Category: Weblogs

I’m experimenting with my blog’s design this week, so you may see some weird behavior here for the next day or two. If so, just ignore it – it’s only me playing around.

Earlier this week I received an invitation to try Vox, Six Apart’s new “personal blogging service” (currently in beta). I haven’t delved into all the nooks and crannies, but so far I’ve been very impressed with it. I’ve heard some folks call it “MySpace for grownups,” but I think it goes beyond that and will appeal to all age groups (and besides, it’s a lot easier to use and explore than MySpace).

Here’s my Vox blog if you want to check it out, but you should stick with my Feedburner feed rather than subscribe to my Vox feed since I’m just kicking the tires. And I should add that there are some display problems when viewed in the Internet Explorer 7 beta, so use another browser to check out Vox if you’ve got IE7 installed.

I like how Vox ties into other services such as YouTube, Amazon, Flickr and (no surprise) TypePad. I also like how it enables building a “neighborhood” by connecting with other Vox users, especially since there’s a single page which shows new posts from friends and family. The ability to explore through feeds is also great, and they’ve certainly made it easy to edit existing content.

Of course, Vox isn’t perfect – for one thing, there’s not enough control over design to make it attractive to someone like myself. Now, I realize I’m not the target user, and I certainly understand why Six Apart doesn’t want the support headaches of something like the advanced template feature offered by TypePad. But right now I’m not sure how to brand my Vox blog with my personal style, and while the built-in themes are decent, they’re devoid of any real personality. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would be willing to pay for more customization features, so most likely this is an area they’ll improve upon during the beta cycle.

One other thing I don’t like is how awkward it is to post pre-formatted HTML. I use TopStyle to write new blog posts, and I copy-and-paste the finished post into my blog’s composition page. Unlike TypePad, Vox doesn’t appear to allow posting HTML directly – so if you hand-code an image tag, for example, Vox will escape the angle brackets and show <img> instead of the image itself. As a workaround, I discovered that I can retain the HTML by previewing the post in TopStyle, and then copying-and-pasting directly from TopStyle’s preview into Vox’s composition page. Yeah, I know bloggers who hand-code their HTML are in the minority, and Vox is designed for non-technical users (as it should be), but it would still be nice if Vox made this easier.

All in all, though, Vox is an exciting effort, and I’m looking forward to seeing it grow over the next few months. The best thing about it is that it’s easier to use than other blogging packages I’ve tried (an impressive feat given the extra social features it offers). I’d say Six Apart has another winner on their hands with Vox.

At the “Users in Charge” session at last week’s BloggerCon, Chris Pirillo defined the word “freedbacking” to mean “free feedback from software users to developers.” Later in his blog, Chris asked users (better known as “customers”) to use the word (or tag) “freedbacking” in any blog posts which give feedback to developers.

Chris, you know I respect you, but beyond self-promotion, what’s the goal here? If it’s to make developers listen, then I don’t get it. Any developer worth his salt is already subscribed to keyword search feeds about his or her software, and any developer who isn’t already listening isn’t likely to hear users just because they use the word “freedbacking.” So using the word “freedbacking” strikes me as superfluous.

What am I missing?

PS: Ironically enough, by using the word “freedbacking” here, I’ve made sure that Chris will hear this :)

BloggerCon IV concluded today, and the (un)conference exceeded my expectations. My thanks to Dave Winer for the time and effort he put into this event. I learned a lot and shared a lot at this BloggerCon – I leave knowing and feeling more than when I came.

I also want to thank Niall Kennedy for being an excellent tour guide and friend during my short visit to San Francisco. Niall showed me around the place, introduced me to people, and basically made my brief stay here a better one. Even if we end up competitors in this whole RSS thing-a-ma-jig, I think we can still bounce ideas off each other since we’re both motivated more by the possibilities than by the competition.

Most of the time when I attend a conference, I benefit more from the schmoozing/partying than I do from the actual panels. Truth be told, I usually skip the majority of the sessions, hoping to save my energy for the after-hours socializing.

So the biggest compliment I can give to BloggerCon IV is that I spent the entire day sitting in a chair listening to (and participating in) the conference itself. I know that some people sneer at the unconference idea, but my experience has been that it works – involving the “audience” in the conversation results in a far more interesting and unpredictable event.

My favorite discussion today was “The Emotional Life of Weblogs” (MP3) moderated by the brilliant Lisa Williams. Listening to fellow bloggers talk about how blogging connected them with other people reminded me why I’m in this business – to build tools to help improve peoples’ lives rather than complicate them.

I also enjoyed the “Users in Charge” discussion moderated by Chris Pirillo, but I have to admit that I had to struggle not to blurt out my opinions as a developer (it’s a user conference, so the users do the speaking). Why did I want to speak up? Because many of the people talking were techies, which is a big part of the problem. Less technical users believe they don’t have the technical expertise to join the conversation, so developers end up tailoring their tools to meet the needs of power users since they’re the ones that speak up. We need to create an environment where non-geeks don’t feel intimidated, and power users need to help rather than hinder this goal.

What I’d like to see at a future BloggerCon (or Gnomedex) is an open, respectful discussion between users and developers. Even though public speaking terrifies me, I’d still be willing to moderate a session between users and developers if it would make the discussion less adversarial. So much of our society’s future depends on technology that we absolutely must open the communication lines between those building the tools and those using them.

Robert, good luck on your new (ad)venture. Your work at Microsoft has had a huge, positive impact on their image (and on blogging in general).

Now, once Robert moves on, what single source are we supposed to read when we want to find out about new stuff that Microsoft is doing, without all the marketing?