Interview: Six Apart’s degree of Weblog integration

Weblogs are often portrayed as little more than online diaries. But according to Six Apart’s Vice President of Business Development Anil Dash, there are enterprise opportunities ahead. In an interview with Executive News Editor Mark Jones, Dash outlined his vision for online publishing and his take on Weblog business models.

InfoWorld: How is Six Apart positioned in the Weblog tools space, particularly as it relates to the enterprise?

Dash: We started creating Weblog tools [as a company] after the [Weblog] format had settled down. [So] not only do we know the space very well, we had the second mover’s advantage. The tool that launched the company was Movable Type, which was created really on the basis of correctness, in terms of user experience, code design, architecture, [and] being very modular. There were a lot of decisions made that this was going to be done right, even if that meant a slower ramp-up in creating the product.

InfoWorld: What have other blog tool makers done wrong that brought on that thinking?

Dash: One of the big pieces we wanted to have was a standard scripting language — PERL being the basis of it — so that it was very extensible. We have a really robust architecture. We’ve got probably more developers extending and building on top of the system than any other Weblog tools. On top of that was a very understated but deliberate visual design, because we thought the user experience of a lot of the other tools was trying a little too hard. We did things like implement an API so that there’s a range of third-party clients that you can use for authoring.

Since the launch of Movable Type in October 2001, we’ve got probably more business users than any other Weblog tool, and we’ve done things like About.com [and] replaced their entire proprietary publishing system with a customized version of Movable Type. Conceptually, the biggest thing we’ve done is to focus on a tool that lets you write one idea at a time, just like we do in e-mail and instant messaging. The uptake on e-mail and IM was phenomenally fast. Users brought them into the enterprise whether IT wanted it to happen or not, especially with instant messaging. These clients appeared on the desktop even before IS and IT knew how to manage them, how to log them, how to secure them. And we’re seeing the same thing with Weblogs. They are so much better than the idea of creating a Web page.

InfoWorld: Regarding About.com, do you think content management is going to be the biggest opportunity for you in the enterprise?

Dash: I think it’s about evenly split. So far, we’re mostly being used for marketing and communications. There is also a big market right now for business Weblogging. [For example], I think Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia, had a Weblog and was [using] Movable Type for talking directly to his conference audience. I think that’s pretty striking. CEOs have always had some kind of pulpit that they can speak from, but [with a Weblog] it’s a little more human a voice.

InfoWorld: In other words, it’s a replacement for the corporate intranet?

Dash: Yeah, that’s what we’ve seen. You’re not going do a rip and replace, but you can definitely augment what you have. The three markets are marketing communications; inside the intranet it’s kind of knowledge management; and then the third market is nanopublishing, and that’s probably a smaller niche, [for example] something like a site called Gawker, [which is] a New York gossip column but written in Weblog format. The knowledge management [opportunity] is the one that’s most interesting to me. I think there’s a tremendous opportunity [because] people expect to be able to Google things. So that’s something where we can make content that’s a little more Google-friendly, as it were, and more useful to get to within your organization, and that’s a pretty compelling case.

InfoWorld: How is important is RSS in that context?

Dash: I think syndication is important. I don’t know if I necessarily [tie it] solely to RSS. Obviously there are other formats being developed, and a balance of both of them is what we’re hearing our users want.  Our emphasis is very strong in terms of adoption and tools right now. It’s a little weak in terms of workflow, versioning, permission, security, that sort of thing. So I think there’s going to be a complement of two formats that people are going to choose from. That being said, the benefits of syndication in general, regardless of format, are extraordinary. We generate more RSS base than probably any other tool out there. We support every kind of flavor of RSS that’s there.

InfoWorld: How will Weblogs evolve in the context of RSS and other XML-based syndication technologies?

Dash: The key thing that’s happened is we have really large companies — everything from integration companies to small consultants — that are saying “We recognize that this works the way users work.” I think even getting to that threshold is a milestone, where it’s not just seen as the kids doing diaries on the Web anymore. Syndication in general is going to be a key part of how this information [gets out]. The other thing that’s important is a unified API. The APIs [that exist] right now are just not appropriate for enterprise use.

InfoWorld: In what way?

