• Conversations with People and Topics of Focus

  The Publishing Platform Business Rolled Out by Six Apart, Ltd.

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  A Content Management System (CMS) is a system that streamlines procedures related to the development and operation of a website and enhances convenience. We at Arc Communications were among the first in Japan to recognize the value of CMS and launched a CMS-based website design service eight years ago during the early days of CMS. Arc Communications already has a proven track record of introducing CMS to many websites.

  Six Apart Ltd.’s Movable Type (MT) can be considered a de facto standard in CMS in Japan. Arc Communications is one of Six Apart’s partner companies, and we proactively advance the adoption of MT for website construction and operation.

  Six Apart, Ltd. and Arc Communications have a rather close connection. The presidents of the two companies are the alumni of the same university, acquired MBAs in the US after joining a company and also worked together as translator and supervising editor of the Japanese translation of Jeremy Wright’s “Blog Marketing” (Published in 2006 by Diamond, Inc.) Meanwhile, Arc Communications was in charge of the development of Six Apart, Ltd.’s English website as well as the Chinese localization of MT.

  In this issue, Ohsato spoke to Nob Seki, President & CEO of Six Apart, Ltd. about the past and future of Six Apart’s business.

  From an Engineering Major to a Magazine Reporter and on to an MBA

  Ohsato: Seki-san, you worked as a reporter at a publishing house before you helped launch the Japanese subsidiary of Six Apart. Can you tell me why, after studying metallic engineering at the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Engineering, you chose to work as a reporter instead of becoming an engineer or researcher?

  Nob Seki: It was because, as I was carrying out my job hunting activities before graduation, I found it interesting to have an opportunity to meet and talk to a variety of people. I also found a publishing house appealing as a way to satisfy my appetite for knowledge.

  Ohsato: In my case, I left my job to study at a business school in the US in order to acquire an MBA. You also went to the States after joining a company, right? Did you also quit your job in order to study in the US?

  

  Nob Seki: That was my original intent, but when I told my boss that I was quitting because I wanted to study business administration in America, he said, “Why quit? Why don’t you come back to your job after you come back to Japan?” So, I took a leave of absence from my job to go study in the US.

  Ohsato: Oh, I really envy you! But how interesting that you went from an engineering major on to become a reporter at a publishing house and then, this time, you decided to study business administration (laughs).

  Nob Seki: I joined the publishing house in 1994. This was before the spread of the use of the Internet, and I was the only one that brought up the topic of the Internet in our editorial meetings. However, I felt that there was a future in the Internet, so I kept on talking about it in the meetings. As a result, I was finally told, “All right, since you insist, why don’t you write it up?” and given permission to write an article about the Internet.

  So, I spent a long time reporting on the Internet and related software. However, as the Internet industry started becoming established as a business, there was a gradual increase in talk about initial public offerings and share prices. In particular, if I interviewed the CEO of a start-up firm, all we talked about was the IPO. I did have the related knowledge on such topics that I needed as a reporter, but I began to become interested in the thinking behind starting up businesses and financial affairs. I thought that if I was going to learn more about it, the best place to study would be the US, and so I applied to a State-side business school.

  An Understanding of both Engineering and Content—Participation in the Establishment of the Japanese Six Apart Subsidiary

  Ohsato: How did you become involved in the establishment of the Japanese subsidiary of Six Apart?

  Nob Seki: After I graduated from business school, I went back to working at the publishing house and was involved in such activities as new business development. I was then assigned to the localization of an American magazine because of my experience in the US, but that project was cancelled midway before the magazine made it to publication in Japan. It was then that I was about to find myself without any real job in the company when I was asked by Joichi Ito, Director of MIT Media Lab, if I was interested in running the Japanese subsidiary of Six Apart.

  Ohsato: It must have taken quite a bit of courage to launch a Japanese subsidiary of a recently established start-up company. What attracted you to Six Apart?

