« May 14, 2004 | Main
| May 16, 2004 »

May 15, 2004

The SixApart solution: Divest TypePad

: Been thinking about what led to the firestorm over the new licensing scheme for Movable Type and I believe the problem is an inherent conflict of interest in the company that I've seen before online: You can't be a software company and a service company under one roof, for you will inevitably end up competing with your customers. And that will not work.

So I suggest that SixApart, the software company, divest TypePad, the service company, so that each can serve its customers optimally and so that each can become as profitable as possible.

Any generous and capitalistic soul should expect SixApart to be paid fairly its damned good product. I paid $75 for the "free" version. My day-job company paid the commercial license fee. I expect to pay more for an unlimited version (and I wish they'd make that pricing clear on their site: What will About.com pay for its 450-blog installation?).

But what has irked -- to say the least -- many until-now-loyal MT users are the rather extreme limits on the number of users and blogs for each license. I wondered why MT would be so cheap about something that would cost them nothing incremental and would not greatly affect the volume of licenses sold (in fact, with reasonable limits, I'd say that most users would end up buying a version more than big enough, just to be safe and give themselves flexibility... instead, SixApart greatly limits that flexibility). Sure, any software company has to have ways to charge for volume usage but these limits are driving present and potential customers beserk, which means that they got something way wrong.

And then it occurred to me: Of course, it must be about TypePad. SixApart has never wanted others to become major-league hosts of Movable Type software because the founders have long planned to make a business from paid hosting. And that's fine... except now that they are charging for their software, the conflict of interest immediately comes to the surface: SixApart is not selling generous licenses to MovableType because it does not want to affect TypePad's business; it does not want to enable competitors (even small ones) to TypePad and it still wants to motivate people to move to TypePad (and pay a monthly fee instead of just a one-time fee: an annuity, we call it in the biz). But that, in turn, is clearly hurting the software business. They are in inherent conflict.

I've seen other companies go through this and the answer is either to drop one line of business or to divest. I suggest divesting. Then SixApart, the software business, will come up with licenses that serve its customers well and will sell as many as possible. Rather then having your entire customer base scream in protest -- as they are now -- they would beat a path to your door to pay for your mousetrap (whenever your customers are screaming in protest, you know you are doing something very wrong). Meanwhile, TypePad -- a licensee of Movable Type software -- would offer no-hassle and reasonably priced hosting and would compete with other licensees. Competition would lead to more business for the two companies and happier customers and probably market dominance for Movable Type and its standards (e.g., TypeKey and Trackbacks). Instead, what we're seeing now is that SixApart is driving present and potential customers to competitors.

Bottom line: If I do not believe a company has my best interests as a customer at heart, then I would be a fool to stay with that company. That is the net net of this conflict of interest.

There is another advantage to divesting: The management of each company will not be distracted as the management of this one company is. I'm not a VC, but I have seen this in many companies as a corporate investor, board member, and corporate customer: Startups always try to do too many things and that means they will end up doing nothing extremely well. SixApart started by developing a damned fine product in Movable Type but it has neglected that product (as I've whined) as it built its hosting business at TypePad; now it is handicapping the software company to advantage the hosting company; and when the protests get loud enough, it will surely neglect the hosting company in turn. The company is small with extremely limited resources and management focus and trying to run these two very different businesses is difficult unto impossible.

So it is with nothing but respect for SixApart and its founders, staff, investors, talents, and products -- and a strong desire to stay a customer -- that I suggest: Divest.

LINK | Comments (10)

Gay marriage in blogs

: You can follow the start of gay marriages in Mass. thanks to bloggers:
+ Janis Bohan, one of our hyperlocal bloggers at MassLive, will be there covering the line to get licenses early Monday morning, along with Masslive.com editor and blogger Scott Brodeur.
: Rossi was blogging from Provincetown last week:

Let me tell you honeys the energy in P-town this past week was like a case of pre-wedding jitters only times like oh 100,000! ...

