November 18, 2009
Six Apart Media, TypePad Micro, and AVATAR
It’s only been a year and a half since our launch of Six Apart Media and I’m happy to report we’ve made a lot of progress since then. Six Apart Media has the dual mission to help bloggers on all platforms earn more advertising revenue and to provide brand marketers access to a growing audience of bloggers and blog readers. Today Six Apart Media reaches over 193 million people around the world and 67 million US every month (according to comScore) -- that’s bigger than most social networks, blog services, and social media ad networks.Beyond just reach, our focus has been on creating really compelling, unique and authentic ways for brands to engage with communities online. In a way, we’ve been doing this for a long time since many brands have used their TypePad or Movable Type blog as their first social media outpost. Today we offer many other engagement products that tap into our platform, including blog communities, custom themes, widgets, and conversation starters, for brands like HP, Cisco, Nature Made, Best Buy, Apple and Microsoft.
With the launch of the TypePad Platform and TypePad Motion in October, our Six Apart Media Services team has been building great conversational media hubs, such as TweetZone, built for Sprint in partnership with Federated Media. We believe that social media campaigns will increasingly include creative “hub” sites that incorporate blogs, microblogs, and social networks to engage a community of bloggers and brand advocates.
With the launch of TypePad Micro yesterday we opened up a new way for brands to engage communities with social content, and we are pleased to announce our first marketing partner for TypePad Micro: AVATAR.
AVATAR on TypePad
In partnership with Twentieth Century Fox we are introducing the official online community on TypePad, incorporating both an official blog and a TypePad Motion microblogging community. We will be pulling in official AVATAR content from other sites, like Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube, as well as featuring exclusive content from Avatar such as behind-the-scenes videos.
And now with TypePad Micro we are doing something new: anyone can have his or her own exclusive AVATAR-themed microblog. With a TypePad Micro blog, fans can post notes, photos, and videos about AVATAR, “follow” each other, and easily share text, photos, and videos across their Twitter or Facebook networks.
AVATAR is one of the most anticipated films of the year and passionate AVATAR fans can join the community at avatar.typepad.com today, one month before the premier of Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron’s epic adventure on December 18.
We think this is a fantastic partnership and Jeffrey Godsick, Twentieth Century Fox’s executive VP of marketing, puts it this way: “This is a perfect match for us: Just as AVATAR is a revolutionary moviegoing experience, TypePad is revolutionizing social media. Members of the community will get the latest AVATAR news, see exclusive movie-related content, and participate in movie-related activities. We’re pleased to have a central online place where AVATAR fans can connect and share their excitement for the film with each other - and with their friends on other social sites like Facebook and Twitter.” Thanks Jeffrey - well said!
I am personally really excited about this. I’ve been a huge sci-fi fan my whole life (shocking admission, I know) as well as a James Cameron fan. He has made some fantastic epics that create and define entire new genres of films - and he seems to be on the verge of doing it again. We are thrilled to be working with AVATAR on this great community effort and can’t wait to see the film!
October 1, 2009
Announcing the TypePad Platform and TypePad Motion
It was almost 8 years ago today that Ben and Mena Trott released Movable Type and helped spark the blogging explosion that followed. Before that time, personal web publishing was largely difficult and expensive, but with MT and the great software and services that followed from Six Apart and others, web publishing became much more accessible and, as a result, social. Today we are announcing some major steps in Six Apart’s continuing mission to make web publishing more accessible and social: the TypePad Platform and TypePad Motion, a new open-source software social application.
The TypePad Platform
In 2003, Six Apart launched TypePad, which quickly became and remains the leading premium hosted blogging service. According to comScore, Six Apart is the leader in the blog category in the US and reaches over 183M unique visitors per month around the world - that’s bigger than MySpace - and TypePad is the cornerstone of Six Apart’s hosted services.
In the last year we’ve rebuilt TypePad from the ground up and introduced social networking features such as profiles, following, microblogging, and status updates to our bloggers. We've invested in making TypePad the most secure, stable, scalable and social blogging platform, but until now the only way to use it was through TypePad.com. Today we are very pleased to announce the launch of the TypePad Platform, where any developer, blogger, publisher, or corporation can use the TypePad “cloud” through our open APIs.
