Today we announce the release of Movable Type 4.23. This mandatory security release is recommended for all users (see update advisor below), and fixes a number of bugs in 4.21. Review the change log for full details on all changes in this new version.

Movable Type Update Advisor: Version 4.23

• Release Type: Security Release. This update fixes a potential vulnerability which has not yet been exploited in the wild.
• Mandatory? Yes, this is a mandatory security upgrade.
• Performance Implications: None.
• Plugins Affected: None. Your current plugins should continue to work as expected.
• Templates Affected: An update to the profile view template is required for those customers who use the community template sets and user profile feature. 
• System Requirements: This release has no new or additional system requirements.
• Licensing considerations: None. MT 4.23 is a free update for users of any version of MT 4.x.
• Upgrade Fatigue: No further mandatory updates are planned for Movable Type in 2008.

Downloads are available in your account for current customers or through the download page.

[Editor's Note: There was no Movable Type 4.22. It's a long story. But you didn't miss anything, don't worry!]

Yesterday, Anil Dash represented Six Apart and the Movable Type team in a two-day Conversational Marketing Summit put on by BrightTalk, a new service that promises really simple webcasting. Anil's talk focused on how your company can think of its business and brand as a social network that, while dispersed all over the web today, could be harnessed in one place: your company's website.

And why not? Rather than monitor conversations about your company that are taking place everywhere else, why not bring those conversations to your site? The aggregated social network can live on your site, without being dependent on a third party. The conversation can take place on your premises, letting you keep control over your brand and your message. And you can make it effortless for your visitors (or members of your social network) to contribute to the conversation.

You can see and hear Anil's presentation here:

We'd love to hear what you think about the ideas in the presentation.

A Large Heart That Shares With Others

In 2002, David Gutowski had an Internet radio stream called Guided by Voices that streamed songs by the band of the same name. Inspired by the Guided by Voices song titled “Unleash the Largehearted Boy,” he began to develop a plan for his own blog.

With a Master’s Degree in creative writing, a career in technology, and a love for music and culture, David wanted to share his interests with others and develop his writing skills. “I looked at several blogging platforms,” he recalls. “I wanted something I could host, adapt and customize. Movable Type had it all.” David appreciated the fact that Movable Type gave him control of his own blog installation. “Movable Type allowed me to do anything I wanted to with my blog,” he says.

Today, Largehearted Boy is filled with music recommendations, interviews, book reviews and cultural insights, and is read by fans, musicians and authors around the world.

Among its rich trove of content are insightful interviews with musicians and authors from John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats to Alina Simone. Another gem is the Books Notes Series, authors from Lauren Graff, author of Monsters of Templeton to Amy Shearn, author of How Far is the Ocean From Here  share songs that are connected thematically to their work.

David’s Book Notes Series has not only been a reader favorite, it has also been important for authors: both Richard Lange, author of Dead Boys, and Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Bright Forever, included his Book Notes essays in the paperback versions of their book.

Another of David’s series is Note Books, in which musicians discuss their literary side, featuring notable names from Patton Oswalt to John Vanderslice.

Over the years, Largehearted Boy has received lots of love from the press, with mentions from Salon.com to the Times Online to the Wall Street Journal.

Even more meaningful to David than the press is the feedback he gets from readers. “Blogging is filled with daily kindnesses,” he says, “no matter how many readers you have.”

Making the Leap to Blogging Full-Time

In 2007, David quit his job as a systems administrator to become a full-time blogger. Supported by advertising revenue and consulting opportunities, he’s now able to blog for a living. “Going full time changed the way I blogged,” David says. “I created a routine that I stick to every day, and I treat it like a job.” He writes his featured post each morning, and spends the afternoon posting and collecting information and notes for the next day.

He also has a sidekick to keep him company. “My wife and I decided that we would get a dog when I started blogging full time,” he says. Their terrier mix sits on David’s lap while he blogs; the two take walks around the neighborhood to help break up the day.

David listens to music while he works, making his way through the stacks of CD’s and digital downloads that arrive on his doorstep and in his email box every single day - well over 1,000 per year. “The publishing and music communities have become much more open in the last couple of years,” David reports. “A few years ago, I rarely received a promo CD; now I’m deluged with them.” He logs everything that comes in, but maintains a strict policy of only writing about what he likes.

How does David manage it all? “My wife is in school,” he chuckles, “so I’m lucky in that I can blog while she’s studying, and more than that - she’s very understanding.”

No matter how busy his schedule gets, David turns the computer of at 10 pm. “It has been incredibly rewarding to create something out of nothing,” he says. “Now I can dictate my own future.”
 