Dash: A couple of our goals were to be able to do things like WSDL files so you can drag them into a development environment and be creative with something that plugs in as a Web service, to Weblog without having to do a lot of development. We think that enterprise developers expect that now. Being able to easily create a Web service that hooks into a Weblog publishing engine is a key thing. Being able to integrate security, being able to have a unified API that works across [tools] so you don’t have lock-in — those are the pieces we’re working on now and we see pretty much universal buy-in on all those ideas.

InfoWorld: You alluded earlier to the fact that Movable Type is designed to work with various types of clients. Looking ahead, what do you think will be the killer client application?

Dash: We have a long-term vision, which is something I generically describe as the micro content client. Basically it says that all types of micro content are equivalent. Whether they’re e-mail messages, instant messaging messages, Weblog posts — even Usenet — [they] would have one unified API and pieces can be shuttled between all the different contexts that you’re in. I think that’s something where everybody likes to talk about the underused power of the desktop and grids. One thing that might be useful in applying those ideas to Weblogs and managing Weblog information is that the computers can be used to make connections and apply context to the data that’s being handled. But first I think we [need] to have a critical mass of data before people start to make clients around it. So in the short term you’re going to see integration with e-mail clients and instant messaging, whatever people are using today.

InfoWorld: What discussions are you having with the e-mail and instant messaging vendors?

Dash: Right now, it’s very informal. They’re taking a wait-and-see attitude. Their engineering requirements to integrate things are a lot higher than ours are to extend the HTML interface. Probably by the end of this year you’ll see that there will be native support for things like RSS and syndication formats in the mail clients. I think the next significant revisions of all these [e-mail] applications will probably have some level of support for these technologies.

InfoWorld: What security implications do you think will surface as a result of this integration, particularly when it comes to Outlook integration?

Dash: That’s one of the reasons why we’re taking our time to get it right and focusing on the Web interface now, because that’s a known quantity, people know how to lock that down.  Most users that are using Weblogs in the enterprise are just keeping them behind the firewall and they really are safe in saying “This isn’t something that needs to be outside, so we’ll keep it in the organization.” Weblogs also make them refocus on the idea that there is no such thing as a firewall and there’s no such thing as behind it or in front of it. Role-based security is essential throughout an organization.

InfoWorld: How will the Weblog business model evolve, given that selling Weblog clients doesn’t appear to be a hugely profitable market and the opportunities appear to be more on the services side?

Dash: We’re already seeing a strong market for the integration services. I think that our goal is to have a very, very inexpensive tool and people can sell services around it. We’re going to be working on developing a pretty robust developer’s network and partner network. I think that’s going to be the market for it. I think services is absolutely it. I don’t ever foresee the shift being [toward] huge, monolithic, expensive software. There are people that are trying to do that, and I don’t think that’s going to be successful for them. To have a $50,000 Weblog system doesn’t make any sense. It really contradicts the nature of what it is.

InfoWorld: What’s your long-term value proposition that will hold the company up in the marketplace?

Dash: There are a couple of pieces. One is that we do have a very, very strong consumer story. We’ve got a service called TypePad, which is having an extraordinarily warm response in the consumer market right now. We have tools that are consistent across the consumer and the enterprise market, where third-party plug-ins and extensions work on both of those toolsets. That’s something that I think gives people a little more security in their investment in the platform and also that’s a strong base to augment the revenue side for us.

InfoWorld: Do you have any thoughts about how blogging intersects with journalism?

Dash: We’ve put a lot of thought into it. Before I joined Six Apart I was at the Village Voice, so I come from a journalism background in terms of technology. A lot of the current conventional wisdom is playing up a tension between journalism and Weblogs [but] I think these are natural complements. The distinction is one idea at a time, and that’s what the press is going to jump on — the idea of instead of covering every aspect of a story, let me get the part that we know a lot about. Then we’ll rely on our traditional channels to flush out the rest of the rest of the story.

InfoWorld: What’s your perspective on part of the Weblog evolution that is driven by distrust of content editors?

Dash: Any time you have a new medium or a new technology, it’s defined by being against something. It’s [like] rock-n-roll — you always have to rebel against something. And I think editors are the authority figures. I think that’s honestly a large part of it. But I don’t know anybody that doesn’t, at some level, edit their Weblog posts, either inside their head or for minor content or things that you don’t want to include. There’s always editing. It’s a question of how much editing there is and who’s doing it.