Six Apart News & Events: August 2004

Movable Type 3.1 launched today, with a host of new features including dynamic pages, subcategories, post scheduling, and more. You can hop over to the Movable Type site to find out more or just get it now.

Once you've got 3.1 up and running, you'll want to grab the Developer's Contest Plugin Pack, full of great new features that build on Movable Type's plugin architecture. If you'd like to hear more of Mena's take on this launch, you can check out Mena's Corner, where she offers up some insights on what version 3.1 means to us at Six Apart.

If you're working with Movable Type 3.1's new support for dynamic templates, you'll want to check out some of the great tutorials created by community members during the beta. Gregory Blake has a good overview and tbuddy digs into the details of updating your .htaccess, if necessary. Nice work, guys!

I'm very happy to announce that this afternoon we released Movable Type 3.1.

What you're seeing with Movable Type 3.1 is a free update that comes a little over three months from our last release. When we made our licensing and pricing changes one of the things we didn't articulate clearly enough was that it takes revenue to keep a product line going. And, with the new pricing we have been able to spend a great deal of attention focusing on the features we've heard our users asking for in our products.

Sure, some Movable Type users migrated to other tools. And, of course, it is sad to see them leave. However, we feel strongly that the Movable Type community (and Six Apart as a company) has only become stronger since these changes. And if those who migrated do want to come back, we always have that import button. That freedom is why we have also had export since almost day one.

Additionally, we're happy because we're finally able to compensate the talent who have been part of the community for so long. We're hiring major Movable Type developers - see my post about Six Apart hiring Brad Choate and using other prominent developers as remote contractors.

Finally, we're devoting employee number three, Anil Dash, to the Six Apart Professional Network. Anil, in his new role as VP of the Professional Network will work to make available the sort of benefits needed to enrich the platform and our weblogging ecosystem. There are a number of benefits starting today, including a revamped Movable Type plugin directory, a members-only mailing list monitored by our team here at Six Apart, and a new site featuring links and updates on what's going on in our community. More benefits of membership can be found on the Six Apart Professional Network site.

If you're interested in making money with weblogs, making cool tools, or just making your work with weblogs easier, the Professional Network is designed for you. So, if you're interested in joining the network (it's free), be sure to visit http://sixapart.com/pronet/ for more information.

And for those who are rolling their eyes at the name - the Six Apart Professional Network - you can always call it by the name I've dubbed it: The Six A-Partners.

I hope that we'll see some great sites blossom from the capabilities of the new features. And, I'm sure that developers and professionals will be happy to have an outlet. The Professional Network is still in its early stages and will only improve with time. We would love to hear what you would like to see as part of the program.

To learn more about Movable Type 3.1, please check out this post on Six Log.

We're happy to announce that this afternoon we released Movable Type 3.1.

We're extremely excited about this new release, and also about how quickly this update is coming on the heels of Movable Type 3.0 Developer Edition. Whereas it took more than a year between 2.6 and 3.0, we're now releasing 3.1 only three months after 3.0 Developer Edition. The release of 3.0, combined with the changes in licensing, has allowed us to recommit resources to Movable Type development, and that's a big reason why you're seeing major features in a free update released so soon after 3.0.

Continue reading 'Launched: Movable Type 3.1'...

The Movable Type Plugins Directory has relaunched as an official Six Apart website, featuring a whole new look, a simpler organization, and a list of plugins which have been tested with Movable Type 3.0.

Take a look through the new site and see all the creative ways the community has expanded Movable Type's functionality. And if you find yourself inspired by what you see there, you'll want to check out our documentation on how to write a plugin along with Hello World as an MT::App CGI, a good overview of the basics of creating a plugin application within the new Movable Type architecture.

Daikini Software has just released Photon, a clever new utility for exporting images from iPhoto on the Macintosh to a TypePad or Movable Type photo album. Based on the past work Daikini's done with PhotoToTypePad, it should be worth checking out.

While I can't write a post about all our new hires, I wanted to take an opportunity to write about the newest addition to our engineering team, Brad Choate.

Now if you are a Movable Type user, you've no doubt run into Brad or his work. Brad has been involved in our community since, well, since almost as long we've been involved. Between the forums, his plugins, tutorials and consulting, Brad has demonstrated his commitment to the Movable Type platform and its community.

Brad was an integral part of 3.1 as a contractor -- he was the key contributor to the code that allows for dynamic output in Movable Type. Because of this project, we knew we wanted him onboard.

