TypePad vs WordPress

My two favorite blogging platforms are:

TypePad (used here):

Inexpensive (free trial via this link), no software to download, install, update etc. I believe this is the best choice for most people.

WordPress.org

Free, sort of. You need to buy Web hosting (I use Bluehost), a Domain Name (I use Dotster), download, install, and keep software updated. WordPress.org is awesome, but not for most folks who aren't either somewhat comfortable.

WordPress people will complain about this, as they have near religious fervor when it comes to WordPress -- come on folks, it's great but not that good.

I don't particularly like WordPress.com or Blogger.com for business blogs.

Here is the Blog Squad's take on it. We pretty much agree.

Movable Type goes Open Source

Movable Type, a great blogging platform similar to WordPress.org, has just released an open source version.

Although Movable Type is similar to WordPress.org  (it's non hosted, meaning you need to install it on your own Web host, and the features are quite similar), it's suffered from complex and expensive licensing, whereas WordPress.org has always been free.

Reportedly the open source version is not quite ready for prime time yet, and paid versions continue to exist.

Why would you pay for something you can have for free? Many reasons, but the biggest is usually support. Free software doesn't come with a support contract or guarantee.

This is big news for Movable Type AND users of WordPress.org -- the competition can only make WordPress better, and Movable Type will get a lot larger user community as well.

Movable Type is owned by Six Apart, who also owns TypePad (which this blog uses). Movable Type and TypePad are similar, but not identical. One massive difference is that TypePad is hosted, meaning that there is no Web host to configure or software to install -- it runs on their servers.

WordPress for Dummies - Book Review

WordPress For Dummies, a new book by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, was just reviewed by Neville Hobson and Dan York.

WordPress is one of the premier blogging software choices, and their review is quite positive.

They report it as extremely useful for both beginners as well as experienced users.

The book covers all three versions of WordPress:
WordPress.org, the version you download, install and configure on your own web host

WordPress.com, the hosted version where you can start blogging for free within a few minutes

WordPress MU, the Multi User version (I didn't know this existed, but it seems very cool!)

Their full review is here: WordPress for Dummies Book Review and is 27 minutes of audio. Interestly, in the (text) comments section, author Lisa Sabin-Wilson has shown up to discuss some of Dan's criticisms. And note that Dan IS very positive on the book.

TypePad: No "TypePad for Dummies" Needed

I use TypePad. I recommend TypePad. It's my favorite blogging platform.

WordPress.org is more flexible. It's more complex. Easy to use but setup/maintenance much more complex. It's overkill for most people. Most people don't need to buy a domain, get a Web host, and install software on it remotely -- or hire someone to do it. Since WordPress seems to be a religion, comments like these upset some people.

There is a WordPress for Dummies. Recommended for WordPress people even though I haven't seen it (Paul Chaney was involved so it must be great).

There is NO "TypePad for Dummies" -- it's designed to be simple. A TypePad book would be silly, sort of like "Drinking Beer for Dummies." I think Dummies and everyone else ALREADY know how to drink beer, and TypePad is just as natural.

Thanks to Paul Chaney for mentioning there needs to be no "TypePad for Dummies" -- he's got a new blog, on TypePad of course, at Conversational Media Marketing which is certainly worth a read!

WordPress on Speed: 17 Tweaks to Accelerate Your WP

I like WordPress.org blogging software, except perhaps for the evangelical fervor of many of WordPress' users! I'm only half joking -- it's a great platform, although not the ONLY great platform!

Rich McIver sends me 17 Tweaks for WordPress to make it faster.

Now some of these are somewhat technical, but that's WordPress.org -- it's (free) software you (or someone you hire) need to download, install, and configure on to a Web host.

Again, WordPress.org is a great platform, as is TypePad which I use. I am NOT enamored however by WordPress.com -- more later on this topic.

WordPress.com Hoses DatingGoddess

WordPress.com is a free hosted blogging service (not to be confused with WordPress.org which is similar, but software you download/install/configure to your Web host).

