Six Apart News & Events

Announcing the TypePad Platform and TypePad Motion

2009-10-01T06:37:17Z

It was almost 8 years ago today that Ben and Mena Trott released Movable Type and helped spark the blogging explosion that followed. Before that time, personal web publishing was largely difficult and expensive, but with MT and the great software and services that followed from Six Apart and others, web publishing became much more accessible and, as a result, social. Today we are announcing some major steps in Six Apart’s continuing mission to make web publishing more accessible and social: the TypePad Platform and TypePad Motion, a new open-source software social application.

The TypePad Platform

In 2003, Six Apart launched TypePad, which quickly became and remains the leading premium hosted blogging service. According to comScore, Six Apart is the leader in the blog category in the US and reaches over 183M unique visitors per month around the world - that’s bigger than MySpace - and TypePad is the cornerstone of Six Apart’s hosted services.

In the last year we’ve rebuilt TypePad from the ground up and introduced social networking features such as profiles, following, microblogging, and status updates to our bloggers. We've invested in making TypePad the most secure, stable, scalable and social blogging platform, but until now the only way to use it was through TypePad.com. Today we are very pleased to announce the launch of the TypePad Platform, where any developer, blogger, publisher, or corporation can use the TypePad “cloud” through our open APIs.

Cloud services didn’t exist in 2001 the way they do today, but now services from Amazon and others make building and launching new web sites much easier and less expensive by providing infrastructure level “cloud” services. Users of Flickr, Facebook and Twitter have transformed the internet by sharing their media and building relationships online, in part because of the flexibility of experiences that those platforms' API have enabled.

We hope to take cloud computing a step further with the TypePad Platform with this “smart cloud” service - combining the flexibility of infrastructure-focused services with the building blocks of our social application platform. Our platform enables developers to use structured object, like blogs, posts, comments, people, activities, groups, and tags, to quickly and inexpensively build next generation social applications on a reliable, secure, and scalable platform.

That all may be a bit too much jargon, I realize, so the bottom line is this: cloud services are transforming how web sites and social applications are being built, and we want to help move this trend forward by opening up TypePad’s APIs. We hope to dramatically lower barriers for those trying to get started on a shoestring to build the next Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

For larger publishers and Internet businesses, we see the TypePad Platform as new way to incorporate blogs and social networking into their sites - offering an alternative to completely local software solutions or completely hosted SaaS solutions. With the TypePad Platform, publishers can use the presentation layer and templates of their choice - be it via MT, PHP, Django, Java, etc. - while not having to install and support an expensive back end.

For personal bloggers and TypePad users, opening up our APIs means that TypePad will be built into applications that will help the bloggers and their readers, paving the way for more applications that enhance TypePad functionality. For our larger TypePad customers it opens up a large set of possibilities about how they can integrate their TypePad blogs into their existing web sites. For our Movable Type and Six Apart Services clients, this opens up many more ways that TypePad can be used in conjunction with, rather than an alternative to, Movable Type or other installed blogging platforms.

The TypePad Developer Program

To help folks get started using the TypePad Platform, we’ve launched the TypePad Developer Program to provide developers with a free beta version, or Developer Preview, of the TypePad API, available today. Commercial versions of the TypePad Platform will come later, but the TypePad API for developers is free. Developers will find documentation, a forum, mailing list and group where they can get their questions answered quickly at developer.typepad.com.

TypePad Motion

To show what the TypePad Platform can do, today we are announcing and open sourcing TypePad Motion as the inaugural open source application built by Six Apart for the TypePad platform. Typepad Motion is a microblogging app evolved from the Pownce codebase & community, It’s written in Python using the Django framework, making it extremely easy to build and customize. It’s a great example of how developers can use TypePad for the heavy lifting without sacrificing the flexibility and control of an entirely separate presentation layer, like Django, to maintain templates and build pages.

