Tech Life

Unlisted Typepad Features

There will be some inane debate regarding the Typepad Feature List and what FEATURE X is in PLUS PACKGE while FEATURE Y is in PRO PACKAGE. Fact of the matter is, there are, at least, two features in all of the packages which make the Typepad service superior to anything I’ve tried.

Speed. I’ve got the most recent version of Movabletype install on a variety of different pieces of hardware. While the performance of the applications varies from machine to machine, it’s a generally slow experience. Until Typepad showed up, the speed of MT was fine with me. I did most of the work for the weblog OUTSIDE of the weblog and used MT simply for posting, minor, edits, and template tweaks.

Typepad (at least in it’s BETA form) is fast… really fast. Waiting for the software to complete your last action is a thing of the past and that simple fact transforms the user experience. Typepad becomes a sophisticated weblog dashboard as opposed to a useful conduit for publishing.

The other unlisted feature is usability. Six Apart is clearly thinking of a specific spectrum of end user as their design presents a simple, useful interface which scales from sophisticated new users to power uses with ease. If you think this is easy to do, I ask you to take a look at the administration interface for any competing services and compare against Typepad.

Fortunately, Six Apart has not lowered the usability bar to the level of the AOL user and, personally, I’m glad. While brain-dead-weblogging probably means more cash money in the door, Six Apart continues to target the moderately sophisticated user and that means the voice of the Typepad community won’t sound like lunch time at highschool.

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9 Responses

  1. Andrew 21 years ago

    Wow, it’s great to see I’m not the only one with some degree of animosity towards Livejournal.

  2. tito 21 years ago

    I played with livejournal a little, but I found it had *too many* options, and wasn’t nearly as handy as a scrap of paper to vent my angstyness and general animosity towards the idiots I deal with every day.

  3. sungo 21 years ago

    and for the AOL users, we have AOL journals. i’ve played with them and they are super easy and fairly featureful. each to their own.

  4. rands 21 years ago

    I’ve been regretting the “lunchtime at high school” since I wrote it. This is mostly due to the fact I’ve got several REAL LIVE FRIENDS who use LiveJournal and REALLY AREN’T TWITS.

    I will say that the medium defines the message and, for whatever reason, the tools/format/look’n’feel that LiveJournal uses for their default sites look like a teenage after school project. Yes, I know you can completely alter the look to your own, but MOST PEOPLE ARE LAZY which means most LiveJournal sites look like each other and that is a look of… well… high school.

    OK NOW I FEEL BETTER.

  5. Eliza 21 years ago

    DOS FOREVER (ALSO NUTS, SOUP HURRRRR)

  6. Eliza 21 years ago

    Actually, what we need is a way to back up all our LJ entries automatically. I’d switch, but I’ve had the LJ for so many years now that I’d be losing a vast amount of material.

    Frankly, since my LJ feeds into an iframe on my site now, I wonder if it really matters (NUTS).

    Will these blogging programs e-mail me when I receive replies?

  7. TheNintenGenius 21 years ago

    When I switched to LiveJournal, my biggest problem was “YOU CAN’T CUSTOMIZE THIS BASTARD WORTH A SHIT UNLESS YOU PAY MONEY?! I SHOULD’VE STUCK WITH PITAS!”

    However, I soon discovered that the biggest coup LiveJournal has is the whole community thing. The Friends page is (if you don’t have many LiveJournal friends) the best feature I could’ve ever concieved, as it’s one stop shopping to figure out exactly what your friends are doing or writing about. Granted, RSS feeds could be implemented, but I’ve never been comfortable with RSS and have never been able to find a reader worth two shits in the first place.

    The biggest problem with LiveJournal other than its cookie-cutter templates (you can change colors within the templates but that’s about it unless you pay money) is the fact that most people use it to angst, and I could/should be accused of the same. Generally, if I have something noteworthy to say, I put it on my site. If I have something dumb and personal to say that doesn’t belong on the site HURF BLUH LIVEJOURNAL TIME. This gives people the impression, perhaps, that I’m a whiny little prick, but that’s the price I’m willing to pay to just be able to write about whatever I feel like whenever I feel like it.

    If I had the money, I’d try the thing you just linked though, Rands. Despite LiveJournal’s advantages, I still find the disadvantages a bit much for me to really enjoy things.

  8. TheNintenGenius 21 years ago

    Since the link up above apparently didn’t work, I’ll place it here:

    http://www.pitas.com

    It’s a blogging service that, while its layouts can tend to suffer a tad from HTML bloat and is somewhat less user-friendly than LiveJournal, allows for a pretty good amount of flexibility in the design of your individual blog. I used Pitas as a pseudo-website of sorts until I actually got webspace, just to give an example.

  9. Carole 21 years ago

    Okay…so yeah, I have a livejournal. And you’re right that it gives NO room for personal individualization. The layouts SUCK. And I’m HTML illiterate, so…finding layouts for livejournal isn’t too easy. I’ve been to that infliction.net place, but her layouts freeze up my computer. I’ve been to the Punk’d Boards looking for places to get Livejournal layouts and help. *sticks out toungue and gives the thumbs down* NUTHIN. Anyway…if you can help, I’d be forever in your debt!