Recently, they shut down the popular DatingGoddess, Adventures in Delicious Dating After 40 blog with NO warning! Now this is a very popular and well done legit blog.

Customer service (if you can call it that) was closed the next day, but eventually responding with "remove the ads and affiliate links." Now I've read the silly terms of service and don't see where the hell they were violated!

My suggestion? Stick to my favorite, TypePad (or WordPress.org or MoveableType or ExpressionEngine or . . .)

Looks like the (free) WordPress.com should be avoided, unless of course they apologize to my friend the DatingGoddess.

Hey, everyone makes mistakes, even the Dating Goddess -- otherwise no one would be reading about her dating adventures:)

Blogger.com blog hacked - what do you do?

What do you do if you have a hosted blog that gets hacked? For example if your content disappears and it gets replaced by a splog (a spam blog)?

This is exactly what happened to my friend Reg of Elemental Truths. His Blogger.com blog was suddenly replaced by a bunch of political garbage.

Well, if this blog was hacked, TypePad.com does have support. But sometimes you get what you pay with, and with free Google owned Blogger.com it's very hard to even find where to send a support request, question, or plea for help.

Eventually Reg got his blog back -- the story in his words follow, and later this week we'll post how to protect your blog from terrible events like this one.

It was a sultry day. The air was host and thick with humidity. Distant thunderstorms sent little circular ripples, crashing minute breakers against the glass wall of my iced tea.

I had heard the weather was worse out west. The storms had spawned rolling black outs up and down the west coast. Even the techno-jockey fortresses which housed the accumulated work, sweat and tears of thousands of bloggers from around the world were falling over like so many delicately stacked dominoes.

Then it came. The message. It took the form of an email, cryptic and compelling.

Blogger.com update ready

Blogger.com is extremely popular blogging software with a bad rap. Although it's owned by Google, it's pretty backwards and missing some basic functionality (like categories and reliability!).

I use Blogger for my original blog, The Ted Rap, and previously reviewed Blogger and rated it "Almost Recommended."

It needed two things to move to recommended status:

ExpressionEngine Blog Software Review: Highly Recommended

PMachines ExpressionEngine is an impressive package and its users are every bit as evangelistic as WordPress users, and with good reason.

It is extremely flexible solution and includes far more functionality than a pure blogging package. It could be described more accurately as a Content Management System that does blogs extremely well.

Movable Type Blog Software Review: Highly Recommended

Movable Type is very similar to, but not exactly the same as, TypePad (reviewed here, highly recommended) since they are based on the same codebase.

It's a non-hosted solution unlike TypePad -- you download it to a Web server and configure it.

It is widely used and respected, and it is extremely popular, powerful, and flexible.  Movable Type has lots of different versions available: several personal versions including a free unsupported one, and commercial, educational, and not-for-profit versions.

Windows Live Spaces Hosted Blog Service: Great for Some

Windows Live Spaces, formerly MSN Spaces, a great writeup from Alfred Thompson - Thanks Alfred!

Windows Live Spaces formerly called MSN Spaces is either a blogging service or a social networking service depending on who you ask. It has blogs though and there is no doubt about that. It also offers a raft of other features some of which are interesting to business bloggers and others are more of a distraction to business but are attractive to recreational or social bloggers. Windows Live Spaces allows for a wide range of customization so different users can make their sites look and behave very differently.

Sites and tools like WordPress, Blogger and Movable Type allow a lot of customization by providing access to the raw HTML that controls the look and feel of each blog. That is great is you are an HTML wizard or want to hire one. On the other hand, if you don’t want to spend that money and you are not interested in controlling every little feature the customization in Windows Live Spaces is probably going to do just fine for you.

LiveJournal Hosted Blog Service Review: Not Recommended

LiveJournal is a great blogging platform with nice social networking features but not suitable for most business blogging applications.

LiveJournal users are rabid fans and many think it's suitable for everything, but the thought of a Fortune 500 company using it borders on ludicrous.

WordPress.org Blog Software Review: Highly Recommended

I earlier reviewed the free hosted version of WordPress,WordPress.com (recommended).

