Regarding Open APIs and Standards

There is some discussion going on about moblogging phones supporting open standards like the metaWeblog API. Joi writes about the future of moblogging and open standards, and the benefits to the hardware manufacturers of using a standard API, rather than a proprietary lock-in.

The benefits extend to the tool developers, as well.

This seems obvious, but it is in the best interest of a tool to support as many APIs as possible. This is why Apple's new Keynote software imports and exports PowerPoint files; this is why Movable Type supports both the Blogger and metaWeblog APIs, and why we plan to add support for the Blogger2 API; etc. Even if the metaWeblog API is simply a lowest-common-denominator API, and tools build extensions on top of it, support for the lowest-common-denominator may turn out to be essential for the survival of a tool.

As a case in point: If hardware devices support the metaWeblog API, they'll need some method of directly uploading image/media files to a weblogging tool. Enter the (proposed) metaWeblog.newMediaObject method. As Joi writes:

It would be easier if someone added more image handling in the API.

Once Dave lifts the caveat, we'll support metaWeblog.newMediaObject in the next Movable Type release.