I was in California this week and stopped by, as usual, to say hello at Six Apart.
Lots of things have happened since I last saw them, some that I knew already, and some that I didn’t, and some new items that were interesting.
In the ‘already knew’ was Ben and Mena’s new family member. Cute little one, already fashion conscious, matching outfits with Mom. Another one was the new CEO, Chris Alden (I didn’t get to meet him this time, nor did I get to catch up with the previous one).
In the ‘didn’t know’ was the spinning off of LiveJournal. I remember when they bought LiveJournal, oh so many years ago. Along with the purchase of LiveJournal came Brad Fitzpatrick, who (‘already knew’) has recently moved to Google and is likely influential in the OpenSocial work going on there. I wonder who from the original LiveJournal team is still around, and how Brad’s departure influenced this spin-off. In any case, Six Apart has a very challenging product line, so I believe them when they say it was spun off to improve the product portfolio (and return Six Apart to its roots).
Another ‘didn’t know’ was Moveable Type going open source, properly. I seem to recall them mentioning this a while back. Well, now it’s there. Though, I am not sure what that means for MT or Six Apart.
In the ‘didn’t know, but interesting’ is that David Recordon works (is back) at Six Apart. David is the key guy in the development of OpenID. In the 15 minutes we chatted, we realized that there was more for us to discuss. I hope I can haul him out to Finland to enlighten the folks I work with. OpenID is a piece in the current developments that are set to transform social networking and the way we build social networking services.
I like to follow Six Apart because I worked so closely with them in my Lifeblog days and they introduced me (and still are) to so many important Web movers and shakers. Also, when we first started talking with them in the start of 2004, they were a cautious and small company in a very obscure area. In the first year we worked with them, they grew rapidly, defined the Web news of the day, and went from a small start up to a bold new player in the Web.
And, with some of the news above, I think Six Apart has grown up to be a mature Web company, no longer a start-up. They have a strong valuation, a stable workforce, and are spinning off products. But, for me, the real indicator of maturity is that one can start finding people who worked at Six Apart and have moved on to do great things and now proudly count Six Apart as part of their pedigree.
Wow.
This Tuesday is the final speaker series at Nokia House and we’re actually going to be listening to a former Yahoo employee, Simon Willison, talk about OpenID. I would be delighted to talk to you more about the technology one of these days, how/if it should be incorporated into Ovi and what not.