The non-hosted version, as in you download it to a Web server and configure it, is available from WordPress.org. Most of the "in-crowd" recommends WordPress, and with good reason. It's free, stable, there are hundreds of free software plug-ins and extensions available, and an active support community.

WordPress runs on most platforms that support the MySQL database and PHP, a widely available and popular open source programming language.

It's a great platform, and it's fans have an almost religious fervor! Maybe it's open source heritage has something to do with that.

Non technical folks may not be comfortable downloading/installing/configuring WordPress. although it's not difficult. Some hosting providers advertise "one click install" for WordPress - anyone have experience with any of these??

WordPress.com Hosted Blog Service Review: Recommended

WordPress.com is a fairly new free hosted blogging service. It's based on the WordPress.org public domain software, the difference being that you don't need a host to download and configure software. The hosting is free and the software is already setup.

WordPress.com blogs are hosted at blogname.wordpress.com -- currently there are no other options. This is a significant limitation for some people; your WordPress.com blog cannot be hosted on your Web site or on a dedicated domain.

There are not many options for look and feel today -- just a handful. Hey, it's new and options will no doubt increase in time.

So, why is just "recommended" instead of "highly recommended?" It's just too new and doesn't have a track record yet or the features and flexibility of something like TypePad -- yet. WordPress.org is a different beast, although based on the same software, and will be reviewed soon.

Blogger.com Update Coming

Looks like the Blogger.com blogging platform is about to have a substantial (and overdue) update, according to Blogger Buzz.

Unfortunately looks like they have not added categories (which they NEED) and trackbacks (which they should have).

It's in Beta now and adds functionality to:

• Categorize your posts with labels
• Control who can read your blog
• Change the appearance and content of your blog with your mouse instead of HTML

My original review of Blogger.com is here

Top 10 Blogging Tools The Blog Squad Uses

Denise and Patsi, the Blog Squad, list the top 10 blogging tools they use.

This list includes the following that I use myself:

• TypePad - this is a TypePad blog
• Feedblitz - for delivering blog posts by email. Use it on The Ted Rap, and lots of my clients LOVE it too
• Pingoat - lets blog directories know when you've updated your blog
• Feedburner - couldn't live without it. How else would I track my feed readers?
• Google - yes, currently #1, and for good reason

I'm not familiar with all the rest, but will certainly be checking them out!

Blogger.com Hosted Blog Service Review: Almost Recommended

Blogger.com is an immensely popular and free hosted blogging service owned by Google.

It's not great, but it's not bad. It always seems to be lagging behind other platforms in features and it has not been very reliable lately, often not allowing users to post.

For example, it doesn't support TrackBacks, which essentially allow you to comment on someone else's post on your blog, and Categories, which allow you to organize posts by topic or category. There are hacks and add on services to add these to Blogger blogs.

Blogger.com blogs are hosted by default at blogname.blogspot.com, but you can configure Blogger to publish your blog anywhere. For example, my "home blog" The Ted Rap, a Blogger.com blog, resides at www.demop.com/TheTedRap.

TypePad Hosted Blog Service Review: Highly Recommended

TypePad is a very popular inexpensive hosted service used by this blog. Since there is no software to install or configure, you can have a basic blog up and running in ten minutes or so. Unlike some free options, there is support available (via email), which in general in very good. TypePad comes with a number of templates, or basic look-and-feels, so technical knowledge like HTML is not necessary

TypePad has a 30 day free trial, and then three inexpensive options:

• Basic Level: $4.95/month. This allows one blog, perfect for most people
• Plus Level: $8.95/month. Up to three blogs
• Pro Level: $14.95/month. Unlimited blogs, as well as multi-author blogs. This allows you to let other people to post to your blog. The Pro Level also allows you direct access to all HTML code so that blogs are fully customizable.

TypePad blogs are hosted at typepad.com and URLs have the default format blogname.typepad.com. The Plus and Pro Levels support domain forwarding (TypePad calls it "domain mapping"), so that your blog can appear to be hosted at your domain. For example bloggingforbusinessbook.com is actually hosted at teddemop.typepad.com.

