Smart Six Apart Makes Hosting Deal With Yahoo! Small Business

Six Apart - creator of Moveable Type, the software favored by professional bloggers and corporations - has teamed up with Yahoo! to offer a small business website hosting package that includes Moveable Type.

The deal counters the recent sales of blog properties and positions Yahoo! for social media dominance.

Anil Dash, vice president of professional products for San Francisco-based Six Apart, told me in email last week that Moveable Type has been optimized to be "up to 10 times faster" on the Yahoo servers than through Six Apart's own site.

"The best part is we did a LOT of work with the Yahoo team to make this the best Movable Type experience on the web.... Super easy, super fast," Six Apart product manager and developer Jay Allen emailed me today.

No word on whether Yahoo! e-commerce will be incorporated.

Sadly, Yahoo! hosting service in the past had absolutely terrible customer support. I need to have assurance that this has changed before I make the switch.

Yahoo! Really Gets Social Media
The partnership is the latest in a string of deals by Yahoo as they embrace social media. They bought Del.icio.us, reportedly for about $17 million, and has purchased Flickr for a similar amount earlier this year.

Investors who understand the promise of social media - and, sadly, they are few and far between - will undoubtedly applaud these partnerships with stock buys.

How long til Six Apart goes public?