BLOGSAVVY

Update: due to a trademark dispute with Amazon pLog is now ‘LifeType’ and lives here instead (better name anyway I reckon!)

This is part of a larger, ongoing series which examines how - in 2005 / 2006 - you can give people blogs. Visit the contents page to see the lot (or suggest more content!) or grab the feed to keep up with new stuff!

pLog seems to be somewhat the forgotten gem of open source blogging solutions and well worth checking out for anyone examining this area.

Not that I’m the first to kinda like what’s offered here, for example from Lockergnome:

“Why pay at all when you can get everything that MovableType offers free of charge from pLog? Both applications have virtually the same basic features and personally, I think pLog is a lot easier to customize. pLog is ideal for anyone wanting to easily host a blogging community (with its summary.php page), and has added functionality for extras like podcasting built into the core.”

And that sums it up pretty well, it’s a straightforward, simple and effective system that certainly impresses.

However, straightforward and simple really does mean that… and while for some people this might be a huge benefit, the comparatively small amount of development and community based around the tool means that there is by no means a plethora of plugins (read that as ‘no plugins’). You won’t be getting your hands on a WSYWIG editor of any description and while it has plenty of excellent templates I’m not sure if they’re particularly flexible in terms of providing multiple forms of representation through for different pages.

Nonetheless it is being used very successfully by a number of organisations including Blogs @ Rice and the extremely successful (and place where I tested it out at :o) Bloc de BalearWeb. Given this, the stable 1.01 release, and the ease of installation of the software for multiple blog use this is definitely one to have a run with at no cost to yourselves!

Find expert WordPress and WordPress MultiUser (WPMU) development and consulting at Incsub.

Duncan Riley promoted a lot of discussion with his Demise of the Geek Bloggers post over at Blog Herald (and rediscovered by TurboBlogger) and I reckon he’s got a good point.

But what he, and a lot of the commentators don’t seem to get, or at least latch onto, is that we’re not looking at the rise of consumer blogs, extrovert blogs or even a demise in geek bloggers… what’s catching on is a rise in genuine problogging… professionals who blog.

It started earlier in IT (obviously) and has been picked up and ran with by education (another regular early adopter / innovator) but what’s starting to happen is that as blogging becomes more accessible, the tools become far simpler to use and the concepts become more broadly understood (nobody understands blogging… everyone understands podcastng!) is that professional communities are starting to move from listservs and email groups over to the blogging world.

Take edublogs… not a tool for educators to use with students but a blogging provider for people involved in education… 1 month old today and already with 837 blogs!

And in that light I’d like to introduce PRblogs.org a collaborative project led by Robert French and supported by Blogsavvy:

It’s a natural development, makes sense… 1st Gen bloggers have been the geeks, the teenagers and the ‘out there’ but 2nd Gen will be the professionals, watch this space!

Find expert WordPress and WordPress MultiUser (WPMU) development and consulting at Incsub.

It’s interesting to check out the responses to both the idea of WordPress.com, the use and the way it’s been launched.

Of course if you’ve tried out incsub blogs (now closed for new blogs) or edublogs then you’d already know all about what’s offered here in terms of functionality, moreorless. No invite required :) - although I’ll be patching that into edublogs asap so you can get your colleagues along.

What’s really interesting is the concept of Tbs of space, of quality tools (blogger anyone?) of stability and of non-commercial motivations.

And of course of WPMU and how we can translate this to different kinds of communities…

I think to say that wordpress.com is ’something we already have’ is not to understand the significance of the tool and of the community behind it… blogger may well have ‘done it’ but here we have something that’s ‘doing it well’ and ‘with space’ and that, I reckon, is going to make a lot of difference!

It’s an fascinating equation:

unlimited space + unlimited bandwidth + effective digital identity & CMS tool (WP) + ubiquitous computing = ???

Find expert WordPress and WordPress MultiUser (WPMU) development and consulting at Incsub.

Looks like I’m gonna have to add Adobe blogs to the mix… now, to find a *non* tech multi blogging corporate… gee!

Find expert WordPress and WordPress MultiUser (WPMU) development and consulting at Incsub.

This is part of a larger, ongoing series which examines how - in 2005 / 2006 - you can give people blogs. Visit the contents page to see the lot (or suggest more content!) or grab the feed to keep up with new stuff!

How can you give blogs with Movable Type?

No review of blogging tools is complete without an examination of Movable Type (MT) as one of the most mature, sophisticated and functional blogging platforms around. As a blog engine there’s little you can say to fault it, pretty much every feature you could ask for and no shortage of practitioners out there. So, as a multi user blogging system it looks pretty well placed too.

Probably the most significant positives and drawbacks come from the fact that, unlike much of the competition, MT is far from free. In a commercial setting this will set you back US$1300 for 50 users, in not-for-profit use US$325 for the same number and in educational contexts US$1300 for up to 3000 students. However, before this makes you up and run away it means that you also get technical support and installation included… which might be a fair bit more affordable that the hourly rate charged by that blog consultant setting up your open source system.

How do the blogs work?

Very simply, straightforwardly and with a minimum of fuss. Blogging from the users POV is no big challenge here although the administrators experience might be a little more difficult.

I haven’t seen (and the licensing would make me guess that there isn’t) simple ‘create new blog’ form functionality associated with this and I’ve heard more gripes about MT from an admin perspective than I’d care to mention and haven’t come across any successful LDAP integration either… although I’d happily be proved wrong here.

For example:

“Centrally managing 400 blogs was difficult with the blogging tool we used (Movable Type)”

But having said that, having an experienced company lead you through might make it all a bit easier…. and that was a several months back so things may well be quite different now.

Other stuff

No discussion of MT is complete, unfortunately, without the mention of comment spam. In many ways the tool is a victim of it’s own success in this sense as 1st gen comment spammers has little more to aim for and consequently it’s become somewhat of a spam honeypot. Anyone looking to install the free version of MT needs to be 100% aware of this…. am not sure how well later versions stack up.

Find expert WordPress and WordPress MultiUser (WPMU) development and consulting at Incsub.