Cloud services didn’t exist in 2001 the way they do today, but now services from Amazon and others make building and launching new web sites much easier and less expensive by providing infrastructure level “cloud” services. Users of Flickr, Facebook and Twitter have transformed the internet by sharing their media and building relationships online, in part because of the flexibility of experiences that those platforms' API have enabled.
We hope to take cloud computing a step further with the TypePad Platform with this “smart cloud” service - combining the flexibility of infrastructure-focused services with the building blocks of our social application platform. Our platform enables developers to use structured object, like blogs, posts, comments, people, activities, groups, and tags, to quickly and inexpensively build next generation social applications on a reliable, secure, and scalable platform.
That all may be a bit too much jargon, I realize, so the bottom line is this: cloud services are transforming how web sites and social applications are being built, and we want to help move this trend forward by opening up TypePad’s APIs. We hope to dramatically lower barriers for those trying to get started on a shoestring to build the next Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.
For larger publishers and Internet businesses, we see the TypePad Platform as new way to incorporate blogs and social networking into their sites - offering an alternative to completely local software solutions or completely hosted SaaS solutions. With the TypePad Platform, publishers can use the presentation layer and templates of their choice - be it via MT, PHP, Django, Java, etc. - while not having to install and support an expensive back end.
For personal bloggers and TypePad users, opening up our APIs means that TypePad will be built into applications that will help the bloggers and their readers, paving the way for more applications that enhance TypePad functionality. For our larger TypePad customers it opens up a large set of possibilities about how they can integrate their TypePad blogs into their existing web sites. For our Movable Type and Six Apart Services clients, this opens up many more ways that TypePad can be used in conjunction with, rather than an alternative to, Movable Type or other installed blogging platforms.
The TypePad Developer Program
To help folks get started using the TypePad Platform, we’ve launched the TypePad Developer Program to provide developers with a free beta version, or Developer Preview, of the TypePad API, available today. Commercial versions of the TypePad Platform will come later, but the TypePad API for developers is free. Developers will find documentation, a forum, mailing list and group where they can get their questions answered quickly at developer.typepad.com.
TypePad Motion
To show what the TypePad Platform can do, today we are announcing and open sourcing TypePad Motion as the inaugural open source application built by Six Apart for the TypePad platform. Typepad Motion is a microblogging app evolved from the Pownce codebase & community, It’s written in Python using the Django framework, making it extremely easy to build and customize. It’s a great example of how developers can use TypePad for the heavy lifting without sacrificing the flexibility and control of an entirely separate presentation layer, like Django, to maintain templates and build pages.
A TypePad Motion site is a place where members come together to share notes, files, photos, videos and audio with others and featured users can aggregate all of their activity around the web onto the TypePad Motion site, keeping their fans or followers up-to-date on their activities. Several celebrities have integrated TypePad Motion sites into their branded websites, such as Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes) and Ryan Star.
For more information about TypePad Motion, please visit typepad.com/go/motion.
This opens up a new chapter for TypePad and Six Apart, and it’s just a start. The TypePad Platform is new and now primarily for developers who wish to preview and test the service. We’d love your feedback. It is Six Apart’s continuing mission to dramatically reduce the cost and time to market while increasing the capability and scalability in building social applications. We’re hoping to make web publishing even more accessible and social and we hope you will join us.
The TypePad Platform
In 2003, Six Apart launched TypePad, which quickly became and remains the leading premium hosted blogging service. According to comScore, Six Apart is the leader in the blog category in the US and reaches over 183M unique visitors per month around the world - that’s bigger than MySpace - and TypePad is the cornerstone of Six Apart’s hosted services.
In the last year we’ve rebuilt TypePad from the ground up and introduced social networking features such as profiles, following, microblogging, and status updates to our bloggers. We've invested in making TypePad the most secure, stable, scalable and social blogging platform, but until now the only way to use it was through TypePad.com. Today we are very pleased to announce the launch of the TypePad Platform, where any developer, blogger, publisher, or corporation can use the TypePad “cloud” through our open APIs.