A TypePad Motion site is a place where members come together to share notes, files, photos, videos and audio with others and featured users can aggregate all of their activity around the web onto the TypePad Motion site, keeping their fans or followers up-to-date on their activities. Several celebrities have integrated TypePad Motion sites into their branded websites, such as Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes) and Ryan Star.

For more information about TypePad Motion, please visit typepad.com/go/motion.

This opens up a new chapter for TypePad and Six Apart, and it’s just a start. The TypePad Platform is new and now primarily for developers who wish to preview and test the service. We’d love your feedback. It is Six Apart’s continuing mission to dramatically reduce the cost and time to market while increasing the capability and scalability in building social applications. We’re hoping to make web publishing even more accessible and social and we hope you will join us.

The Rap On Social Media with MC Hammer at Harvard This Month

2009-08-18T23:13:14Z

We're pleased to announce that Six Apart is a Media Sponsor for the next Gravity Summit Social Media Marketing for Business Conference, which will be held at the Harvard Faculty Club on August 31. Multiplatinum selling entertainer and Twitter personality MC Hammer is the keynote speaker, promising to educate and entertain as he illustrates the benefits of social media to a massive brand.

We are offering members of the Six Apart community a discount to the conference (standard price is $489, Six Apart price is $329), which will also include presentations from social media practitioners of Southwest Airlines, Dunkin Donuts, CNN, Domino's, and the American Red Cross. The indefatigable Gary Vaynerchuk, of Wine Library TV fame, will also keynote.

Can't make it to Harvard on the 31st? That's ok. The summit will be streamed live by CNN.com/Live, the Internet's only multi-stream live video news service, from 9 am Eastern.

Gravity Summit events help bridge the gap between the new Social Media Marketing tools and the business community, by educating and informing marketing professionals, small business owners, advertisers, C-Level executives, and others, about the exciting new marketing and communications landscape that is evolving daily.

We've attended past Gravity Summits at Stanford University and UC Irvine, and have found that people actually practicing social media inside companies are more willing to speak at an education-oriented conference than at a typical industry conference. The presentation quality is high and authentic, as is the discussion. We recommend the experience.

We hope you'll take advantage of this discount, attend the conference, and learn more about social media, or tune in to the live stream at 9 am on the day of - August 31.

Question of the Day Comes to TypePad

2009-06-19T00:09:05Z

One of the things we love most about blogging is the community it builds. One blog post can create a dialogue across the web that features divergent opinions, thoughtful comments and a real sense of conversation.

The Question of the Day on Vox has helped us spark some of those conversations amongst bloggers who might otherwise suffered from a case of writer’s block. Because we’ve seen such great success with the Vox QotD, we decided to introduce the same feature to TypePad. We are really excited to see how this new feature inspires creativity amongst TypePad bloggers and their loyal readers.

Learn more about the TypePad Question of the Day in the FAQ and let us know if you have a question you’d like to ask!

If your question is chosen, we will publish it, along with a “submitted by” message and a link to your blog. It’s a great way to connect with bloggers, and also to get more readers to your blog. Please keep in mind that QotDs should appeal to a wide audience and should be no more than 95 characters.

You can send your submissions for QotDs to qotd@typepad.com.

Enter the “Green by Design” Contest!

2009-06-02T21:32:45Z

In April, we told you about our partnership with One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco, and our Green Badge program designed to encourage everyone to go green, one act at a time. We promised that when the Green Badges received 100,000 impressions across the blogosphere, Six Apart would donate $1000 to The Climate Project. Less than six weeks after that post, we surpassed our 100,000 goal by nearly two million impressions. Needless to say: a check is in the mail to The Climate Project!

So many of you adopted the Green Badges that we designed, we couldn’t help but wonder… What if we asked YOU to create an earth-friendly badge? After all, our bloggers are some of the most creative and eco-friendly out there and who better than you to spread the message that when we all do one act, we act as one, and help the planet? No one!

