Skittish Eclipse ([info]foxfirefey) wrote in [info]no_lj_ads,
@ 2007-01-28 14:20:00
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Entry tags:sixapart, the press, vox

Press: Six Apart and Vox in the Sunday Times
Couple make the big time in blogs

Most of it is about Vox, Vox, Vox, because:

This is a good and growing business that supports 150 employees, but it is not the break-out phenomenon that justified the fancy price paid for YouTube.

For that reason the Trotts recently launched Vox, a free personal blogging and social-networking service — and Six Apart’s shot at the big time.
LiveJournal is mentioned in the context of the VC funding used to buy it:
In October 2004, Six Apart raised another $10m from Dave Marquardt’s August Capital to fund the acquisition of LiveJournal, a networking website.

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[info]beckyzoole
2007-01-28 10:53 pm UTC (link)
So the Trotts are thinking of selling 6A? What will happen to LJ then?

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-28 10:59 pm UTC (link)
Sure they are, if they get a huge offer of money.

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Eee, sent that too soon!
[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-28 11:01 pm UTC (link)
But you have to sit around and think:

Who has that much money to throw around buying VC startups, and who needs/wants what 6A has?

What would happen to LJ would probably depend on who bought 6A.

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-28 11:10 pm UTC (link)
Oh, and besides being bought out, the other exit strategy for VC funded companies is going public, ie, an IPO.

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[info]decadence1
2007-01-28 11:58 pm UTC (link)
And an MBO and... :p

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-29 12:04 am UTC (link)
I think that would be the best outcome...I just don't see how that would happen.

I mean, sure, most of the management really loves 6A and their products. But do they love it enough to make enough of an offer to satisfy the VC folk, as opposed to maybe going public and keeping some stock options instead? (If that's how it works. I honestly don't know too much about it.)

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[info]halfawake
2007-01-29 07:22 am UTC (link)
Where did you see that LiveJournal quote? I didn't see LiveJournal mentioned at all in that article, just Vox and TypePad.

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-29 07:25 am UTC (link)
It's on the second page.

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[info]halfawake
2007-01-29 07:32 am UTC (link)
Wow, that site has awful navigation. I didn't even see those at all the first uh, two times that I read it.

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-29 07:40 am UTC (link)
Agreed, I almost missed it too, for some reason!

It drives me nuts that TypePad blogs still don't have pagination. (Like how on LJ, you can go "previous". Yeah, TypePad doesn't do that. Which means that when I visit Cute Overload, if I've not caught up for a bit, I have to load the WHOLE ENTIRE MONTH!)

...but that really doesn't have anything to do with Times Online's surprisingly easily overlooked article pagination, other than the Times being built on TypePad.

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[info]halfawake
2007-01-29 08:12 am UTC (link)
They're built on TypePad? I guess that explains the formatting issues.

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-29 09:53 am UTC (link)
Nah, that's not TypePad, that's their own templating.

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[info]matgb
2007-01-29 12:11 pm UTC (link)
Tim Worstall's site has a link to the next and previous enties at the top of each post, same layout as Expressive on LJ except it names the post (a href="http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2007/01/britblog_roundu_3.html">example</a>).

It's set out in a very similar way to most WP blogs I go to, with next/previous at the top, I personally dislike them at the bottom.

You're right about the Times navigation issues though, once you're used to it you forget, but, meh, Times. Owned by the guy that owns Fox and Myspace, what do we expect...

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-29 12:13 pm UTC (link)
Nonono, not next post/previous posts...

Pagination of the main blog? If that makes any sense? Going from the latest 10 entries to the 10 previous entries?

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[info]matgb
2007-01-29 12:23 pm UTC (link)
Ah, right, gotcha. No, you're right, doesn't have that, which has actually annoyed me in the past as he does post a lot, as do the other Typepad blogs I like.

Ah well, if it encourages more people to use Wordpress on their own servers. Seriously, why use Typepad these days, when you can get cheaper WP hosting fully installed on so many platforms?

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-29 12:24 pm UTC (link)
Less muss and fuss?

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[info]anildash
2007-01-29 02:33 pm UTC (link)
Ugh, off the record, I hate this article. Probably the only nice thing was there was a nice picture of Ben and Mena in the print version.

First, Mena was kidding for pretty much her entire quote in the 5th paragraph... it's obvious if you know her, but I can't help but think that UK tabloid mentality seeps into all their press. The "we talk about this a lot" is the most absurd thing -- I do our company orientations when we hire new people, and the one thing people are most surprised about is that there is pretty much *zero* talk about IPOs or selling the company or whatever inside Six Apart. It's been that way since the beginning, people just don't focus on that when there's so much else to do.