Cloud services didn’t exist in 2001 the way they do today, but now services from Amazon and others make building and launching new web sites much easier and less expensive by providing infrastructure level “cloud” services. Users of Flickr, Facebook and Twitter have transformed the internet by sharing their media and building relationships online, in part because of the flexibility of experiences that those platforms' API have enabled.
We hope to take cloud computing a step further with the TypePad Platform with this “smart cloud” service - combining the flexibility of infrastructure-focused services with the building blocks of our social application platform. Our platform enables developers to use structured object, like blogs, posts, comments, people, activities, groups, and tags, to quickly and inexpensively build next generation social applications on a reliable, secure, and scalable platform.
That all may be a bit too much jargon, I realize, so the bottom line is this: cloud services are transforming how web sites and social applications are being built, and we want to help move this trend forward by opening up TypePad’s APIs. We hope to dramatically lower barriers for those trying to get started on a shoestring to build the next Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.
For larger publishers and Internet businesses, we see the TypePad Platform as new way to incorporate blogs and social networking into their sites - offering an alternative to completely local software solutions or completely hosted SaaS solutions. With the TypePad Platform, publishers can use the presentation layer and templates of their choice - be it via MT, PHP, Django, Java, etc. - while not having to install and support an expensive back end.
For personal bloggers and TypePad users, opening up our APIs means that TypePad will be built into applications that will help the bloggers and their readers, paving the way for more applications that enhance TypePad functionality. For our larger TypePad customers it opens up a large set of possibilities about how they can integrate their TypePad blogs into their existing web sites. For our Movable Type and Six Apart Services clients, this opens up many more ways that TypePad can be used in conjunction with, rather than an alternative to, Movable Type or other installed blogging platforms.
The TypePad Developer Program
To help folks get started using the TypePad Platform, we’ve launched the TypePad Developer Program to provide developers with a free beta version, or Developer Preview, of the TypePad API, available today. Commercial versions of the TypePad Platform will come later, but the TypePad API for developers is free. Developers will find documentation, a forum, mailing list and group where they can get their questions answered quickly at developer.typepad.com.TypePad Motion
To show what the TypePad Platform can do, today we are announcing and open sourcing TypePad Motion as the inaugural open source application built by Six Apart for the TypePad platform. Typepad Motion is a microblogging app evolved from the Pownce codebase & community, It’s written in Python using the Django framework, making it extremely easy to build and customize. It’s a great example of how developers can use TypePad for the heavy lifting without sacrificing the flexibility and control of an entirely separate presentation layer, like Django, to maintain templates and build pages.A TypePad Motion site is a place where members come together to share notes, files, photos, videos and audio with others and featured users can aggregate all of their activity around the web onto the TypePad Motion site, keeping their fans or followers up-to-date on their activities. Several celebrities have integrated TypePad Motion sites into their branded websites, such as Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes) and Ryan Star.
For more information about TypePad Motion, please visit typepad.com/go/motion.
This opens up a new chapter for TypePad and Six Apart, and it’s just a start. The TypePad Platform is new and now primarily for developers who wish to preview and test the service. We’d love your feedback. It is Six Apart’s continuing mission to dramatically reduce the cost and time to market while increasing the capability and scalability in building social applications. We’re hoping to make web publishing even more accessible and social and we hope you will join us.
August 18, 2009
The Rap On Social Media with MC Hammer at Harvard This Month
We're pleased to announce that Six Apart is a Media Sponsor for the next Gravity Summit Social Media Marketing for Business Conference, 
which will be held at the Harvard Faculty Club on August 31. Multiplatinum selling entertainer and Twitter personality MC Hammer is the keynote speaker, promising to educate and entertain as he illustrates the benefits of social media to a massive brand.
We are offering members of the Six Apart community a discount to the conference (standard price is $489, Six Apart price is $329), which will also include presentations from social media practitioners of Southwest Airlines, Dunkin Donuts, CNN, Domino's, and the American Red Cross. The indefatigable Gary Vaynerchuk, of Wine Library TV fame, will also keynote.