  Nob Seki: I think that when the use of the Internet first started spreading, websites were still quite simple in their architecture. Websites of the period were something that anyone could understand and try making. However, as a result of websites gradually becoming more sophisticated, it started becoming a world that the layman could not understand. That was when blogs started appearing. This began to allow ordinary users to distribute their own information—not just read information using a web browser. The invitation to join Six Apart came at right around that time. Joi Ito said to me, “It is a business that you should handle because you majored in engineering and have an understanding of systems but also have an understanding of content through your experience as a reporter,” and he encouraged me to change careers.

  Ohsato: What was Six Apart like at the time?

  Nob Seki: It was very, very small when I started becoming involved. There were only about three employees in the company aside from Ben and Mena Trott, who founded Six Apart. Movable Type was already in existence, but there was nothing else. In a way, I liked the fact that the risk was not very big in comparison to the huge, worthwhile challenge that the job presented.

  Six Apart Focused on the Publishing Platform Business

  

  Ohsato: I remember thinking how awesome the US was when I saw the blog movement taking off there. With that said, however, simply bringing something from the US to Japan as is won’t really work as a business, will it?

  Nob Seki: Yes, I agree. If you’re going to start something new, the US is the place to do it. China and other Asian countries are in the limelight these days as markets, but I think one thing that hasn’t changed is that you still need to be involved in the US. But, as you say, it was very difficult when it came to making a business of it in Japan. At the time, people were saying that blogs would become the third media after television and newspapers. In fact, blogs were playing a major role as a tool against existing journalistic media and the authorities. This was the background in the US that made a blog-related advertising business feasible. However, the absolute number of readers in Japan is too small to make an advertising business possible.

  If you compare the US and Japan simply on the basis of GDP, the US is only about three times bigger than Japan. However, if you compare the population of people who speak and read English with the population of those who read Japanese, the English-speaking population is about 10 to 15 times larger. Furthermore, when it comes to an advertising business, the gap becomes even bigger by about 20 to 30 times. So, when you think about the Japanese blog market just in terms of the advertising business, there is no way that you can make a profit in Japan.

  Ohsato: So, that is why you focused on the publishing platform business?

  Nob Seki: Exactly. We rolled out a business model in which Movable Type is used not only as a blogging tool but also as a CMS or as a platform for companies that offer blogging services to consumers.

  Ohsato: I understand that all rights related to Movable Type as well as the Six Apart brand were acquired from Six Apart in the US by the Japanese Six Apart subsidiary in January 2011. What was the background to this acquisition?

  Nob Seki: As I said before, an advertising business was made possible in the US. On the other hand, the platform business did not see much growth. In Japan, however, it was the other way around, and it was the platform business that took off. In other words, the business structure differed between Japan and the US. For this reason, a state continued in which there was always a conflict for us when making any kind of investment. We decided to effectively split up the company in order to do away with the gap in the business structure.

  Ohsato: In other words, you made it easier to develop your business according to each of the two markets.

  Nob Seki: Yes. In the US, we now focus on developing media that contain large possibilities as a business. Japan, meanwhile, took over the platform business so that our traditional business can be expanded and developed. However, there is also talk of both the Japanese and US companies doing what they can to work together on businesses where possible, so we will continue to maintain a cooperative relationship going forward.

  Sato: What are you going to do about your publishing platform business in the US?

  Nob Seki: From now, the Japanese Six Apart will develop the business for the US market as well. However, the business of selling software packages is virtually unfeasible in the US, so I think that we will be reviewing a different form of distribution there.

  MT As A Standard in Japan

  Sato: A perception that Movable Type is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of CMS is starting to spread among users that have a certain amount of knowledge, such as those at a company in charge of the web. In fact, there is an increase in the number of times I am asked, “How is it different from Movable Type?” when we propose a CMS product other than MT. As a vendor, it is much easier to propose, “We will build your website using MT” than to have to explain the CMS we’ll be using (laughs). The strength that de facto standards have is really something powerful.

  

  Nob Seki: As one developing a publishing platform business, we are fortunate to have that kind of recognition. It is a result of things having developed from blogs.

