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Filed under: Blogging, Web services

Six Apart launches new TypePad Micro for short blog entries

Six Apart, makers of the powerful TypePad blog hosting service, have launched a leaner, meaner version of TypePad. It's called TypePad Micro, and it falls into the gap between longer blog entries and teeny Twitter posts. TypePad Micro comes with a slick-looking theme called Chroma - although you can customize the look of your blog if you want - and it's free.

If you're thinking there are already services in this new short blogging space, you're right: Tumblr and Posterous are two of them. Like those services, TypePad Micro allows you to post images, text, video, audio, and links. It also has a bookmarklet to easily post from another webpage (like Tumblr) and posting by phone or email (like Posterous). Other appealing Tumblr like features, including the ability to follow other users and reblog their posts, have also found their way into TypePad Micro.

So, what sets TypePad Micro apart? Maybe it's the bullt-in stats display (thanks to Google Analytics), maybe it's the built-in comments, or maybe it's just the Six Apart pedigree. I have to admit that I love Tumblr, but I also think TypePad (the big version) is a great product. It'll be interesting to see if there's room in this pool for another large and impressive fish.

[via CNET]

Filed under: Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

Movable Type launches Motion social streaming package

The Moveable Type folks at Six Apart have officially released the cross-platform publishing package they announced late last year. It's called Motion, and it's available to Movable Type Pro users now. Motion lets you publish to multiple services at once, and it allows your community members to comment using their existing accounts on Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

You can quick-publish a microblog via Motion -- including photos, videos and other rich content -- and you can pull in your activity on other sites, including Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. This basically seems like a quick and easy way to do the kind of thing social networking geeks have been doing by hand on their own sites. If you're the sort of person who thinks of a website as a community, you definitely want to give Motion a look.

Filed under: News, Blogging, Web services, web 2.0

Pownce gets pwned: Six Apart acquires and plans to shutter service



Do you still use your Pownce account? I stopped using mine months ago. I don't even know if I remember the password. If you do still use Pownce, the Twitter-like microblogging service that just never seemed to capitalize on its early hype, start preparing to migrate to something new. Today, Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type, TypePad and Vox, announced that it has acquired Pownce and will be shuttering the service in two weeks. Lead Pownce developers Leah Culver and Mike Malone will continue on at Six Apart, where presumably some of Pownce's features will be rolled into Vox.

Hey, at least there is Twitter! Seriously though, Pownce's failure is proof that hype alone will not make a product or company a success. As our own Nik Fletcher pointed out, Pownce is the perfect example of how NOT having a useful API at launch or soon thereafter is a huge mistake. Especially if you are trying to do the whole microblogging thing.

Not to get all Valleywag, but didn't Six Apart just lay off 8% of its staff, like three weeks ago? I don't know the particulars of either situation -- but simply on the surface, that's cold. Did something miraculously change or was this part of the plan the whole time?

If you are worried about losing your messages once Pownce powers down its service, the Pownce team has created an export tool which will generate a file (I'm guess its XML. I haven't had a chance to look at it) that can then be imported into Vox, WordPress or TypePad.

Fittingly, the discussion of Pownce's demise is much more active on Twitter and Friendfeed than on Pownce itself.

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Open Source

Movable Type moving to Open Source


Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type, released Movable Type 4 (MT4) in beta today and announced it will create an open source version of the Movable Type Publishing Platform sometime this summer. Moving to open source will put MT4 in sync with its main competition, Wordpress, which is also open source.

Some new features include:
  • Updated user interface with a dashboard overview of all your blogs
  • Support for publishing standalone pages and managing file assets and images right within MT
  • Brand-new community features like OpenID, and a built-in user registration system
  • Increased speed
MT4 is available for download and is looking for user feedback prior to its official open source release. With over 50 new features from its previous MT 3.0 incarnation, Six Apart hopes to gain some of its former users who switched to other platforms in response to MT 3.0's licensing requirements and fees.

MT4 has the following requirements:
  • A standard web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x or higher, Apple Safari, Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox), and an FTP utility may be required.
  • Operating Systems: Linux, Solaris/Unix, BSD, Mac OS X, Windows Server
  • Web Servers: Apache, Microsoft IIS, Netscape
  • Databases: MySQL 4.0 or greater, PostgreSQL, SQLite
MT4 is free for personal use and ranges from $200 - $750 for commercial use depending on the number of users. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Thanks FF!


Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Productivity, Web services, Social Software

Syndicate WordPress posts with Vox Crossposter

While Six Apart offers an impressive service with Vox, their blogging community with a focus on 'neighborhoods', it could be argued that the service's doors are a little too closed. While Vox does unique things offering a streamlined registration system to help curb anonymous comments, one thing they don't have is any kind of API to allow access for things like external blogging clients. Sure, it's possible to email and moblog posts in, but it's hard to beat the power and flexibility that a full-on blogging client provides. A lack of an API also makes it difficult to cross-post from any other blogging system besides Six Apart's commercial TypePad blogging service.

That said, Pete Wood offers a bit of a compromise for WordPress users in the form of his Vox Crossposter plugin. Working with the constraints of having to send posts from WordPress via Vox's email system, this plugin will simply send your post - title, image and content - to your Vox account, though not without a few catches. First, none of your categories or tags come along for the ride. Also, your Vox post will more or less live independently from its sibling on WordPress; if you edit your WordPress post, your Vox one won't be updated (and if you aren't careful, it will be posted again unless you remember to tell the plugin to not crosspost the edit), and vice versa.

Still, Pete has done a good job with what Vox unfortunately gives him to work with. Our only request for now (until Vox gets in gear and cranks out an API) is that the plugin defaults to 'do not crosspost', since most posts probably aren't quite syndication material, and it would avoid those unfortunate double-posts.

Pete offers his Vox Crossposter plugin for WordPress free at his site.

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Blogging, Web services, Social Software

SuiteTwo, Intel's Web 2.0 platform

intel suitetwo application platformIntel has collaborated with six software companies to build a next generation collaboration software suite for the productivity of businesses.

SuiteTwo is the name, and the six well known companies participating are piping in their advanced applications to create one single powerful application. NewsGator is supplying RSS, SimpleFeed, Six Apart's Movable Type has the hold on the blogging platform, Socialtext adds in a searchable wiki, SpikeSource provides the hosting, and Visible Path has integrated new social networking capabilities.

Competition for this product can be seen from IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com. With their partners in this application, Intel will surely hit the lead spot for this enterprise level business application. The announcement of the release was made at the Web 2.0 conference this week, and the product is available for demo.

[via InformationWeek]

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, Web services, Freeware, Social Software, Unix

Vox has a mobile site and publishing clients

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Vox has mobile site and publishing clients
I have to just come out and admit it: I've gone kookoo for Vox, Six Apart's step-ahead blogging platform and social networking service. They have done a better job than nearly any service I've seen (and believe me; we get our hands on just about everything web 2.0 here at DLS) at making it dead-easy to add audio, books, pictures and video to your posts from sites like YouTube, Flickr and Amazon.

Not content to making users sit in front of their computer all day, however, it looks as though Six Apart answered Jordan's request from back in August and released their mobile publishing client for Vox in a big way, and they even have a mobile site for staying on top of what's going on in your Neighborhood. I honestly don't know how long either of these have been around; I just noticed them while trawling their help files for goodies.

The mobile site is surprisingly functional, offering access to the QotD (Question of the Day), posts and media from your neighborhood, as well as a good portion of your administrative dashboard. The stand-alone mobile client for publishing - available for Windows Mobile 5, Palm OS and Series 60 1st/2nd Edition - is equally impressive. You have access to your phone's media and tools and the ability to customize just about every aspect of your posts; tags, visibility, the whole nine yards.

These two Vox goodies are impressive cross-platform offerings for such a new service (just recently out of beta), and I'm already getting even more hooked on Vox while away from my Mac. Thanks a lot, Six Apart.

Filed under: Blogging, Web services, Social Software

Vox goes live, open to the public

VoxVox, the blogging-meets-social-networking site from Movable Type company Six Apart, has finally opened its doors to the public after several months of invite-only beta testing. I've been using Vox for a few months, albeit very lightly, but I must say that that as social networking and blogging sites go, it feels very stable and streamlined. In addition to all the tools you'd expect in a blogging service, Vox has lots of shiny tools like audio uploads, integration with YouTube and iFilm, Flickr and Photobucket, and Amazon, and an Organizer that makes it easy to manage all the audio, video, and photos you've added to your account. The social networking side of the service is like a more refined version of LiveJournal's, with a Neighborhood page that displays all of your contacts' posts and privacy controls to restrict who can read and comment on a post. It also comes with a ton of professionally-designed themes, and a lot of little touches that don't necessarily blow me away but do make me realize just how much thought was put into each part of the service. Vox is a free, ad-supported service, and I think that now that it's open to the public it's going to grow rapidly.

