager of core technologies.
2007
On September 15, 2007, chairman and chief executive Barak Berkowitz stepped aside and was replaced by Chris Alden, who had run the company's professional software unit.
On December 2, 2007, Six Apart announced it was selling LiveJournal to
SUP Fabrik, a Russian
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...
company that had licensed the LiveJournal brand and software for use in Russia.
2008
On April 21, 2008, Six Apart said it acquired Apperceptive, a New York social media agency, as part of its new strategy. It declined to disclose financial terms of the deal. It is also partnering with advertising agency Adify. Just as in an advertising network, bloggers will be able to sign up and participate in advertising campaigns managed by Six Apart.
On December 1, 2008, Six Apart announced the acquisition of micro blogging website
Pownce
Pownce was a free social networking and micro-blogging site started by Internet entrepreneurs Kevin Rose, Leah Culver, and Daniel Burka. Pownce was centered on sharing messages, files, events, and links with friends. The site launched on June 27 ...
. The Pownce website was shut down on December 15. The key developers of Pownce (
Leah Culver
Leah Culver (born 1982 or 1983) is a computer programmer, startup founder, and angel investor.
Education
Culver started as an art major at the University of Minnesota, but switched majors and earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science i ...
and Mike Malone) stayed on at Six Apart through early 2010, with Pownce technology being integrated into
TypePad
Typepad is a blogging service owned by Endurance International Group, previously owned by SAY Media (from the merger of Six Apart Ltd and VideoEgg). Originally launched in October 2003, Typepad is based on Six Apart's Movable Type platform, and ...
and TypePad Conversations.
2010
On September 2, 2010 Six Apart announced that they would be shutting down their blogging/social networking site
Vox with a final termination date set for September 30, 2010.
Beginning from September 15, 2010 Vox users would not be able to post new blog posts.
On September 22, Six Apart announced its intention to join forces with
VideoEgg
Say Media (formerly VideoEgg) is a technology and advertising firm. The company provides a publishing platform (Tempest) to professional publishers and sells advertising across that platform and extended network of sites. Say Media has offices ...
to create a modern media company called
SAY Media
Say Media (formerly VideoEgg) is a technology and advertising firm. The company provides a publishing platform (Tempest) to professional publishers and sells advertising across that platform and extended network of sites. Say Media has offices ...
.
2011
On January 21, 2011,
SAY Media
Say Media (formerly VideoEgg) is a technology and advertising firm. The company provides a publishing platform (Tempest) to professional publishers and sells advertising across that platform and extended network of sites. Say Media has offices ...
announced that it was selling the Six Apart brand and the worldwide Movable Type business to Infocom, a Japanese information technology company. As a result of this transaction, the headquarters of Six Apart is now Tokyo, Japan.
Nobuhiro Seki, who was general manager of Six Apart, K.K. prior to this announcement, became president and CEO of Six Apart.
References
External links
*{{Official website, http://www.sixapart.com/
Software companies of Japan
2001 establishments in California
Software companies established in 2001
Livejournal
Software companies based in Tokyo
Blog software
Employee-owned companies
Internet technology companies of Japan