In this article, PC World reports that Six Apart, maker of the blog tool Moveable Type, is now selling a developer's version of said tool. You can create your own plug-ins and require readers to register, thus ending comment-spam. Licenses support multiple authors and multiple blogs. The casual blogger, who just wants a Website of her own and 500 a year, might think these features to be a little extraneous, especially given the price. But the corporate blog user might find it very useful. Corporations have latched onto the blog phenomenon and use blogs as collaborative tools, as discussed in this entry of the Collaboration Cafe blog. [Link][comments?][Karma: 10 ( + / - )]
Since a blog is a tool to convey information, it's important to have your message understood by your readers so that they acquire the right information. webpronews.com shares some tips to help get your message across clearly and concisely. [Link][comments?][Karma: 10 ( + / - )]
Now you can give your blog's readers a quantifiable voice by adding QuestionPro questionnaire software to your blog. It automatically posts the results in a blog entry. I just conducted my own informal poll and 9 out of 10 Helens agree that this software could be very useful. [Link][1 comments][Karma: 12 ( + / - )]
Tonight I came across Blogmapper, which is a Web-based tool you can use to link your blog entries to points on an image of a map. One example they post is a blog that maps worlwide SARS cases (you'll need Flash Player 6 to view it). If you don't know the exact coordinates of the location, you can use the Blogmapper locator tool to generate a tag that specifies the coordinates and paste that tag into your blog. This could be really useful in rearch, like the SARs blog shows, for online travel journals, or any kind of journal that refers to physical spaces. You can create an online journal with multiple points of view about hurricane Isabel by giving posting access to other people located along the East Coast. I'm too tired to think of really innovated uses, but you get the idea. The more interesting (to me) aspect of Blogmapper is that you don't have to use images of maps. You can use any image at all; the Blogmapper tool creates a tag that specifies the image coordinates of the point you choose. I wonder about the kinds of blogs you can create with different images. Hypertext poets, writers, and artists have created works that navigate through image maps (like Deena Larson's Stained Word Window), but like blogging software, Blogmapper can potentially turn more people into hypertext poets by saving bloggers from having to create their own image map navigation system. |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||