Blog Development Tool Ships

Weblog tool company vendor Six Apart has released a developer edition of Movable Type, its blogging application, but will retain and continue to enhance its shareware edition as well.

New functions in Movable Type 3.0 include more security and control over reader comments, such as requiring registration. It also provides a plug-in architecture so developers can more easily craft add-ons.

Through a single login option, users can sign in once to make comments on multiple blogs, if the blogs are created with Movable Type or support its TypeKey Authentication Service, whose specs Six Apart is making public, say cofounders Mena and Ben Trott.

Six Apart plans to offer a general release of Movable Type within two months, when it will also announce winners of its add-on development contest.

Configurations, Pricing

Until this year, Six Apart's blog tools were marketed with a shareware model, seeking only donations. Because Six Apart initially released its Weblog tools as a hobby, the software was not so developer-friendly, the Trotts say. They position this release as more sophisticated, geared specifically to developers.

"We'll still have a fully functional free version for personal use," adds Chief Executive Officer Mena Trott. A personal version that includes technical support from Six Apart costs $45.

Movable Type licensing options differ between personal use and commercial use, and range with the number of authors and blogs supported.

Personal licensing options vary from a $99 fee (with a current introductory price of $69), which supports up to three authors and five Weblogs, up to $189 ($149 introductory price) for nine authors and ten Weblogs.

Commercial licenses start at $299 (with a current introductory price of $199) for five authors and five blogs. A 20-author license costs $699 ($599 introductory price).

New Tools and Options

Movable Type now provides software hooks to encourage developers to write plug-ins and add-ons for the blog management tool.

"We've enhanced the architecture so people can do new things with plug-ins," says chief technical officer Ben Trott. "You can now have full applications running on top of Movable Type. "There's more power in this new release."

For example, the comment-management tool now supports connections to a blog administrator's existing database, so readers posting comments can bypass the authentication procedure. The Howard Dean campaign tested this integration on its site, Mena Trott says. The Dean campaign, widely recognized as a trailblazer in online campaign promotions, relied heavily on blogs.

Six Apart is promoting the new version of the software to corporate developers as well as experienced enthusiasts. Many businesses are embracing blogging technology for internal communications, she adds.

"By the general release of Movable Type 3.0, we expect to not only have a rich platform but also a great number of plug-ins created by the developer community," Mena Trott says.

She says Six Apart saw a 50-percent increase in the last-quarter sales of Movable Type's commercial product, which has found business applications in organizations as diverse as Disney and the United States Census Bureau.

The shift in the company's approach is also reflected in its new tagline: "publishing platform" has replaced "personal publishing" as its theme.

Emerging Market

That shift to a publishing platform shows the maturity of the company and of the Weblog market, notes Vernon Keenan, an industry analyst with Keenan Vision. He agrees that corporations are finding Weblogs a valuable tool.

"In the spirit of reducing travel expenses, it's one of the simplest and cheapest ways to interact," Keenan says. "Blogs facilitate asynchronous communications so people in any time zone can be part of a discussion. E-mail is fleeting and cannot be archived in a retrievable way."

Blogs help a company preserve its intellectual capital, Keenan says. Participants can kick around ideas online, leaving a trail that traces their progress and can be referenced and harvested later for other ideas.

He notes that the Weblog applications market has been dominated by a few shareware services, but expects more and stronger programs as more businesses adopt this communications tool.

"That this company realizes it's in a content management space rather than in the bulletin board space shows maturity," he says of Six Apart's decision to ship a developer edition.

PC World's IT department uses Movable Type for the company's blogs; this decision is independent of editorial input.