I want my old blogging world - BACK!
Jeremy Zawodney’s pointer to PhotoMatt’s post on Bloglines:
bloglines is the new technorati: convergance
….made me realize all the steps backwards I’ve gone through in the past few months.
Since Radio was beocming more and more unreliable - I finally changed over to MT3 in the spring. Paolo and I spoofed the world - and slipped in a copy of MT - right onto Paolo’s Blogs.it Radio server - so nobody had to change their subscription URLs.
My new address Marc.Blogs.It is also re-ediretced from my old address.
But the this new world ain’t as good as the old world!
Here are my detailed complaints about everything!
1. Built-in RSS aggregator.
I can’t believe nobody has asked for this. The functionality of having a POST button right next to the news story - is essential. WAIT! Don’t tell me - I should be using remote posting tools like ecto, etc. Well of course I should.
But I also don’t think that’s an excuse why major blogging tool companies don’t build aggregators into their tools!
This is one Radio Userland innovation nobody has equaled yet.
2. Newsgator ain’t the same.
It’s supposed to update my on-line account with my local feeds. Don’t work.
It needs to get manually kicked every once in a while to update feeds.
It strips out links.
I’ve mentioned this to Greg Reinacker and he’s been kind enough to help - but that doesn’t change things. NewsGator ain’t the same as Radio aggregator.
3. WYSIWYG copy and paste.
It totally amazes me that both Moveable Type and TypePad don’t have a way for Windows users to go to a blog post - copy it - and paste it.
It’s fucking archaic! I’m sorry. It’s 2004 already.
With all the Radio users moving over to 6A products - you’d think somebody would have said something about this by now. Well I am.
4. Wassup wit Technorati?
It ain’t the same.
First there were Radio’s referer logs - which were lame from the get go. So along comes Dave Sifry and redefines keeping track of your blogosphere presence.
But ever since the money showed up, the new code launched and all this DemConv crap - well guess what?
I don’t get no referers anymore!
Is it that overnight everyone decided they hated me, wouldn’t blog me and ignore me? I doubt it!
What changed was Technorati’s code. It ain’t working for me - not sure how it is for everyone else.
Please folks - give us WYSIWYG editing, a built-in aggregator and PLEASE Technorati - bring back the old code!
Let’s see now who has Technorati, NewsGator and 6A in common?
Oh yah - VCs. Is it a coincidence that once the money shows up - the code gets shitty?
So this message is to all you money guys - do whatever it takes - but we want Radio fucntinality NOW - working in 6A, Technorati and Newsgator products. Please.
Pretty please. Cause blogging ain’t the same without Radio’s functionality. WYSIWYG, built-in aggregating and reliable referer logs are essential.
I don’t get it — why don’t you use Radio?
What exactly was unreliable about it?
Maybe I can help figure out how to get it reliable.
Paolo was running his own RCS, right?
Anyway, I’m glad a Radio user finally had the confidence to tell the other guys that they haven’t even caught up with UserLand’s low-end product yet. Hold them to it. Let’s get a real baseline for competition here.
I don’t get it — why don’t you use Radio?
What exactly was unreliable about it?
Maybe I can help figure out how to get it reliable.
Paolo was running his own RCS, right?
Anyway, I’m glad a Radio user finally had the confidence to tell the other guys that they haven’t even caught up with UserLand’s low-end product yet. Hold them to it. Let’s get a real baseline for competition here.
I don’t get it — why don’t you use Radio?
What exactly was unreliable about it?
Maybe I can help figure out how to get it reliable.
Paolo was running his own RCS, right?
Anyway, I’m glad a Radio user finally had the confidence to tell the other guys that they haven’t even caught up with UserLand’s low-end product yet. Hold them to it. Let’s get a real baseline for competition here.
Thanks for the feedback, Marc. And like I said, I think until we’ve gotten the rest of the features you want in place in MT, it might make sense for you to use Radio as your posting client for MT. They work great together, as I’m sure Dave will agree.
Thanks for the feedback, Marc. And like I said, I think until we’ve gotten the rest of the features you want in place in MT, it might make sense for you to use Radio as your posting client for MT. They work great together, as I’m sure Dave will agree.
Thanks for the feedback, Marc. And like I said, I think until we’ve gotten the rest of the features you want in place in MT, it might make sense for you to use Radio as your posting client for MT. They work great together, as I’m sure Dave will agree.
Radio has a future:
http://radio.userland.com/letterToUsers
It’s a start and we need voices like yours to help us fix the bugs. Someone’s listening, if you are still willing to talk.