Blogging Software Choices

There are many good choices for blogging software. Different platforms have different strengths and weaknesses, so your choice is important. It is possible to switch platforms mid-stream, but there are difficulties and you'll almost certainly lose something in the move, whether its comments, incoming links from other blogs, or something else.

Blogging software falls into two basic categories, hosted and non-hosted:

Typepad Hacks

I use Typepad for this blog. Typepad is simple to use hosted software (means nothing to install) that does a pretty awesome job, and I recommend it to lots of clients. It's cheap, pretty reliable, and works well. It has all the main features I want, something I can't say about all blogging software. Online (email) support is quite good, although it could use a manual as opposed to a bunch of help files.

TypePad Hacks is a new blog started by John T. Unger who says "I freakin' love TypePad." He's tried a number of other blog platforms and settled on TypePad, and has a number of TypePad blogs.

John hopes to collect useful TypePad hints (i.e. hacks) and provide a forum for TypePad users. He also wants to figure out what additional functionality TypePad users want, and then raise money and pay TypePad to implement them!

Here's what I'll call the TypePad Hacks Manifesto - the why? of the blog

Count me in John!
(thanks to Problogger for the heads up!)

TypePad Blog Outage

Two of my blogs were out last weekend for a while:

Blogging for Business and SantaBlog.org

Turns out that TypePad, one of the big players in the blog software (owned by SixApart), had serious problems. Now they have been having, and admitting, to growing pains, but this was a catastrophe. Not for me as Blogging for Business is a new blog with only 50 or so regular readers who probably wouldn't tend to read on the weekend, and SantaBlog.org is just something I'm playing with (a half-baked charity).

Many have defended TypePad -- I'm not going to. Neither shall I pick on them, after all I recently chose them because I like them.

However, blogging is no longer just a fun little thing we play with anymore. Blogging is a serious business tool for many, for example IBM, Microsoft, General Motors, and scores of others. Serious business tools need to be robust - which means stable and reliable.

Not everyone gets this. Lots of TypePad apologists. Seth Godin, although admitting frustration, and I'm a big fan of the Bald Dude (tm), says "The amazing thing . . . is that all this stuff works at all!" That's not enough!

I'm sure TypePad is not being soft on themselves. I'm sure they are horrified at what happened. Supposedly they were putting in redundancy to avoid catastrophes like this when it happened - look it up yourself, I'm tired :)

I'm betting on TypePad myself. Is Vegas taking bets on whether this will happen again? I'll bet on TypePad!

Blog Creation Details

We are using Typepad.com, a hosted service, for this blog.

I use Blogger.com for The Ted Rap and Shel uses Expression Engine for a shel of my former self, and we decided to use something different for this blog. Actually I'm lying: I decided and asked Shel if it was alright!

Typepad is pretty cool as well as widely used and well respected. It's basically a hosted version of Movable Type. No, they are not exactly the same, but they're both owned by Six Apart.

The actual URL for this blog is http://teddemop.typepad.com/blogging_for_business/, but we wanted it to show up as bloggingforbusinessbook.com, so we used something called "Domain Forwarding." This involves a few simple configurations in Typepad, and some DNS configuration at my DNS Registrar, Dotster. Dotster charged me $10 a year for "DNS Management" to allow me to do this, which seems fair to me. I wouldn't necessarily recommend messing with DNS changes at 2AM after a couple of drinks, but hey it works for me!

We also considered using the open source Wordpress for this blog as well Radio UserLand. In the end Typepad won because it's perhaps a bit simpler - I also set it up one night recently a bit after midnite, this time without a couple of drinks.

The Blogging for Business Blog is far from entirely setup yet - don't even have Shel's picture in the sidebar yet! That's not fair to Shel, so here is his mugshot.

So far I'm pretty happy with Typepad! I've not done much with it before, although I have some client's who are very happy with it. Still a lot to learn . . .