Can't make it to Harvard on the 31st? That's ok. The summit will be streamed live by CNN.com/Live, the Internet's only multi-stream live video news service, from 9 am Eastern.
Gravity Summit events help bridge the gap between the new Social Media Marketing tools and the business community, by educating and informing marketing professionals, small business owners, advertisers, C-Level executives, and others, about the exciting new marketing and communications landscape that is evolving daily.
We've attended past Gravity Summits at Stanford University and UC Irvine, and have found that people actually practicing social media inside companies are more willing to speak at an education-oriented conference than at a typical industry conference. The presentation quality is high and authentic, as is the discussion. We recommend the experience.
We hope you'll take advantage of this discount, attend the conference, and learn more about social media, or tune in to the live stream at 9 am on the day of - August 31.
which will be held at the Harvard Faculty Club on August 31. Multiplatinum selling entertainer and Twitter personality MC Hammer is the keynote speaker, promising to educate and entertain as he illustrates the benefits of social media to a massive brand.We are offering members of the Six Apart community a discount to the conference (standard price is $489, Six Apart price is $329), which will also include presentations from social media practitioners of Southwest Airlines, Dunkin Donuts, CNN, Domino's, and the American Red Cross. The indefatigable Gary Vaynerchuk, of Wine Library TV fame, will also keynote.
Can't make it to Harvard on the 31st? That's ok. The summit will be streamed live by CNN.com/Live, the Internet's only multi-stream live video news service, from 9 am Eastern.
Gravity Summit events help bridge the gap between the new Social Media Marketing tools and the business community, by educating and informing marketing professionals, small business owners, advertisers, C-Level executives, and others, about the exciting new marketing and communications landscape that is evolving daily.
We've attended past Gravity Summits at Stanford University and UC Irvine, and have found that people actually practicing social media inside companies are more willing to speak at an education-oriented conference than at a typical industry conference. The presentation quality is high and authentic, as is the discussion. We recommend the experience.
We hope you'll take advantage of this discount, attend the conference, and learn more about social media, or tune in to the live stream at 9 am on the day of - August 31.
June 18, 2009
Question of the Day Comes to TypePad
One of the things we love most about blogging is the community it builds. One blog post can create a dialogue across the web that features divergent opinions, thoughtful comments and a real sense of conversation.The Question of the Day on Vox has helped us spark some of those conversations amongst bloggers who might otherwise suffered from a case of writer’s block. Because we’ve seen such great success with the Vox QotD, we decided to introduce the same feature to TypePad. We are really excited to see how this new feature inspires creativity amongst TypePad bloggers and their loyal readers.
Learn more about the TypePad Question of the Day in the FAQ and let us know if you have a question you’d like to ask!
If your question is chosen, we will publish it, along with a “submitted by” message and a link to your blog. It’s a great way to connect with bloggers, and also to get more readers to your blog. Please keep in mind that QotDs should appeal to a wide audience and should be no more than 95 characters.
You can send your submissions for QotDs to qotd@typepad.com.
June 2, 2009
Enter the “Green by Design” Contest!
In April, we told you about our partnership with One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco, and our Green Badge program designed to encourage everyone to go green, one act at a time. We promised that when the Green Badges received 100,000 impressions across the blogosphere, Six Apart would donate $1000 to The Climate Project. Less than six weeks after that post, we surpassed our 100,000 goal by nearly two million impressions. Needless to say: a check is in the mail to The Climate Project!So many of you adopted the Green Badges that we designed, we couldn’t help but wonder… What if we asked YOU to create an earth-friendly badge? After all, our bloggers are some of the most creative and eco-friendly out there and who better than you to spread the message that when we all do one act, we act as one, and help the planet? No one!
That’s why Six Apart partnered with One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco to create the “Green by Design” contest. To enter, all you have to do is create a Green Badge with an earth-friendly design and/or message. One winner will be chosen each week in June and that person’s badge will be available on EverythingTypePad for people to put on their blogs, and will appear on blogs all across Six Apart Media’s advertising platform. Plus, when the badges receive a million impressions, Six Apart will donate another $1000 to The Climate Project.