That’s why Six Apart partnered with One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco to create the “Green by Design” contest. To enter, all you have to do is create a Green Badge with an earth-friendly design and/or message. One winner will be chosen each week in June and that person’s badge will be available on EverythingTypePad for people to put on their blogs, and will appear on blogs all across Six Apart Media’s advertising platform. Plus, when the badges receive a million impressions, Six Apart will donate another $1000 to The Climate Project.

Visit EverythingTypePad for all the details on how you can enter the “Green by Design” contest.

And don’t forget to record your Acts of Green on the One Million Acts of Green website. Because together, we are making a difference.

Social Media Tips from a True Pro

2009-05-21T18:54:03Z

Lauren Kozak, Social Media Director for Britney Spears, recently stopped by our San Francisco offices and shared her views about how corporations can use social media to grow their brands and engage with customers in meaningful ways.

We enjoyed her talk so much that we videotaped some of her advice to share with you.

Lauren's advice is the real thing - it not only comes from her current experience creating social media success for one of the biggest brands in the world, but also from her pre-Britney Spears work as a social media advisor to corporations when the medium was still in its infancy.

We hope you find Lauren's insights helpful. Let us know what you think!

Comcast joins the Conversation

2009-05-04T04:24:06Z

Comcast’s digital approach to customer support has certainly attracted a lot of positive media attention recently, from both mainstream and online outlets. What a contrast from a year ago, when a video of a Comcast repairman who accidentally dozed off on a customer's couch made the rounds in snickering blogs and emails. Congratulations to the Comcast team for starting to steer a very large ship away from a potentially endless negative current.

Check out the BusinessWeek article that covers a Twitter-ful afternoon with director of digital care Frank Eliason. Or the report by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington a few weeks ago of getting frustrated on the phone with Comcast customer support, only to find that a simple Tweet would deliver a solution to his problem in minutes.

Considering the company’s success on Twitter, it’s not surprising that they are augmenting their social media strategy by adding a blog to encourage longer-than-140-character conversations between customers and employees about all things Comcast.

The blog is called ComcastVoices, and it’s on Movable Type. It was launched just five weeks ago, and already the conversations are proving to be lively, informative, and respectful.

Let the folks at Comcast tell you directly what they’d like to achieve with the site:

For you marketing and customer support pros out there who might find the idea of such openness with customers a little daunting, here are a few things to note about the blog:

Comcast can set the tone and keep the conversation productive because this is their platform.

The “Rules of the Road” define expected behavior for the site. It’s very clear that comments are moderated by Comcast and that only polite, on-topic and respectful comments will be accepted.
The “About” page tells customers what they can expect from the blog, and refers them elsewhere for their personal support issues while encouraging them to tell Comcast directly what’s important to them.

You can see the negative comments of some customers turning positive as they engage in conversation with employees. For customers, simply being heard goes a long way.

It’s hard to view Comcast as a monolithic, monopolistic behemoth when you see and hear from employees and executives directly.

As we mentioned, the blog is still young, so we wish Comcast as much success with it as they’ve had with their Twitter account. And we hope that other companies will be inspired to open up new conversations with their customers in the same way.

Welcome, Comcast!

One Million Acts of Green & Cisco Partner with Six Apart to Make the World a Greener Place

2009-04-22T21:03:55Z

Earth Day was founded to inspire awareness and appreciation for our environment, and while today might be the official Earth Day, at Six Apart, we believe that every day is new opportunity to help make our planet clean and healthy. That’s why we’ve partnered with Cisco to promote the One Million Acts of Green website.

One Million Acts of Green is a collaborative environmental campaign encouraging everyone to go green one act at a time. The goal? One million acts of green. Because, as we all know, we’re more powerful together than we can ever be apart.

That’s where you—our bloggers and readers—come in. We’ve come up with a few easy ways to inspire you to help the planet because we truly believe that every act of green makes a difference.