Steve Kirks
Product Manager, Radio UserLand
Radio has a future:
http://radio.userland.com/letterToUsers
It’s a start and we need voices like yours to help us fix the bugs. Someone’s listening, if you are still willing to talk.
Steve Kirks
Product Manager, Radio UserLand
Radio has a future:
http://radio.userland.com/letterToUsers
It’s a start and we need voices like yours to help us fix the bugs. Someone’s listening, if you are still willing to talk.
Steve Kirks
Product Manager, Radio UserLand
We haven’t adopted WYSIWYG editing in WordPress in the core code because the overhead is too high and the code it produces is sub-par and not within our goals of working with web standards. However You can literally drop a plugin in to get the WYSIWYG editing you crave. Personally I think your blog has become a lot more readable since you switched to MT and you don’t have all the funky HTML embedding everywhere. I have a dream one day I’ll wake up a read a post by Marc titled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love HTML”.
However given the level at which you grok the open source world and model, I’m surprised you haven’t attached to an OS platform yet like WordPress or Drupal. There must be something holding you back, and I know it’s not features since we have all that matched or better. What is it?
(And I agree that Radio’s single-pane is very nice and hasn’t been matched yet by today’s tools. However there is some very interesting work going on in this area.)
We haven’t adopted WYSIWYG editing in WordPress in the core code because the overhead is too high and the code it produces is sub-par and not within our goals of working with web standards. However You can literally drop a plugin in to get the WYSIWYG editing you crave. Personally I think your blog has become a lot more readable since you switched to MT and you don’t have all the funky HTML embedding everywhere. I have a dream one day I’ll wake up a read a post by Marc titled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love HTML”.
However given the level at which you grok the open source world and model, I’m surprised you haven’t attached to an OS platform yet like WordPress or Drupal. There must be something holding you back, and I know it’s not features since we have all that matched or better. What is it?
(And I agree that Radio’s single-pane is very nice and hasn’t been matched yet by today’s tools. However there is some very interesting work going on in this area.)
We haven’t adopted WYSIWYG editing in WordPress in the core code because the overhead is too high and the code it produces is sub-par and not within our goals of working with web standards. However You can literally drop a plugin in to get the WYSIWYG editing you crave. Personally I think your blog has become a lot more readable since you switched to MT and you don’t have all the funky HTML embedding everywhere. I have a dream one day I’ll wake up a read a post by Marc titled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love HTML”.
However given the level at which you grok the open source world and model, I’m surprised you haven’t attached to an OS platform yet like WordPress or Drupal. There must be something holding you back, and I know it’s not features since we have all that matched or better. What is it?
(And I agree that Radio’s single-pane is very nice and hasn’t been matched yet by today’s tools. However there is some very interesting work going on in this area.)
Anil, I think Radio’s a much better blogging tool than MT, which has far too many modes. It’s like a throwback to before the Mac, wherein we learned that Modes Are Bad. Radio isn’t as glitzy, but that’s what you want, it shouldn’t get in your way. It has much more functionality than MT, but is much easier to access. So while I agree that you can use Radio as an MT client, it’s hard to see why one would want to. Just my opinion, of course.
Anil, I think Radio’s a much better blogging tool than MT, which has far too many modes. It’s like a throwback to before the Mac, wherein we learned that Modes Are Bad. Radio isn’t as glitzy, but that’s what you want, it shouldn’t get in your way. It has much more functionality than MT, but is much easier to access. So while I agree that you can use Radio as an MT client, it’s hard to see why one would want to. Just my opinion, of course.
Anil, I think Radio’s a much better blogging tool than MT, which has far too many modes. It’s like a throwback to before the Mac, wherein we learned that Modes Are Bad. Radio isn’t as glitzy, but that’s what you want, it shouldn’t get in your way. It has much more functionality than MT, but is much easier to access. So while I agree that you can use Radio as an MT client, it’s hard to see why one would want to. Just my opinion, of course.
Marc:
We’re working on a revision of the aggregator that uses the same layout (minus tables) and will allow sorting for oldest first instead of newest first. Turns out it was simple to do. Also turns out we can render a personal aggregator page statically and let it upload to the cloud. It changes when your aggregator changes. A couple more prefs and you have your own personal bloglines. Special thanks to Dave–the code is structured so it’s easy to do this–callbacks to the rescue!
Steve Kirks
Marc:
We’re working on a revision of the aggregator that uses the same layout (minus tables) and will allow sorting for oldest first instead of newest first. Turns out it was simple to do. Also turns out we can render a personal aggregator page statically and let it upload to the cloud. It changes when your aggregator changes. A couple more prefs and you have your own personal bloglines. Special thanks to Dave–the code is structured so it’s easy to do this–callbacks to the rescue!