So it’s fitting with its history of tolerance and a supremely high percentage of gay tourists and year-rounders, that P-town should become marriage central in this whole gay marriage thing.

Honey..everyone’s getting in on it.

Used to be when I strolled into town and told folks I was a wedding caterer..they looked at me like I said…oh you know I’m a rocket scientist..

This time around the answer is oh so is so and so and so and so and her and him and my dog…and yeah my cat plans weddings.

Art galleries are turning themselves into reception venues.
Jewelry stories are now wedding ring stores.
Restaurants are now wedding catering operations.

Forget it honey....

LINK | Comments (7)

To the barricades!

: Loic Le Meur reports that a French blogger was nearly arrested because of what he has been blogging about his town and its mayor.

LINK | Comments (0)

Arafat: King Terrorist

Yasser Arafat called on his followers to "terrorize" their enemies on the occasion of the anniversary of Israel.

Mr. Arafat called on his people to be steadfast in their struggle against Israel.

Quoting from the Muslim holy book, the Koran, he told his supporters to "find what strength you have to terrorize your enemy and the enemy of God."

Mr. Arafat said that the international community had no right to allow the establishment of a Jewish State in 1948, and the Palestinian people were determined to press on with their claim for an independent country of their own.

And so what separates him from bin Laden? There is no hope of peace with this man.

: He terrorizes even his own people. From the Scotsman:

Arab prisoners beaten and tortured, innocent bystanders killed by gunfire - another damning human rights report.

But the difference this time is that the violence is being perpetrated not by coalition forces in Iraq, but by the Palestinian Authority, and the victims are its own people.

The report, partly funded by the Finnish government, claims Palestinian cities are in a state of near anarchy, with people on the payroll of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed for 90 per cent of gangland violence....

The organisation behind the latest report, the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), has won few friends for its work documenting human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Although it has been strongly critical of Israeli treatment of Palestinians, its criticism of the PA has seen its funding by European governments slashed....

It says: "PA security forces do not live up to international laws and regulations concerning the treatment of individuals under arrest.

"There have been several cases in which Palestinian civilians were arrested without proper reason, and suffered beatings and other forms of torture at the hands of the police."

Let's see this on the front pages of newspapers all over the world....

: A letter to Arafat from a friend in Lebanon's Dar Al Hayat uges him to resign:

You are molded by the cause. Since this is the case, I cannot see you allowing Yasser Arafat to become the obstacle or barrier in front of the establishment of the Palestinian State.

LINK | Comments (13)

Iraq assignment desk: The rebuilding beat

: If I were in charge of a bureau of reporters in Iraq -- are you listening NY Times, Washington Post, FoxNews, NBC, CBS, ABC, Reuters, BBC? -- I would assign one reporter, just one, to the rebuilding beat.

There are plenty of reporters -- hell, every reporter in the country -- assigned to the police beat, the blood-and-guts beat, the who-shot-whom today beat. When I worked in Chicago and San Francisco and New York, we had one or two reporters in the cop shop covering all that. We had hundreds of reporters covering the rest of life.

I see no reporters covering the rest of life in Iraq. The stories would be easy to get; all you have to do is read a few of the Iraqi weblogs. Read Zeyad or read Omar on the new economy. Or read posts like this from Mohammad:

My arrival day was the day when a rally of support and gratitude to the coalition passed the streets of Samawa. The scene was very delightful for me, I, who believe in the necessity of establishing a strategic partnership with the free world represented by the coalition, because this the only way for Iraq to rise again, prosper and join the modern, free world....

On the road to the residents’ house we passed near the coalition base in Samawa; the striking and ugly feature of this base, like any other one is, the concrete wall that surrounds it. These walls initiate a sensation of fear in the hearts and a feeling that there’s a huge block between the people and the coalition. I understand the security necessity of these walls but they still form an unpleasant sight for everyone, except this particular one.