  Sato: My impression is that the CMS market is becoming quite matured. In the case of MT, it often has to compete against even cheaper packages, including open source CMS. What is the key to differentiating MT from such CMS products?

  Nob Seki: I think it will be providing sound support while communicating regularly with customers. For example, if it is an open source product, the only response may be, “Please use the latest version” if a problem arises. However, there may be circumstances on the customer’s side that prevents them from updating to a new version. That’s why at Six Apart, we not only provide an updated version in which a security hole has been corrected but also continue to provide patches that correct security holes in previous versions of the software. This kind of response on our part is something that is valued by many users.

  Ohsato: Arc Communications participates in the Six Apart partner network, ProNet. We feel that you provide excellent support not just towards users but for your partners as well. The choice of whether or not to use an open source CMS is an area that I think makes glaringly apparent the philosophy taken by the management of a company. Although there are many benefits to the use of open source software, it is difficult to make clear who takes ultimate responsibility and makes the response when a problem arises; how one should commit. This is an element that makes us as a vendor feel concerned when proposing open source software to a customer. For this reason, when we select the product to propose to our customers, we stress not only the quality of the product itself but also place heavy emphasis on whether the developer or distributor is a company that we can do business together with. In that sense, Movable Type is an extremely appealing product. Of course, there’s also the fact that I’m great friends with you, Mr. Seki (laughs)!

  The Construction of an Eco System Centered on the Publishing Platform

  Sato: You mentioned earlier the importance of maintaining a relationship with the US as well as marketability in Asia. However, I get the impression that right now the Six Apart business is focused around domestic services in Japan. What kind of a global rollout are you currently considering in terms of the provision of a publishing platform?

  

  Nob Seki: What people expect from Six Apart is that we design a platform that can be operated by anyone. I think doing that is what will lead to our globalization.

  Sato: I recently handled an in-house project in which we constructed our corporate website in 44 different languages. For Arc Communications, which is a company that provides not only website planning and design services but also translation services, we wanted to show that we can not only carry out translations in 44 different languages but also write source codes in those 44 languages. It is important in terms of showing that we can respond to globalization as well as in expressing our brand that we don’t just talk about our ability to do these things but actually execute them. In the case of Six Apart, which develops platforms, you’re saying that making it possible for the platform to be used seamlessly is more important than localizing it to individual languages.

  Nob Seki: We will promote our business from the position of strengthening the platform and developing the foundation for the development of solutions. I don’t think that an eco system for this kind of business would be possible if we develop everything ourselves. I think that we need to draw a clear line and show where Six Apart’s realm stops in order to have others participate in the eco system. Wouldn’t co-existence and co-prosperity be difficult without it? That is why we will focus on strengthening the foundation, and we would like to ask for the help of your company and other partner firms in the development of solutions that will operate on our platform. We look forward to continuing to work with you!

  Ohsato: I have often heard you speak of this “eco system” concept in the past. I see that your thinking has not strayed from this position at all! Thank you very much for your time today.

  Mariko Ohsato’s Post Script

  Mr. Seki’s talk, who spoke in a relaxed manner throughout, was so deep and rich in content that it is hard to believe that this dialogue was less than an hour long. He and I have many things in common, such as the fact we have changed where we stage our activities through the years, beginning as science and engineering majors while at university, going into the liberal arts, back into the sciences field, and again into the liberal arts field in our careers while considering our own characteristic. We are also linked by a curious fate. He is known as the Prince of Champagne, and I look forward to Arc Communications receiving champagne from him someday as a reward for building multilingual websites utilizing Movable Type!

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• Conversations with People and Topics of Focus

  Back Numbers

  • The Publishing Platform Business Rolled Out by Six Apart, Ltd. (Winter Greeting 2011)
  • The Internal Communication Strategies of Multinational Japanese Companies (Summer Greeting 2011)
  • Foreign-language Website Production/Website Translation (Spring Greeting 2011)
  • Global/Multilingual Website Solutions (Winter Greeting 2010)
  • Market Development through Global Websites (Summer Greeting 2010)

© 2011 Arc Communications Inc. All rights reserved.