TypePad Hacks Agenda Update: More Awesome Suggestions from Readers

Here's the second round of reader suggestions which I'm adding to the TypePad Hacks Agenda.

In most cases, I've edited comments to boil them down to their most basic idea. Many are richer in the original, with explanations of why, how or when a feature would be useful. Links to the original comment will always be included as seen below, and each of the items on the Agenda will eventually get it's own post where the ideas can be fleshed out and discussed in more detail.

I would love to have the ability to have the title of a post also as the Permalink URL.
Posted by:Phillip Molly Malone | March 20, 2006 at 06:08 PM

Sub categories for dropdown menus.
Posted by:pieman | March 23, 2006 at 04:46 AM

On the page after sign-in, blogs are listed at the top in a blue box. If blogs were listed in order of most recently modified, my favorite blogs would always rise to the top.
Posted by:Douglass Davidoff | March 24, 2006 at 05:34 AM

I would love to be able to choose the order blogs are listed on the "Your Weblogs" page by rating their importance to me, rather than by alphabetical order (or posting frequency).
Posted by: john t unger | March 24, 2006 at 12:04 PM

I would like to suggest the ability to add text ads (such as Adsense) between  posts.
Posted by:Jorge | March 20, 2006 at 08:31 PM

I'd like to be able to select which photo albums and/or weblogs to post to when  moblogging. It appears that TypePad allows only a single default location.
Posted by: James Milstid | March 20, 2006 at 11:11 PM

I'd like to be able to more clearly separate authorship of multiple blogs under one account. I have two blogs under one account, but don't want them to share identifying features such as the author "nickname" or Amazon Associates ID in my Typepad profile.
Posted by:Nuthatch | March 23, 2006 at 07:17 AM

Ability to change the order of Typelists on the "About" page.
Posted by:Nuthatch | March 23, 2006 at 07:17 AM

Subcategories for Typelists.
Posted by:Chris | March 31, 2006 at 04:48 PM

I would like to be able to set a custom order for items in individual Typelists.
Posted by:Chris | March 31, 2006 at 04:48 PM

I'd like an easy way to make the author's comments stand out from normal comments.
Posted by:Chris | March 31, 2006 at 04:48 PM

The comments continue to be one of the best features of this blog… or maybe I'm just biased because I like the fact that readers are sending in great hacks and great ideas for features without my having to actually write them myself. If you'd like to keep track of the conversation in real time, subscribe to the comments feed using the link in the sidebar.

In addition to Agenda suggestions and Hacks, I also always welcome corrections in the comments. Timothy Appnel. recently alerted me to a problem with the comments feed which is now fixed.

Tags: cluetrain, discussion, typepad, Six Apart, blog, blogs, blogging, web2.0, weblogs, design, collaboration, typepadhacks

Comments

[Posted: Apr 5, 2006 9:13:16 AM]

Forgive me if this is already mentioned somewhere, but I'd like e-mail notification for comments. That is, If you leave a comment you have the option of being notified via email when a new comment is made on that post. I have that on an Expression Engine blog and it makes the comment section much more user friendly, particularly since not everyone uses feeds.

Also, (and forgive again if this is a repeat), there is a pretty easy hack for ordering Typelists the way you want. Just add the following before the title in the name for any items you want to order: <! (01)> and so on for any number of items. Then be sure to sort your list by "title, ascending." Although, I'd much rather see drag-and-drop in Typelists.

[Posted: Apr 6, 2006 1:42:30 PM]

How about a social bookmarking generator? "Digg this" etc...

[Posted: Apr 7, 2006 4:30:59 AM]

Bud,

email notification for comments is a good idea, and I'll add it to the next update round. In the mean time, have you tried cocomment.com? It allows you to save a copy of comments you leave on other blogs in sort of the same way that sites like del.icio.us let you save bookmarks. Cocomment got off to a bit of a rocky start, but seems to have just recently started functioning pretty cleanly across most platforms. You can use cocomment to monitor comments following yours, and you can create an RSS feed so that you are alerted to new comments as they appear.

In fact, I've kind of debated the idea of trying to use their service to hack together a comments feed here, though I'm not quite sure if I could get it to do that.

[Posted: Apr 7, 2006 4:35:53 AM]

Ted,

You can use Feedburners "feed flare" feature to create "digg this," "add to del.icio.us" and many other sorts of links in the footer of every post. I've impemented it here, for example.

You need a free account at feedburner and access to advanced templates (ie: a typepad pro account).

It wouldn't be all bad to add it to the list for Basic and Plus accounts… but on the other hand, Feedburner makes it so easy to do that I'm not sure if it really needs to be added or not? Anyone else wanna comment on that?

[Posted: Apr 7, 2006 9:53:39 AM]

Great ideas...keep them coming and let set the intention those that can at Six Apart will take notice and implement.

[Posted: Apr 7, 2006 11:43:48 AM]

I'll check out that cocomment, John.

I harp on the comment email notification because I think blogs need to be more open to non-bloggers - thus it's not an area for hacks. Something like this just needs to be there for readers. There's an MT plugin in for it and other services have it, and given TypePad's consumer focus there's no (good) reason not to have it.

[Posted: Apr 8, 2006 4:04:03 AM]

Bud,

"I think blogs need to be more open to non-bloggers" very good point!

I was researching different service for converting feeds to mobile versions a while ago and the best ones tended to be those set up for the reader to burn their own mobile feed subscription, rather than those for blogger to offer a mobile feed. But I know that there just aren't that many readers or non-bloggers who would even think to do so…

cocomment is more for people who comment frequently on other blogs and want to save their comments in a central repository. I was way glad to see it when they launched, because I often say things in comments rather than posting them.

[Posted: Oct 25, 2006 2:28:51 PM]

I tried cocomment, and think it's a pain. Wouldn't want my readers to have to do that.

We really need an e-mail notification that lets commentors opt into automatic emails whenever a comment is added to a post on which they've commented. Really streamlines the blog communications, and makes it possible for everyone, including neophytes, to fully participate in on-going conversations. Have asked for it before - still really want to see it and would be EXTREMELY grateful if you figured out a way to do it. Thanks.

[Posted: Apr 20, 2007 11:18:32 PM]

Having spoken with Google, I'm of the understanding that blogs/sites using Typepad will NOT be featured in Google's News Email Alerts because google requires that each post has a unique numerical string in the URL.

I also contacted Typepad Customer Service and was told the only way to achive this is to actually place a unique numerical code in the title of each post.

For example: Where my post title may be "No such thing as a free lunch", typepad suggest I call it something similar to "6543 No such thing as a Free Lunch".

Ridiculous IMHO. I've considered doing this and then immediately editing the title. While it would retain the original url such as smstoday.co.uk/blog/6543-no-such-th.html, it would also ping the original title to feedburner etc, which is unacceptable for obvious reasons.

Anyone know of a hack that overcomes this problem?

I understand that employees of Typepad claim to read this site. Any chance you can highlight this issue with them.

Thanks - Fox

[Posted: Jul 9, 2007 9:39:05 AM]

Just wanted to concur with the others on enabling readers to get email notifications when new comments are added to a particular post. Not only is this valuable for folks who don't use feeds but also for any readers that narrowly care about a specific topic. I suspect it would help increase repeat visits and encourage more interaction and follow up comments on any blog.