Whether you’re searching for someone to hire, or for someone to hire you, it’s quite likely you’re gathering information from LinkedIn, as well as from personal and professional blogs. Since you spend so much time and energy on your own blog, why not put it right on your profile? It’s the perfect opportunity to show that you’re more than just a resume and a list of jobs; you’re a person with passions, interests, family and friends, traits many employers and potential employees will find admirable… and now it’s easy to do!

The team that brought you Blog It created an application to bring your blog and your LinkedIn profile together: Blog Link powered by TypePad.

Blog Link is a free, easy-to-use application that allows you to connect your blog to your LinkedIn profile. The application displays a feed of your latest blog posts right into your profile, so you can share your thoughts and insights with your professional network on LinkedIn.

One of the best aspects of LinkedIn is the network you can build, and Blog Link has you covered there as well.  The "Your Network" tab in the application shows the most recent blog posts of people in your network, automatically finding their blogs as listed in their “Websites” list on their profile.  And as more of your contacts add the BlogLink application, your own latest posts show up in more places.  It's another great way to broaden and enhance your network on LinkedIn.

Blog Link is powered by TypePad, and it supports most blog platforms, including TypePad, Movable Type, Vox, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, Blogger, LiveJournal, and many more.

For a demo and more details on Blog Link, watch the video with David Recordon, Six Apart's Open Platforms Tech Lead, who's known for spearheading Six Apart's efforts around OpenID, OpenSocial and other open technologies.

Visit the Blog Link page on TypePad.com for more info.

A New Model for Global News

March 8, 2007 was an auspicious day for two reasons: it marked the annual celebration of International Women’s Day and the launch of The WIP - The Women’s International Perspective,  an ambitious news site that publishes unique and timely views from women around the globe.

The WIP was founded by Katharine Daniels, a passionate educator and world traveler with an ear for a good story. With a Masters in Applied Linguistics and a history of working on social causes, Katharine began to notice a void in mainstream media. “Through my travels over the years, I started to realize that the stories people shared with me weren’t the ones I read about in the news. These stories were personal and experiential; I could connect with them, and they meant so much more to me than an official news item from a large publication.”

Even more urgent than the lack of personal stories was the dearth of stories written by women. “Our natural instinct as women is to find solutions that directly benefit the communities where we live,” says Katharine. She began to form a vision for a site written exclusively by women writers, filled with powerful, compelling stories about real lives and tangible issues.

Katharine was a TypePad blogger, and was familiar with Six Apart’s other products, including Movable Type. She added Movable Type to her list of possible software options, but wasn’t initially sure that it was the right platform for her project.

“One of my biggest concerns in choosing software was that I didn’t want my site to look like a blog,” says Katharine. “I wanted it to look like a news website.” She created a development brief of everything she wanted to accomplish with the site, and began to search for developers. “The first few people I talked to weren’t a fit,” she recalls. “So I decided to contact Six Apart directly.”

She met with David Jacobs of Apperceptive, now part of Six Apart Services, and explained her vision. “David 'got it' in one shot,” she enthuses. “It was brilliant - they took my brief and created the site exactly as I imagined it to be. It was a marriage made in heaven.”

The WIP was built entirely in Movable Type in about six weeks. Six Apart Services provided the complete site design, configured and customized the Movable Type installation, and made it easy for site members to create their own profiles. WIP site members can even subscribe to an email newsletter that's fully integrated with the site's publishing system. The finished site launched just in time for the International Women’s Day celebration on March 8.  

Brave Voices, Real Issues

Today, The WIP is read around the world, and covers a broad range of issues, from poverty to global warming to the political landscape, using personal stories from over 100 writers in 35 countries. “We’re giving women the opportunity to write about what matters to them,” says Katharine. “In the process, we’re helping to create change.”

Katharine makes it clear that though the articles are written by women, the issues matter to everyone: “When we talk about a woman’s perspective, we aren’t simply talking about ‘women’s issues’ - but rather a whole range of complex topics from diverse women around the world.”

The WIP is headquartered in Monterey, and works closely with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, which assists with fact checking. News Editor Aralena Malone-LeRoy is located in Paris, while Features and Photo Editor Sarah McGowan works out of Los Angeles.

The stories on The WIP are as diverse as they are hard-hitting: from Julie Chowdhury of Sweden on the global water crisis to Cheery Zahau of Burma on the rape of ethnic women by Burmese soldiers, the site courageously addresses a range of difficult, complex and painful topics.

The WIP is now hosting offline events, such as a public talk at Columbia University featuring an accomplished panel of women well-versed on issues such as human rights, the economy and education.

In the future, The WIP will continue to expand both online and offline with a clear mission: “Our goal in gathering these stories is to listen and learn so that we can find solutions together,” says Katharine.