Visit EverythingTypePad for all the details on how you can enter the “Green by Design” contest.
And don’t forget to record your Acts of Green on the One Million Acts of Green website. Because together, we are making a difference.
May 21, 2009
Social Media Tips from a True Pro
Lauren Kozak, Social Media Director for Britney Spears, recently stopped by our San Francisco offices and shared her views about how corporations can use social media to grow their brands and engage with customers in meaningful ways.
We enjoyed her talk so much that we videotaped some of her advice to share with you.
Lauren's advice is the real thing - it not only comes from her current experience creating social media success for one of the biggest brands in the world, but also from her pre-Britney Spears work as a social media advisor to corporations when the medium was still in its infancy.
We hope you find Lauren's insights helpful. Let us know what you think!
May 4, 2009
Comcast joins the Conversation
Comcast’s digital approach to customer support has certainly attracted
a lot of positive media attention recently, from both mainstream and
online outlets. What a contrast from a year ago, when a video of a
Comcast repairman who accidentally dozed off on a customer's couch made
the rounds in snickering blogs and emails. Congratulations to the
Comcast team for starting to steer a very large ship away from a
potentially endless negative current.
Check out the BusinessWeek article that covers a Twitter-ful afternoon with director of digital care Frank Eliason. Or the report by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington a few weeks ago of getting frustrated on the phone with Comcast customer support, only to find that a simple Tweet would deliver a solution to his problem in minutes.
Considering the company’s success on Twitter, it’s not surprising that they are augmenting their social media strategy by adding a blog to encourage longer-than-140-character conversations between customers and employees about all things Comcast.
The blog is called ComcastVoices, and it’s on Movable Type. It was launched just five weeks ago, and already the conversations are proving to be lively, informative, and respectful.
Let the folks at Comcast tell you directly what they’d like to achieve with the site:
For you marketing and customer support pros out there who might find the idea of such openness with customers a little daunting, here are a few things to note about the blog:
Welcome, Comcast!
Check out the BusinessWeek article that covers a Twitter-ful afternoon with director of digital care Frank Eliason. Or the report by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington a few weeks ago of getting frustrated on the phone with Comcast customer support, only to find that a simple Tweet would deliver a solution to his problem in minutes.
Considering the company’s success on Twitter, it’s not surprising that they are augmenting their social media strategy by adding a blog to encourage longer-than-140-character conversations between customers and employees about all things Comcast.
The blog is called ComcastVoices, and it’s on Movable Type. It was launched just five weeks ago, and already the conversations are proving to be lively, informative, and respectful.
Let the folks at Comcast tell you directly what they’d like to achieve with the site:
For you marketing and customer support pros out there who might find the idea of such openness with customers a little daunting, here are a few things to note about the blog:
- Comcast can set the tone and keep the conversation productive because this is their platform.
- The “Rules of the Road” define expected behavior for the site. It’s very clear that comments are moderated by Comcast and that only polite, on-topic and respectful comments will be accepted.
- The “About” page tells customers what they can expect from the blog, and refers them elsewhere for their personal support issues while encouraging them to tell Comcast directly what’s important to them.
- You
can see the negative comments of some customers turning positive as
they engage in conversation with employees. For customers, simply being
heard goes a long way.
- It’s hard to view Comcast as a monolithic, monopolistic behemoth when you see and hear from employees and executives directly.
Welcome, Comcast!
April 22, 2009
One Million Acts of Green & Cisco Partner with Six Apart to Make the World a Greener Place
Earth Day was founded to inspire awareness and appreciation for our environment, and while today might be the official Earth Day, at Six Apart, we believe that every day is new opportunity to help make our planet clean and healthy. That’s why we’ve partnered with Cisco to promote the One Million Acts of Green website.
One Million Acts of Green is a collaborative environmental campaign encouraging everyone to go green one act at a time. The goal? One million acts of green. Because, as we all know, we’re more powerful together than we can ever be apart.
That’s where you—our bloggers and readers—come in. We’ve come up with a few easy ways to inspire you to help the planet because we truly believe that every act of green makes a difference.
