A long, long time ago (near the beginning of blog time) Movable Type was born.

Unlike many previous rivals (i.e.  Blogger and LiveJournal), Movable Type allowed bloggers to host the software upon their own servers, eliminating the need to rely on corporate hosting without breaking the bank.

In order to feed their families, the Movable Type monks charged businesses a fee to use their software while allowing individuals to use Movable Type for free.

But that was before the dark times, before the rise of the WordPress empire. Fast forward to today and Movable Type has (more or less) fallen out of the lime light.

While Blogger and WordPress have become house hold names (at least among my less than tech savvy non-geek friends), Movable Type has diminished in popularity as evidenced by the rise of Tumblr.

But all is not lost my Movable Type lovin’ friends, as their is still hope for Six Apart’s favorite child to regain its former glory by adapting to times (aka make Movable Type relevant for the new millennium). read more

Today is a sad day for Six Apart, who was unable to slow down Tumblr’s rise against Typepad, despite copying the former’s reblogging feature in 2009.

According to Quantcast, Tumblr is now receiving 10.7 million uniques when compared against Typepad’s 10.6 million stateside, although the gap between the two services expands once you include international users. read more

WordPress fans take note: it looks like we now have an iPhone app that may remove the pain from blogging upon our iDevices without resorting to “the way of the geek.”

BlogBooster has released an iPhone app that allows you to not only insert multiple images, but also includes a formatting bar allowing you to italicize, embolden, underline as well as strike through text without having to manually type in the coding. You can also manually insert hyperlinks as well (another plus!).

Although the app seems geared towards WP fans, BlogBooster also supports Blogger, Typepad and Tumblr, with more platforms on the way (not to mention an upcoming iPad app!).

Priced at $4.99 USD, some may wonder if the app is worth it, especially when their are less expensive rivals like BlogPress (not to mention free official alternatives for WordPress, Typepad and Tumblr).

So before you hit the buy button, here is an in depth review highlighting the good, the bad and the awesome regarding this new blogging app. read more

Blogsmith (a company AOL purchased many moons ago) is probably known mostly (if not entirely) for powering heavily visited sites like Engadget and AutoBlog (as well as many others).

While rumors surfaced in 2007 about a public launch beyond AOL’s official network (which would open up Blogsmith to the masses), nothing much has emerged regarding Blogsmith which thus far remains a “gated community.”

However with AOL facing financial woes (as they struggle to regain their former glory), we may see AOL  re-enter the blogosphere again later on this year by opening up Blogsmith to the masses (at least for a price). read more

Update: WordPress plugin now available. See below for more details.

Yesterday at Facebook’s developer conference (aka f8 conference), CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed to the world the glorious “like button.”

Zuckerberg claims that by the end of today, users will serve over 1 billion likes across the world wide web, making the Facebook like button a “must have” social button for serious bloggers.

To my surprise Facebook chose to launch this new feature upon Typepad, all the while ignoring one of the world’s most popular blogging platform, WordPress.

Today Facebook announced their new Social Plugins and we’re excited to be a showcase launch partner. In fact, TypePad bloggers are the only bloggers to have access to these features at launch. Woot! [...]

Facebook is a great way to introduce new audiences to your blog. Last year we added the ability for you to automatically share posts with your friends on Facebook. Now with Facebook’s new Like button, any visitor to your blog can show their appreciation for your blog. [via]

read more

Sometimes viewed as the half-breed of blogging platforms, Tumblr is probably considered by most blogging experts as a cross between micro blogging and a full featured service (like Blogger, WordPress, etc.).

Despite the odd spelling and a semi decent commenting feature, Tumblr has somehow surpassed Typepad globally (at least according to Quantcast and Google Trends, the latter pictured to the right), which may explain why Typepad launched their own micro blogging service last year.

Tumblr still trails Typepad in the US according to Compete.com , although it may only be a matter of time before Tumblr displaces Typepad as the preferred blogging platform in America as well. read more

The company behind TypePad today announced the launch of an official AVATAR online community, in collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox, a month ahead of the release of James Cameron’s film on 18 December.

avatar.typepad.com offers fans a central place to read AVATAR-themed microblogs, other content from around the web, behind-the-scenes video, and integration with Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and other social sites.

Simulating Twitter and Facebook, but in an AVATAR themed environment, users can sign up and then follow other members, share notes, photos and videos. They can also create AVATAR blogs. read more

Happy Monday, folks! Lots to cover this week, so let’s start with the release of Movable Type 4.32. This is a fairly minor release — no security issues, just a handful of changes. What’s remarkable about this release is the inclusion of the Zemanta plugin. If you’re not familiar with Zemanta, they help you find content on the web related to what you’re writing that you can include in your blog post. The Zemanta plugin has been around for a while, but now it’s being distributed with MT. I can’t recall Six Apart ever bundling a third-party plugin with MT before. Several times they’ve bought popular third-party plugins and made them part of the core — not really an option when the plugin is tied to a web service.

Clearly, this is the product of some kind of partnership between 6A and Zemanta. Since the plugin is open source, 6A can include it in MTOS with no licensing issues. Still, some users have complained. Since it’s tied to a commercial service it smells non-free, even though the plugin is GPL and it functions for free. There are those that feel this plugin should have been limited to the commercial verson of MT, rather than included in MTOS. So far, 6A shows no signs of changing things based on these complaints. read more

With the announcement of the new Pico microblogging theme Six Apart now also stepped in to the microblogging game and wants its part of the pie. They also announced new features to simplify microblogging on the TypePad platform:

• “Post from anywhere” capabilities with email, iPhone, and TypePad bookmarklet
• New simple, professionally-designed, stylish themes
• “Post once, publish everywhere” with built-in support for Facebook, Twitter, and Friendfeed
• Control of your own advertising, your domain, and your personal brand
• All backed with support and training from TypePad One

These features might be new for Typepad users, I personally fail to see where they are new. Other than having ‘built-in plugins’ for the technically challenged people. Everything else, and much more, can be obtained freely via Tumblr and/or WordPress. For the minimum $4.95/month TypePad charges, I can host my blog on my own domain and have much more freedom.

Bloggers using TypePad will find it easier to integrate video ads into their content thanks to a partnership between VideoEgg and Six Apart announced today.

Six Apart will offer AdFrames ad units including Twig, which is an ad that stays in the browser window and can be expanded upon mouse over (one of the types of ad I hate, for what it’s worth).

The press release implies that the video units will be available to all publishers, though I’d be surprised if there was no quality control/bar to entry at all. It mentions that “launch partners” include Orbitcast, MediaBlab, Geeks are Sexy, Make Use of and Blog Net News, so perhaps it is fairly selective. read more