Second, Vox was *not* launched because of YouTube envy or anything like that -- the bottom line is there was a kind of social blogging that nobody had done yet, and we thought we could do it uniquely well. I actually feel like we've even started to accomplish that.

(And yep, pagination is overdue on TypePad, but it's a vestige of the service still having static pages, at least for now. On the other hand, that's part of what makes sites like Wired, Time, and Times Online comfortable it'll scale well enough. Silly, I know, but true.)

While I'm digressing... Seriously, why use Typepad these days, when you can get cheaper WP hosting fully installed on so many platforms?

I can give you about a hundred reasons -- less muss & fuss is a big one, but "won't fall over if you get dugg" is another one. We've actually seen a lot of people switching to TypePad, especially as the installable version gets neglected for the hosted version. We'd made that mistake when we first turned our installable tool (MT) into a hosted platform (TypePad), so I guess these things are cyclical.

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[info]matgb
2007-01-29 02:44 pm UTC (link)
won't fall over if you get dugg

That is a good answer. A very good answer, same for LJ I guess, resilient hosting.

I guess I just dislike the look and feel of typepad (and many MT) blogs, WP blogs just seem to look/work better to me (and the UI is closer to LJs in most themes, coincidence or an Open Source community quirk?).

I never considered it at all when I set up a politics blog, started with blogger then switched to WP, only regret is trying blogger at all...

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[info]kunzite1
2007-01-29 11:33 pm UTC (link)
One of the important advances with Vox is the privacy controls that allow users to choose just who can see �every post, every picture, every sound clip, every video�. Not every blog, and not every post, needs to be wholly public. There are many times when people want to share information and photos only with their family or friends.

again, vox is not the first to have this type of security. LJ allows this for both entries and photos.

however, it is prolly the first to have that range of security. it being able to be applied to each object that you add to your collections.

6A needs to stop pushing the idea that they have awesome security settings, in general. they need to tack on the idea that it's specifically talking about not just entries, but all the collection items as well. that would make it more true.

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[info]matgb
2007-01-29 11:40 pm UTC (link)
it is prolly the first to have that range of security.

Very true. But at the same time, if they'd specifically made Vox as LJ-lite, the userfriendly version, then they could've made LJ a better product (by giving us all the shiny features) and promoted Vox/journalling better anyway.

Mena's big problem with the way she's promoting Vox isshe still calls it blogging. If you want to convert the unconverted luddites, you need to avoid neologisms. Ergo, call it online journalling, and we win.

But they're not doing that, instead they're creating a competing service and, it seems, deprecating an almost identical but now outdated product that they bought.

I agree completely with their "the LJ UI stinks" analysis. And the Vox UI, for a new user, is much better. But they missed a massive trick by not launching with full integration, that's killed both services in many respects.

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[info]kunzite1
2007-01-29 11:44 pm UTC (link)
i definitely agree with the adding of Vox' shiny features to LJ.

like the collections stuff. that'd be neat.

when i think of "blog" i think of something like a magazine column. it's for those who publish and get comments.

MT and WP have that feel to me since you can't really "friend" others and interact like that.

LJ is more like the online journalling thing and allows for more interactivity between users on the site. i like that.

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[info]matgb
2007-01-30 12:06 am UTC (link)
when i think of "blog" i think of something like a magazine column. it's for those who publish and get comments.

Sort of. I think of that as a semi-pro blog.

I havemy journal, and Ihave my blog. I know a lot of people who 'blog' as a form of public journal, using blogger or similar services. They'd be better served with a few privacy functions, but they use blogger because to many, blogspot is blogging (seriously, that's what my MP thought when I first talked things through with him. He now knows there are many blogging platforms, and many ways to do it. I gave him lots of great info, and offered to build him a WP site for free. He's using MySpace, go figure).

Journals are a type of blog, and a blog is, essentially, an easy CMS aimed at regular updates. Interaction is, of course, always good, but it's surprising how interactive WP.com can be at times (it even has a sort of friends feature).

The pro-blogging zealots think it's this great big world changing thing, the reality is it's just an easier way to do something that's been around for centuries. The word "journalist" proves this FFS.

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[info]uniquewonders
2007-01-31 02:56 am UTC (link)
Vox has groups. Is this a new thing? I know someone (Anil?) said Vox was going to have communities but I can't remember when that was.

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[info]foxfirefey
2007-01-31 03:47 am UTC (link)
Fairly new--I mentioned it here.

I think it was Byrne Reese who said that--see this post.

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