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.

Yesterday we added a few new features to TypePad that also came straight off the Most Wanted list. Even if these new features weren't on your personal list, we think you'll find them useful...... You can set comment status (open or closed), TrackBack status (accept or don't accept) or assign categories on multiple posts at once.... Starting a new blog and want to introduce first time readers to your topic?... (And for those of you taking advantage of Custom CSS, we assign a special classname to that post, so that you can style it differently from the rest of your posts...)

That's not so much my thing… when I want privacy, I just use email or the phone (and yeah, I know, email isn't as private as you'd think, but I figure anyone who can tap mine is entitled to laugh at my more off-color remarks).... It was then that I realized that having a public blog and a public persona and keeping the intimacy that made personal blogging fun was an incredibly difficult balancing act.... It was then that I realized that having a public blog and a public persona and keeping the intimacy that made personal blogging fun was an incredibly difficult balancing act.... If I want to ask them something or share an intensely personal tidbit, I can post it there for them and I don't have to IM or call anyone and I don't have to tell the same story 15 times as I see them throughout the year.... O’Reilly Radar: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/06/first_thoughts_on_vox_nee_come.html Andre Torrez: http://notes.torrez.org/2006/06/vox_luv.html When TechCrunch announced that Six Apart had released Vox for limited public beta testing, the majority of the comments were fairly negative.

They're great people, have very responsive tech support and provide a lot of really great metrics, all for free (there's a paid version that gives you access to more data, but I've been more than happy with the basic service). What really makes FeedBurner useful though is the fact that they make it much, much easier for your readers to subscribe to your feed whether they understand RSS or not. FeedBurner also provides a lot of great related services such as automatically pinging all the major blog search engines when you update your blog, managing advertising services within your feed, and creating feed flare (the cool links at the bottom of each post on this blog that let you email posts, submit them to digg, etc). I'm very pleased to see the two companies working together so closely… especially because FeedBurner has created a lot of truly innovative ways to extend RSS into a powerful new medium in it's own right.... You might also want to subscribe to the feed for the comments (where it says "join the conversation" in the sidebar) because some of the smartest things said on this blog are said by other people commenting on posts!

There are four things you can do to help make this blog a better resource for everyone: Leave comments on the posts to let me know more about what you need. This blog aims to become the best resource possible, and I do take reqests. Link to this blog from your own blog, so other Typepad bloggers can get involved in the conversation. Subscribe to the feed, so that you won't miss any of the excitement to come. Submit hacks, links to third party tools or blogging news, or request a feature that would make TypePad even better.

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.

From what I can see at TechCrunch, it sort of looks like MySpace with better design control and easier function. The main features appear to be: Vox will be a free service supported by ads (making it a great place for new bloggers to get started).... The platform is entirely design wizard based, with no html access at all, which makes it extremely user-friendly but also limited in terms of design. Integration with Flickr, YouTube and Amazon make it easy to post audio, video, book info, etc. Privacy settings on a post by post basis. Enhanced social networking features I won't go on at any length until I can take it for a spin, but I am kind of excited to try it out.