Here’s how you can do your part:
1. Adopt a Green Badge for Your Blog & Six Apart Will Donate $1000 to The Climate Project
We created four Green Badges for you to choose from. Each badge links to the One Million Acts of Green, brought to you by Cisco website. By putting a badge on your blog, you’ll not only be spreading the message of the importance of going green, you’ll be participating in an environmental campaign that will impact the world forever.
Plus, when the badges receive 100,000 impressions across the blogosphere, Six Apart will donate $1000 to The Climate Project.
Visit Everything TypePad
to learn how to add a Green Badge to your blog.
2. Add the Million Acts of Green Widget to Your Blog
Learn and share tips and advice to help make the world a greener place with the One Million Acts of Green widget. In addition, you can track the total acts of green being performed as well as the greenhouse gases saved as a result of those acts.
Get the Million Acts of Green Widget Now.
3. Answer today’s QotD on Blogs.com
How could you better “green” your life? What’s holding you back?
Read what other people are saying, get new ideas, and share your thoughts at Blogs.com.
4. Visit the One Million Acts of Green Website
Change can start with one person. One action. One million acts of green. Visit the One Million Acts of Green
website and register your acts of green.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post and for doing your part. Because when we all do one act, we act as one, and help the planet. And that is what today, and every day, should be about.
April 21, 2009
Six Apart Hosts Online Seminar: Strategic Social Media in a Customer-Driven World
Update 4/29: Thank you for the comments on the seminar. If you missed the seminar, you can view the recording here. Please have a look and let us know what you think.
Update: Thanks to the hundreds of you who attended the seminar. Please leave a comment and tell us what you thought. Or please fill out our survey here. We'll post the link to the recording as soon as it is ready. Thanks!
This morning at 10 am Pacific we’ll host a seminar for marketers that looks at how companies can easily and quickly join their customers online in conversation. We’ll show many examples of companies that are already building their brands, nurturing relationships with customers, increasing sales and cutting costs through social media. The seminar will be led by Anil Dash, Chief Evangelist for Six Apart. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so here.
After the seminar, please check back here to get the link to a recording of the event and to discuss the content. We’re interested in your experience with social media in marketing.
Update: Thanks to the hundreds of you who attended the seminar. Please leave a comment and tell us what you thought. Or please fill out our survey here. We'll post the link to the recording as soon as it is ready. Thanks!
This morning at 10 am Pacific we’ll host a seminar for marketers that looks at how companies can easily and quickly join their customers online in conversation. We’ll show many examples of companies that are already building their brands, nurturing relationships with customers, increasing sales and cutting costs through social media. The seminar will be led by Anil Dash, Chief Evangelist for Six Apart. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so here.After the seminar, please check back here to get the link to a recording of the event and to discuss the content. We’re interested in your experience with social media in marketing.
April 3, 2009
National Geographic Partners with Six Apart
For years, the goings-on inside Guantanamo Bay were a closely held government secret. Now, for the first time, National Geographic exclusively captures what life is like in one of the world's most famous prisons in the television show "Inside Guantanamo."
In order to create interest and engagement around this controversial subject, Six Apart Media spent this week asking relevant questions on Vox, LiveJournal and Blogs.com. Bloggers have been weighing in on everything from which food they'd miss most if they were sent to prison to whether or not the prisoners in the War on Terror should be protected by the Geneva Conventions.
It's not too late for you to weigh in on these topics. Join the conversation at Blogs.com.
And be sure to tune in to "Inside Guantanamo" on the National Geographic Channel this Sunday at 9 p.m. to learn more about what life on the inside is really like.
In order to create interest and engagement around this controversial subject, Six Apart Media spent this week asking relevant questions on Vox, LiveJournal and Blogs.com. Bloggers have been weighing in on everything from which food they'd miss most if they were sent to prison to whether or not the prisoners in the War on Terror should be protected by the Geneva Conventions.
It's not too late for you to weigh in on these topics. Join the conversation at Blogs.com.
And be sure to tune in to "Inside Guantanamo" on the National Geographic Channel this Sunday at 9 p.m. to learn more about what life on the inside is really like.
