Six Apart Hit by Downturn, Lays Off 8% of Staff

Six Apart, the producer of blogging platform Movable Type, has announced layoffs of up to 8% of its full time staff. The company behind other popular products and services such as MT Pro, Vox and TypePad is a force in the blogging world. Movable Type is a very popular blogging platform, powering many Weblogs on the Internet.

In addition to laying off 16 employees, the entire management staff is taking a 15% pay cut.

Ramping Up, Ramping Down

The announcement comes on the heels of a huge hiring year for Six Apart. So far, over the last year, the software services company has added 90 people to its payroll. The company, before the recent news, had about 200 employees in the organization

Other Changes Underway

The job cuts announced in a recent blog post are accompanied by other changes in the organization. The marketing, community and support groups have all been combined into a new “Genius Group” that will be focused on helping bloggers on the Six Apart platform be successful. The group will do this by promoting the blogger's business by assisting them in design, audience building/engagement, and drawing revenue from their prospering their business.

The company is moving ahead with Six Apart Media. This group will be focused on delivering an advertising platform for key bloggers. Even though advertising is expected to be hit by the slowing economy, Six Apart sees online advertising as a growth opportunity and wants to foster their online advertising platform on their blog network.

Rebalancing for 2009

Six Apart's changes, the company hopes, will allow them to weather an anticipated rough 2009 fiscal year. From a fiscal point of view, the company continues to grow with Q4 2008 on track. Why all the changes? Six Apart says it is being proactive and cutting the expenses to the lowest possible level. With the changing market in 2009, the company wants to rebalance the organization accordingly.

Six Apart's layoff and other announcements don't mean the blogging industry is in any special danger, rather just an indicator of the factors affecting the broader economy.

Six Apart Hit by Downturn, Lays Off 8% of Staff

Six Apart, the producer of blogging platform Movable Type, has announced layoffs of up to 8% of its full time staff. The company behind other popular products and services such as MT Pro, Vox and TypePad is a force in the blogging world. Movable Type is a very popular blogging platform, powering many Weblogs on the Internet.\n\nIn addition to laying off 16 employees, the entire management staff is taking a 15% pay cut.

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