Here’s how you can do your part:

1. Adopt a Green Badge for Your Blog & Six Apart Will Donate $1000 to The Climate Project

We created four Green Badges for you to choose from. Each badge links to the One Million Acts of Green, brought to you by Cisco website. By putting a badge on your blog, you’ll not only be spreading the message of the importance of going green, you’ll be participating in an environmental campaign that will impact the world forever.

Plus, when the badges receive 100,000 impressions across the blogosphere, Six Apart will donate $1000 to The Climate Project.

Visit Everything TypePad to learn how to add a Green Badge to your blog.

2. Add the Million Acts of Green Widget to Your Blog

Learn and share tips and advice to help make the world a greener place with the One Million Acts of Green widget. In addition, you can track the total acts of green being performed as well as the greenhouse gases saved as a result of those acts.

Get the Million Acts of Green Widget Now.

3. Answer today’s QotD on Blogs.com

How could you better “green” your life? What’s holding you back?

Read what other people are saying, get new ideas, and share your thoughts at Blogs.com.

4. Visit the One Million Acts of Green Website

Change can start with one person. One action. One million acts of green. Visit the One Million Acts of Green website and register your acts of green.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post and for doing your part. Because when we all do one act, we act as one, and help the planet. And that is what today, and every day, should be about.

Six Apart Hosts Online Seminar: Strategic Social Media in a Customer-Driven World

2009-04-21T13:19:37Z

Update 4/29: Thank you for the comments on the seminar. If you missed the seminar, you can view the recording here. Please have a look and let us know what you think.

Update: Thanks to the hundreds of you who attended the seminar. Please leave a comment and tell us what you thought. Or please fill out our survey here. We'll post the link to the recording as soon as it is ready. Thanks!

This morning at 10 am Pacific we’ll host a seminar for marketers that looks at how companies can easily and quickly join their customers online in conversation. We’ll show many examples of companies that are already building their brands, nurturing relationships with customers, increasing sales and cutting costs through social media. The seminar will be led by Anil Dash, Chief Evangelist for Six Apart. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so here.

After the seminar, please check back here to get the link to a recording of the event and to discuss the content. We’re interested in your experience with social media in marketing.

National Geographic Partners with Six Apart

2009-04-03T21:16:00Z

For years, the goings-on inside Guantanamo Bay were a closely held government secret. Now, for the first time, National Geographic exclusively captures what life is like in one of the world's most famous prisons in the television show "Inside Guantanamo."

In order to create interest and engagement around this controversial subject, Six Apart Media spent this week asking relevant questions on Vox, LiveJournal and Blogs.com. Bloggers have been weighing in on everything from which food they'd miss most if they were sent to prison to whether or not the prisoners in the War on Terror should be protected by the Geneva Conventions.

It's not too late for you to weigh in on these topics. Join the conversation at Blogs.com.

And be sure to tune in to "Inside Guantanamo" on the National Geographic Channel this Sunday at 9 p.m. to learn more about what life on the inside is really like.

Thinking Ahead with Six Apart

2009-04-01T21:21:00Z

It's been about a year since we announced the launch of Six Apart Services and Six Apart Media and our new role as a full-service blogging company. These days, Six Apart provides just about everything bloggers, publishers and companies need to achieve success: great technology, personalized services and innovative advertising. As always, our community and customers tell the story better than we ever could. Take the University of Phoenix, which approached us to build Think Ahead California, a new political action site focusing on the issues surrounding the upcoming workforce shortage in California. Their smart and thoughtful ideas were hugely inspiring, but we were also excited because we knew that the combination of technology, services and media that we offer at Six Apart these days was perfect for the job.

The University of Phoenix wanted to create a community where people could contribute and join in a conversation that would really make a difference. And providing a home for that conversation helps University demonstrate how they'll be a key player in the economic future of California. Pulling off something this ambitious would need all three of the capabilities that Six Apart offers.