We at Six Apart have wanted Brad to be a part of the team for quite some time -- unfortunately a whole slew of states in between California and Connecticut were a bit of a barrier. Fortunately for Six Apart, we're at a place where talented people like Brad are willing to move cross country with his family. It's not an easy decision to make and we're glad he made it.

So, Brad, welcome aboard!

The newly-launched (and in public beta) DropCash service, created by Andre Torrez and Jason Kottke, provides a simple and powerful tool for powering fundraises and the like.

It's also a great example of building a service upon existing APIs and services--DropCash uses our TypeKey service for sign-in, and the PayPal API for payments. By building on existing technologies, DropCash can focus on providing a clean, simple UI and feature set (which it does).

If you're interested in building applications on top of TypeKey, you might be interested in Authen::TypeKey, which abstracts all of the TypeKey verification for you (assuming, of course, that you're using Perl).

I've just posted photos from last week's mixer to my personal TypePad weblog. It was a great success and we were happy to meet many of the people we've only spoken to online (as well as seeing old friends). It was a great first public Six Apart event in the United States and was a great chance to show Movable Type 3.1, give out a USB key with the beta and talk to our community.

Check out the photos.

If you took photos or wrote up the event, be sure to TrackBack to this post.

Blogging Grows Up by Farhad Manjoo (you can access this article by either having a Salon Premium account or by getting a free day pass).

We met with Farhad during the BlogOn conference last month to sit down and answer his questions about our products and Six Apart. I enjoy talking about the company because it forces me to think about how we've evolved and why. I think Farhad did a great job capturing the reasons why we built the tool, changed the licensing and why we want to grow the company (and the mistakes we made).

By reading old dollarshort.org and movabletype.org entries, Farhad was able to capture the story of Movable Type's roots in a way that I'm not usually able to articulate in interviews. I've told the story of Six Apart so many times that I, sadly, phone it in sometimes. Reading Farhad's piece, I actually felt like I was looking into the company as an observer -- it inspires me to go back and read internal weblogs of ours and old dollarshort entries.

The story of Six Apart has humble roots, but I'm really glad we're out of that apartment.

Two excellent new ways to post to Movable Type or TypePad from Windows applications have popped up courtesy of Kunal: First is Inkable Type, a Tablet PC app that takes full advantage of that platform's support for handwriting to post to your blog. The other is OutlookMT, which monitors a folder in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and posts any messages sent to that folder on your weblog.

If you or your clients are using Microsoft's latest platforms, these might provide an easy way to publish to a blog from within familiar environments.

Movable Type 3.1's new option for dynamic PHP pages makes use of the extremely popular Smarty template engine. If you're not familiar with Smarty yet, you might want to check out the Smarty crash course, which will help familiarize you with some of the basic concepts behidn the template system.

Arvind has made a great sidebar for IE, Mozilla, and FireFox that gives you easy access to MT's template tags documentation from right within your browser. Go check out MT Tabs.

So here are the details for our Movable Type 3.1 Sneak Peek mixer. Please be sure to RSVP if you plan to attend. We'll have to tell the venue the number of guests we're expecting and may or may not be able to take drop-ins. It's all up to the number of people who reply.

The event will be a preview and demo of Movable Type 3.1 and we'll be giving out some schwag. Not only can you see Movable Type 3.1 but you'll also have a chance to meet members of Six Apart.

Date: Thursday, August 12

Time: 5:30pm-8pm

Location: Varnish Fine Art Gallery
(All guests must be at least 21 years of age. Sorry.)
View map

Food and Drink: Wine, soda and Hors d'oeuvres/cocktail snacks

Update: We're all booked! Thanks to everyone who's responded, and see you tomorrow night.

I'm happy to announce that Michael Sippey has joined Six Apart as VP, Product.

Now Michael Sippey has been publishing on the Web for a long time. And, as I write this post, I find it difficult to articulate why his decision to work at Six Apart is such a big deal for us. Sure, he's talented and focused and all. But it's something more. Sippey was writing The Obvious when Ben and I were starting to read the work of online personal publishers and seems to exist in a world where one could name everyone who had a "weblog," though it wasn't called that then. Sippey has been writing about web publishing, personal publishing, the industry, tech companies, good and bad products for almost ten years and his archives document the personal web.

Continue reading 'Michael Sippey Joins Six Apart'...