TypePad Hacks

It was way cool to meet the Design Team and see the place where the magic happens. After touring the office, Michael Sippey, Harold Check (of TypePad Featured Blogs), and I went out to lunch at a nearby Thai place. I'll have to ask them the name of the place, because it was the best Thai food I've ever had. We talked about some of the things they're working on for the future, my plans for TypePad Hacks, and ideas about how to improve the user experience for TypePad bloggers.... We really hit it off and found that we have a lot of the same ideas.

Guys, I have a feeling you're busy right now dealing with support issues with the new extension, and that's as it should be, but a quick blog post to let people know that you've solved a major issue is always a good idea. Here's where I learned about it: I clicked on over to the support forums for bugs to see if there was any mention there of the issues I'm having with Firefox slowing down and crashing.... Until we manage to make that annoyance go away, you can retroactively select the text of the comment you posted and click the bookmarklet in order to add it to your coComment conversations.... I spent some more time reading various threads on the forum about issues with the new extension and it sounds like the folks at CoComment are really working hard to get it running smoothly and to answer questions and resolve issues.... But in the mean time, I know what I'm definitely going to do… I'm going to use the bookmarklet to go back and record all the comments I can find via google that I left all over the web before CoComment existed!

I recently blogged about CoComment's new Firefox Extension. I was pretty excited to see it, and really enjoyed not having to use the bookmarklet to track my conversations.

I'm curious to know what the most common reason for blogging is among readers of TypePad Hacks. The poll below is limited to five answers, so I've tried to select options that I feel are among the most universal responses to this question… but obviously there are many other reasons to blog.... Please select the answer in the survey that is closest to your primary motivation for blogging. If none of survey options is even close, post a comment below and tell me what it is that motivates you to blog.... Maybe you have several reasons to blog, or would like to share a story about how blogging has helped you achieve your goals?

They had some really nice things to say: You might think that Six Apart, as a company, would be embarrassed by Unger's focus on explaining tricks to extend TypePad's functionality, or chagrined that he polls his readers about what features we should implement next, but the truth is: We're thrilled. Not only is TypePad Hacks a tremendous benefit to all TypePad customers, especially those who want to ask unique questions or try to "push the envelope," but it's also incredibly useful for us to look over Unger's shoulder and absorb the feedback his readers are giving.... Finally, we think it's an amazing testament to blogging and to TypePad that Unger thought the best solution for his effort was to start a blog and to use TypePad.... While no formal relationship exists between TypePad Hacks and TypePad, we have talked with Unger and consider him a wonderful asset to the community.... Those of you who read TypePad Hacks regularly and/or comment on posts are the ones who have really made this possible, though.

Darren Rouse has a great series of posts over at Problogger on adding interactivity to your blog using polls. Worth a read, especially if you signed up for an account with MajikWidget after I posted about them the other day. Problogger : Blog Polls - Add Interactivity to Your Blog Problogger: 9 Techniques for Using Polls Effectively on a Blog Problogger: Free Blog Poll Tools Probably the best tip he offers is to use polls as a starting point for discussion and invite readers to comment about why they voted the way they did. I'll definitely have to remember to specifically make that invitation in future polls!