Think Ahead California was designed, developed and implemented on Movable Type by our Six Apart Services team in New York. In order to drive the right traffic to the site, our Six Apart Media team developed a strategy that builds on our connections to our platforms and to influential bloggers. Custom ad units featuring topical "Think Ahead California" blog posts and an interactive polling widget with content from the site were just a few of the innovative solutions they came up with. And the experience was kept completely consistent across display and email advertising, too.

We're extremely pleased with the final product, and even happier that we are helping the University of Phoenix raise awareness about the looming workforce crisis in California. It all goes to show that when an important cause harnesses the power of great technology, services and media, amazing things can happen. Get in touch, and we'll find out together how we can help you succeed online too.

Skittles: The biggest social network is the web itself

2009-03-04T18:57:03Z

For the past few days, the arresting new design of the website for Skittles candy has sparked a pretty interesting conversation. There have been a ton of responses, covering what the company has done well (embracing what their community is doing across the social web) and what they've done poorly (making a candy site that forces kids to pass an age check before they can view it). And the company's gotten loads of free press for making a few smart choices with their new site.

At Six Apart, we have a lot of experience helping big brands embrace the social web with social technologies like blogging and community websites. Our perspective is that Skittles has the right idea, but has missed fulfilling the full potential of their ideas because they don't yet have the right tools for the job. Fortunately, that's a problem we can help fix.

We've been thinking for a while about how to make connected social sites that work across many different social networks. Our friends at Modernista, known for being one of the more forward-looking agencies around, adopted something similar to Skittles.com's hybrid of sites as their company website about a year ago. And of course, thousands of bloggers have an "About Me" site or page that says "here's how to find me on various social networks" with links to their Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. So the idea of connecting various networks together has been floating around, though there's been no good way for most people to actually build a site using these ideas.

A few weeks ago, we introduced the Laws of Motion, the principles behind our upcoming social platform Motion, built on Movable Type. A few of the ideas we mentioned then are particularly relevant to the new Skittles.com site.

The biggest online social network is the internet itself. Skittles obviously gets this — instead of targeting one social network for their efforts, they've tried to connect to a broad set of networks.
Reveal the community you already have. Again, Skittles understands that they shouldn't try to make their own community from scratch. Instead of competing with the big social networks, they tried to connect to their community wherever those people are already active.
Your social network belongs under your control. This is the one where Skittles.com comes up short. Letting your community share in ownership or control of your brand does not require completely abdicating control over your company homepage.

As you might expect, we think that we have the tools to make these kinds of sites possible. But it's not just about technology: we've also learned some terrific lessons from our Six Apart Media team, which helps a wide variety of brands connect in an intelligent way with their community across the web. As a result, Motion combines our experience with software and our expertise in social media, and is actually designed specifically to let a brand or publisher connect these networks together while still having total control over the design and 100% approval over what content appears on the site.

If you look closely, you'll see that Skittles uses YouTube to power video on its site, Flickr for photos, and Twitter for updates. Motion has support for aggregating all of these services, built right in. Even better, Motion has dozens of other social networks as well, so that a brand like Skittles can aggregate its community's ideas from all of these social networks on its site, no matter where the conversations takes place.

Skittles.com reveals a few clear lessons, which we're already working with our customers to build on:

Instead of merely saying "our brand has to have a Facebook page!" or "Why isn't our company on Twitter?" smart marketers are realizing the only way to be successful online is to combine all of the different networks together.
Empowering your customers and community to feel like they own your brand does not mean that you have to completely give up control over what people see when they come to your website.
A smart way to look at what people are saying about your brand online is as a starting point for a conversation that can continue on your own site, not as the end of the story.

What are you doing to help your brand adapt to this new era of social media? Get in touch with us and let us know.

Six Apart Media: Solutions for Bloggers and Advertisers

2009-02-10T17:44:18Z

Last April, we launched Six Apart Media, our innovative advertising program that helps make bloggers and advertisers successful.