The coalition forces here invited all the kids-and their parents-in the neighborhood for a special festival, the kids were given paints and brushes and a definite area of the wall was assigned for each kid to paint on whatever he likes and to sign his painting with his/her name. I leave it for you to imagine how this hateful wall looked like after this festival. It became a fascinating huge painting that gives a feeling of brotherhood and friendship. These paintings eliminated all the psychological walls between the folks and the coalition here.
At the end of the festival, gifts were given to each kid; toys, clothes, candies…
You can’t imagine how happy the kids were when they stood proudly pointing at their paintings; flowers, birds, hands shaking and the flags of Iraq and the coalition countries, and then pointing to their names; Zahra, Mohammed, Sajjad, Fatima… together with phrases like; yes for peace, Saddam has fallen and many others. No one can watch this without having tears filling his eyes and I feel sorry that I couldn’t take pictures for this carnival, as I wasn’t there when it happened, but the people there told me the whole story.

LINK | Comments (12)

Traffic

: I've heard from many Iranians that Tehran's traffic is a nightmare. Now we can watch it. [via Nema]

LINK | Comments (1)

Keystone Cops state

: The NY Times' Nicholas Kristof finds himself detained twice by the authorities in Iran:

The second time was at Tehran's airport as I was trying to leave, and this time the interrogation was tougher.
"Have you ever been to Israel?" Gulp, yes.
"Are you working for the Israeli government?" Of course not....
After hinting for 90 minutes that I was a spy and a liar, and that they might hold on to me indefinitely, the interrogators finally let me board my plane. Indeed, toward the end, they seemed worried principally by my threat to write about the encounter.
That episode crystallized an impression that had been forming during my trip through Iran: if it were an efficient police state, it might survive. But it's not. It cracks down episodically, tossing dissidents in prison and occasionally even murdering them (like a Canadian-Iranian journalist last year). But Iran doesn't control information — partly because satellite television is ubiquitous, if illegal — and people mostly get away with scathing criticism as long as they do not organize against the government....
The embarrassing point for us is that while Iran is no democracy, it has a much freer society than many of our allies in the Middle East. In contrast with Saudi Arabia, for example, Iran has (rigged) elections, and two of its vice presidents are women. The Iranian press is not as free as it was a few years ago, but it is now bolstered by blogs (Web logs) and satellite TV, which offer real scrutiny of government officials.

: Here's what an Iranian blogger, Nema, says about freedom and the form:

There's something within this article (brought to my attention by Hoder) that certainly rings a bell with me. Specifically this line:

[Sina Motallebi] from Teheran wrote for the newspaper "Hayat é NO" over politics, culture, computer. And which could not be printed also in reform-oriented newspapers, it had published Rooznegar "in its Blog". Motallebi: "in my Web log I felt free."

Can any of us express anything different. To blog in a sense does mean to be free. It means to share one's thought with the world and allowing others to respond. It is dialogue as its finest. It is Mill's conception of a "marketplace of idea" in a way and manner that he surely could not have expected. To say that one is free in his blog, is indefinitely, an understatement of the euphoric calm of expression which makes thought, knowledge, and consciousness so fundamental to our existence.

: TE, an American living and blogging in Iran, says Iranians love to talk with one another about anything, including politics. It is part of the national character, I've been told by others. It cannot be stopped.

It is impossible to be shy in Iran. Sure, Iranians can feel shyness, but they cannot act on it. Even the shyest child has to learn to carry on a conversation. Iran is curing me of any last vestiges of shyness that may have lingered from my teen years (I think I became more shy as a teen than I was as a child.) In Iran you are expected to discuss your age, your weight, your family state, and any other bit of personal information with anyone who asks.

: Cori Dauber says Kristof is just a tourist with a column and should have included the fact that Iran's mullahs have arrested bloggers for what they've said online.

LINK | Comments (3)