Filed under: Business, Internet, News, Blogging

SixApart aquires Rojo and Nooz

SixApart RojoThat famous and cutting edge blogging company SixApart, responsible for TypePad, Moveable Type, Vox, and LiveJournal today announces that it will gobble up social news aggregator Rojo along with Rojo's Nooz. According to TechCrunch, SixApart is planning to "sell a majority interest in the services business within a few months" (Barak Berkowitz, SixApart.com). We're guessing that means part of Rojo at this point. SixApart will continue to dash into the enterprise blogging fray, while Rojo remains a separate entity (for now) sans their leadership who will join SixApart. What will this mean for SixApart, and what about Rojo? Is this good for both? What do users of either service think? This will no doubt lead to greater integration in some way, but how? Sure, I have my own ideas, but after all 18 heads are better than one. Anyone care to speculate?

Filed under: Photo, Blogging, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm

TypePad Mobile: Blog from your cell phone

TypePad MobileSix Apart, makers of hosted blogging site TypePad, have released TypePad Mobile, "a mobile application that lets you update your TypePad blog or photo albums from your Palm, Windows Mobile or Nokia Series 60 smartphone." The software looks pretty basic, but great for chronic mobloggers. It's a free download, but requires a (paid) TypePad account and only works with TypePad blogs. (What, no love for Movable Type, LiveJournal, and Vox?).

[Via Mashable]

Filed under: Internet, Open Source

LiveJournal adds Jabber messaging

LiveJournalThose that have been keeping up with Six Apart's open source work may be aware of DJabberd, which is a framework for building Jabber chat servers (Jabber, of course, being the open IM protocol that powers Google Talk/Gmail Chat). It's unsurprising, then, that the company has just announced the integration of a Jabber server into LiveJournal. Though I use the term "integration" loosely--for now it's just a Jabber server running on livejournal.com--you can now use any Jabber client, like iChat, Gaim, Trillian Pro, Adium X, or Google Talk, to chat with other Jabber users. The service seems to be going by the name "LJ Talk," and you can get on right now using your LiveJournal username and password and livejournal.com for the server. Be aware, however, that it's still very beta, and every time you connect (which will be often, as disconnections are frequent) you'll get a message from the server that says "LJ Talk is currently a pre-alpha service lacking tons of features and probably with a bunch of bugs. We're actively developing it, constantly restarting it with new stuff. So just don't be surprised if the service goes up and down a lot." And it does. Still, pretty cool. More details can be found in the announcement on lj_dev.

[Via Waxy.org]

Filed under: Blogging, Web services

Vox: Six Apart's new blogging platform/social network

Six Apart's Vox

Ouriel Ohayon over at TechCrunch has the scoop on Vox (formerly known as Comet), a new hosted blogging platform from Six Apart, makers of Movable Type, TypePad, and LiveJournal, which will be launching tomorrow. Ohayon describes Vox as "a blogging platform for newbies (albeit with rich and deep functionality) and half social network" which features WYSIWYG editing, easy image, audio, and video uploading. Although the company already owns one of the largest and oldest social networks, LiveJournal, Vox seems to be Six Apart's round two bid against MySpace and other upstarts like TagWorld and AIM Pages. It will be a free, ad-supported service and blogs will prominently display a "Neighborhood," i.e. friends list plus other familiar features like Flickr and YouTube integration. For more screenshots of Vox, take a look at Ohayon's Flickr page.

Filed under: Blogging, Web services, Commercial

TypePad launches blog widgets

TypePad Widgets GalleryToday Six Apart launched the TypePad Widget Gallery, which is full of "blog widgets," or little modules you can add to your TypePad blog's sidebar that do things like display your Pandora stations, Squidoo lenses, or Rollyo searches. Until now, customizations like this for TypePad were only possible by hand-editing HTML templates, but widgets can be quickly installed with a few clicks. The gallery isn't terribly robust just yet, but according to TechCrunch's Ouriel Ohayon Six Apart is planning on opening up their API to third-party developers. As Ohayon points out, this launch comes very shortly after the WordPress team announced WordPress Widgets for Six Apart's primary free competitor.

Filed under: Blogging, Web services

Six Apart gets funding, buys SplashBlog

Six ApartSix Apart, the company that owns popular blogging software Movable Type and web services TypePad and LiveJournal, has been busy lately. According to TechCrunch, they've raised $12 million in VC funding and, more interestingly (to me, at least), acquried SplashBlog. SplashBlog is a service for blogging and photoblogging from mobile phones and PDAs, and it's reasonable to expect Six Apart to integrate SplashBlog's offerings into its current line-up.

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