Today’s bloggers are savvy, outspoken and influential, inspiring a record number of people to join conversations throughout the social web. We’re happy to report that to date, Six Apart Media reaches over 2.4 million of these influential bloggers with more than 85.5 million engaged readers. Since our launch, we’ve had some incredibly talented bloggers join our advertising program, including:

Most recently, we’ve been hard at work on a campaign for Nature Made, who asked us to help inspire people to share their stories of greatness. Since we know how much bloggers love sharing and because we believe that each of us has a personal story of greatness to tell, this was a campaign we couldn’t wait to kick off.

You can share your story of greatness by answering today’s QotD on Vox, LiveJournal and within your TypePad profile. If you don’t have an account with any of those services, don’t worry, anyone can answer the Question of the Day on Blogs.com! Once you’ve answered, be sure to submit your story on the Nature Made website. You could win $1,000 and appear in the Nature Made “Fuel Your Greatness” documentary.

With so many great bloggers and advertisers on board, we are very excited for what the future holds. Are you ready to join the conversation? Whether you're a blogger who wants to generate income from your blog, or an advertiser looking for creative ways to reach your target audience, we have a solution for you.

Visit Six Apart Advertising to learn more.

Six Apart Announces Support for Parallel’s APS Format, Providing Wider Availability of Movable Type through Global Hosting Providers

2009-02-04T18:17:57Z

Signs First Movable Type APS Package Agreement with Datagram

San Francisco, CA - February 4, 2009 - Six Apart, the world's leading blogging software and services company, today announced the availability of Movable Type through hosting providers who support the Parallels’ Application Packaging Standard (APS) format. Now any size organization can purchase Movable Type via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, making it easier than ever to get a social website up and running on Movable Type. Datagram, the Internet Network Services Company, is the first hosting provider to sign a formal agreement to use the APS format of Movable Type.

Six Apart made the announcement at the 2009 Parallels Summit, the premier hosting conference currently taking place in Las Vegas, where it is an exhibitor and two of its executives are speaking. Ed Anuff, EVP and GM of Movable Type and Six Apart Services, and Michael Sippey, VP of Product Strategy, are participating on panels during the three-day conference.

“We are committed to making it easier than ever to build a rich, interactive website on the Movable Type platform, and this is one more step in that direction. By supporting the APS format, we can provide end users and hosting providers with the best social media platform available,” said Ed Anuff. “Now partners like Datagram can generate additional revenue by bundling Movable Type with other services while end users can use Movable Type on an on-demand basis with confidence that they will have the most up-to-date version of Movable Type in a high quality environment.”

The APS format, which was designed by Parallels, enables hosting providers to efficiently provision and install Movable Type on their existing infrastructure using a standard “socket” for APS applications. As an APS-compliant application, Movable Type is compatible with Parallels’ Plesk control panel and Virtuozzo containers.

In an increasingly competitive market, hosting providers can differentiate their service offerings with Movable Type to retain existing customers, attract new clients, and generate additional revenue per user. Movable Type’s blogging and content management capabilities, built-in social and community features, powerful administration and analytics tools, and proven security track record make Movable Type a premium addition to any hosting service package.

“Movable Type will be a valuable addition to our wide range of dedicated hosting options,” said Alex Reppen, CEO of Datagram. “We understand the vital role blogs play on the web and with Movable Type available in APS format and our experience in hosting, a partnership to provide a hosted Movable Type solution made a lot of sense.”

Hosting providers interested in learning more about Movable Type partnership opportunities can contact Six Apart by visiting movabletype.com/services/partners/signup.

About Datagram
Datagram is the Internet Solutions Company that enables clients to efficiently leverage the Internet to achieve their objectives by providing highly reliable network and datacenter-based services, such as Dedicated Hosting, Internet Access, Colocation and Disaster Recovery. With over fifteen years experience in designing networks and server environments, Datagram operates state-of-the-art network and datacenter facilities in the New York metropolitan area, with additional points of service in Connecticut and California. Datagram is committed to optimal customer support and first-in-class technology so customers can focus on growing their business while Datagram takes care of the rest. Datagram: Internet Solutions Made Simple. To simplify your company’s Internet solutions, please visit www.datagram.com.