Steve Kirks
Marc:
We’re working on a revision of the aggregator that uses the same layout (minus tables) and will allow sorting for oldest first instead of newest first. Turns out it was simple to do. Also turns out we can render a personal aggregator page statically and let it upload to the cloud. It changes when your aggregator changes. A couple more prefs and you have your own personal bloglines. Special thanks to Dave–the code is structured so it’s easy to do this–callbacks to the rescue!
Steve Kirks
MoveableType is not a “blogging world” as Radio is, that’s one difference. The two products have some overlap–both can publish posts out to a weblog–but are otherwise apples and oranges. MT’s product strategy is (probably) not to provide blog reading functions, which are better served by many other tools. Nor is it their plan (probably) to offer an alternative to Technorati (whose recent changes have nothing to do with Radio, either) So if you’re comparing the two products, only point 1 and 3 are really fair.
MoveableType is not a “blogging world” as Radio is, that’s one difference. The two products have some overlap–both can publish posts out to a weblog–but are otherwise apples and oranges. MT’s product strategy is (probably) not to provide blog reading functions, which are better served by many other tools. Nor is it their plan (probably) to offer an alternative to Technorati (whose recent changes have nothing to do with Radio, either) So if you’re comparing the two products, only point 1 and 3 are really fair.
MoveableType is not a “blogging world” as Radio is, that’s one difference. The two products have some overlap–both can publish posts out to a weblog–but are otherwise apples and oranges. MT’s product strategy is (probably) not to provide blog reading functions, which are better served by many other tools. Nor is it their plan (probably) to offer an alternative to Technorati (whose recent changes have nothing to do with Radio, either) So if you’re comparing the two products, only point 1 and 3 are really fair.
Radio and Manila are far ahead of the competition in many ways, but their stagnation for several years — and oppressive pricing (especially the most recent increase in price for Manila, which for academics is a killer, at 504% of its original yearly subscription price from 1999) — are killing the software.
I no longer see the community around these products that I once did. They require a logged-in user by default when serving from Mac OS X and Windows (and don’t really support Linux). The competition is catching up.
Based on what I’ve seen recently from commercial products like ExpressionEngine and open source products like Drupal, there’s not much reason to go back.
(By the way, Marc, most of your feature requests do seem to be met by Drupal, which I’ve recently been investigating in my move from Manila and Radio to something else.)
Radio and Manila are far ahead of the competition in many ways, but their stagnation for several years — and oppressive pricing (especially the most recent increase in price for Manila, which for academics is a killer, at 504% of its original yearly subscription price from 1999) — are killing the software.
I no longer see the community around these products that I once did. They require a logged-in user by default when serving from Mac OS X and Windows (and don’t really support Linux). The competition is catching up.
Based on what I’ve seen recently from commercial products like ExpressionEngine and open source products like Drupal, there’s not much reason to go back.
(By the way, Marc, most of your feature requests do seem to be met by Drupal, which I’ve recently been investigating in my move from Manila and Radio to something else.)
Radio and Manila are far ahead of the competition in many ways, but their stagnation for several years — and oppressive pricing (especially the most recent increase in price for Manila, which for academics is a killer, at 504% of its original yearly subscription price from 1999) — are killing the software.
I no longer see the community around these products that I once did. They require a logged-in user by default when serving from Mac OS X and Windows (and don’t really support Linux). The competition is catching up.
Based on what I’ve seen recently from commercial products like ExpressionEngine and open source products like Drupal, there’s not much reason to go back.
(By the way, Marc, most of your feature requests do seem to be met by Drupal, which I’ve recently been investigating in my move from Manila and Radio to something else.)
Marc, the other feature no one else has touched is upstreaming. I hate FTP and file management and love the way Radio silently mirrors my local file system.
Micah
Marc, the other feature no one else has touched is upstreaming. I hate FTP and file management and love the way Radio silently mirrors my local file system.
Micah
Marc, the other feature no one else has touched is upstreaming. I hate FTP and file management and love the way Radio silently mirrors my local file system.
Micah
Look at FeedDemon and PWAIN (http://rightclick.com.au/) they do great WYSIWYG integration and works offline.
Look at FeedDemon and PWAIN (http://rightclick.com.au/) they do great WYSIWYG integration and works offline.
Look at FeedDemon and PWAIN (http://rightclick.com.au/) they do great WYSIWYG integration and works offline.
I get it!
I get it!
I get it!