Five years ago today Benjamin Trott and Mena Grabowski Trott released Movable Type 1.0. About 100 copies of the blogging software was downloaded within the first hour of availability, and over 500 people had requested notification of each release. We’ve never claimed to be the best. We’ve never presented MOVABLE TYPE as the program that will revolutionize weblogging. We’re just developing a system with a lot of the features that we’ve heard users are looking for. Luckily, we’ve received a lot of good word of mouth. People are hoping that MT will be THE program and THE solution. A…
Category Archives: Software
Preparing your feeds for IE7
Internet Explorer will be released in just a few weeks, pushed to Windows XP users as a critical update. The Windows RSS Platform ships as part of IE7 and will likely become the most popular desktop aggregator by the end of the year. Are you ready for the switchover? There are changes to CSS and JavaScript handling and an OpenSearch search box you should probably code against if you would like quick and easy access to your site and its archive. I’m mainly interested in the changes in feed syndication so I’ll walk through some areas that might trip…
NetRatings finds 40% of online Britons use news feeds
A study by Nielsen//NetRatings found 40% of Britons receive automatic news feeds to their browser or desktop but 69% had never heard of Really Simple Syndication. About 15% of the people surveyed have heard of an iPod but are not sure what it is. A three-page PDF summarizing the study is available from NetRatings. The use of acronym’s caused a marked drop in user knowledge. 29% of those surveyed knew what “IM” meant but 86% knew the term “instant messaging.” The average online Briton now owns 4-5 digital or networked devices. 3G mobile phones were more common than iPods and…
Google Gadgets on your webpage
Google “Universal” Gadgets are now available for blogs and pages around the web. A single Google gadget can now be deployed on Google Personalized Homepage, Google Desktop, Google Page Creator, or via a JavaScript embed on any editable webpage. You can add PacMan to your blog sidebar or display photos uploaded to Picassa on your MySpace page, or add a Google Reader viewer anywhere. Google’s support for webpage embeds brings the Google Reader story full circle. The team originally envisioned an RSS widget available on a blog sidebar and the project grew into much more. You can now access the…
Microsoft awards three Windows Live MVPs
Microsoft has awarded three web developers with its Most Valuable Professional status. The MVP program is Microsoft’s way of recognizing the work and contributions of independent developers and these individuals are rewarded with a fast-track to product feedback teams among other benefits. The first three awards include a consultant in Australia who maintains the Via Virtual Earth community and a consultant in Washington D.C. who creates Microsoft gadgets. Recognition of independent third party developers and community leaders will play a significant role in the rollout of web as a platform strategies from big Internet companies. How do you reward…
Netvibes 2.0
Netvibes pushed their latest release live tonight, unveiling new visual designs and a few new modules. Founder and CEO Tariq Krim refers to the release as Netvibes 2.0 on the official Netvibes blog. The new version of Netvibes features themes, video search, blog search, a MySpace module, and more. You can choose your favorite color backdrop ranging from gray to pink. It would be cool if I could set a theme by tab, such as making my soccer tab blue to match Chelsea but keep my other tabs green. The new MySpace integration allows you to track the latest information…
Google Reader courts the Gmail crowd
Google Reader has launched a major update to its web front-end about a year after its initial launch, redesigning its online feed aggregator to create a feed reading experience that should feel natural to users of Gmail. New features include a shared clippings service, better read/unread tracking, and the ability to share feed items easily over e-mail. The coolest new feature is Google Reader’s continuous scroll of feed items combined with automatically selecting each feed item as you move around the news flow. You’ll find a lot more access keys in the new Reader, mapped to the common Gmail…
Data launchpads of the cloud wars
The war of the data clouds will really start to heat up in 2007 as large Internet companies such as Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft open huge data centers in the Pacific Northwest fueled by cheap power and bandwidth. Our digital lives continue to be fueled by the cloud, with new data services and software that replace or complement desktop tasks coming online every month. Software as a service is the new development push, and custom build outs next to a few large dams and fiber highways are a sign of what’s next. Internet giants are building up their server…
RealNetworks releases RealTime feed aggregator
RealNetworks just launched a news aggregation site powered by syndicated content. The new RealTime site, toolbar, and screensaver provide a customized news reading experience complete with feed discovery, recommendations, and the ability to interact with subscriptions online or on the desktop. The new software will be promoted and bundled with RealPlayer, a desktop application with millions of installed users. Website visitors can customize their feed subscriptions using a cookie store or create an account to persist the data to the desktop or across multiple machines. Feed search and discoverability is powered by Feedster. The site is running Apache Coyote,…
NewsGator syncs Windows RSS platform into its cloud
NewsGator just released NewsGator Desktop Sync in beta. The Windows application sits in your desktop tray and keeps your feeds, folders, and item read states synchronized between NewsGator Online and the Windows RSS Platform. NewsGator Online may be viewed in a web browser or synchronized to your mobile phone, Mac, Windows Media Center, or other applications hooked into NewsGator Online. NewsGator Desktop sync connects Windows PCs running the Windows RSS Platform present in Internet 7 and above. Synchronization is like a personal teleporter for your feed data, breaking up your data into many tiny bits capable of being reassembled wherever…