About Movable Type
Movable Type is Six Apart's flagship blog software product, launched in 2001. Today, this robust social publishing platform powers many of the websites and blogs of the world's largest media companies and Fortune 100 businesses, small and medium sized businesses, and power bloggers. Movable Type is a fully integrated, scalable, proven social publishing platform upon which to build highly interactive websites, blogs and social networks. For more information please visit www.movabletype.com.

About Six Apart
Six Apart Ltd. provides award-winning blogging software and services that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and corporations connect and communicate around the world every day. The company provides the Movable Type social publishing platform, the TypePad premier hosted blogging service, Vox, a free blogging service for friends and families, advertising solutions for leading brands and influential bloggers, and a wide range of services dedicated to help bloggers thrive in today’s social media landscape. Founded in 2001, Six Apart is a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco, and offices in Tokyo, Paris and New York City. For more information, visit the Six Apart corporate web site at www.sixapart.com.

Media Contact
Six Apart
Jane Anderson
650-440-0540

Gothamist: Up To Date

2009-01-19T20:19:02Z

We're always proud of the work done by our experts at Six Apart Services, but it's especially gratifying when we personally benefit from the work we do with our clients. For example, we've been friends with the Gothamist team since they started, and have marveled over the years as they've grown into the most established and innovative network of local blogs on the web. While Gothamist's team did all the heavy lifting, it was still exciting to back them up on an ambitious and thoughtful redesign that launched at the end of last year. That redesign wasn't just skin deep; The site now takes smart advantage of the rich social features built in to Movable Type Pro.

But it wasn't until last week's heroic landing of US Air flight 1549 in the Hudson River that we got a great reminder of just how much Gothamist means to use as a definitive source of local news. The Gothamist post about the ditched plane wasn't just one of the first detailed stories, it was also one of the most frequently-updated. Dozens of people used the recommendation feature built into MT Pro to make it the most-recommended story on the site, and dozens more chimed in with their comments on the thread. And since our Six Apart Services team is headquartered in New York City, this was a great reminder of how much important reporting our clients do.

The truth is, blogs and social media being among the first to break big news stories is, well... old news. The more significant thing here is that this was a demonstrated success of a well-regarded network of blogs doing what it does best — serving its community in a personal and approachable way, right when they need information the most. So If you haven't done so lately, check out your own city's Gothamist site, and if you want to get the best team in the business backing your efforts, drop our Services team a line. If it isn't obvious, we pride ourselves on keeping a real, personal connection to the projects we collaborate on with our clients.

TypePad Connects to Google, AOL, Yahoo! and more

2009-01-14T21:42:15Z

If you've already tried out our recently launched commenting service via TypePad Connect, you know that we built in very basic support for OpenID sign in from the start. We did this because we know that just as the future of traditional media wasn't a small group of large publishers controlling all of the news, the future of the social web isn't a small group of large social networks controlling everyone's identity. Today we've made it even easier for anyone to sign in, leave a comment, and have a TypePad Profile (see mine) without having to know their OpenID URL or even what OpenID is.

The TypePad Connect team has now explicitly added support to sign in using your Vox, Google, Yahoo!, Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress.com, or AOL account in addition to your TypePad username and password. This small change means that any blog using TypePad Connect powered comments now has over a half a billion people who can sign in - thus no longer being anonymous - just by clicking a button in the case of Google and Yahoo! or entering their username on AOL, Vox, and the others.

And of course this same idea - bringing your existing identity with you - is built into Motion as well. Our latest application for Movable Type Pro shows off how, just like with TypePad Connect, there are now half a billion people who are able to log into your site, without even having to sign up for a new account.