There is a list of 32 things that I consider important when come the time to check for blogging software and a hosting service. This is the features I was searching for in prevision of the next upgrade of this blog. This list is not really intended to beginner bloggers because many technical features are in the list. However, the items in the list are present in no particular order. It is certainly not complete, then if you have others to add, leave them in the comment section or by email and I will take care to add them to the list.
Traditional blogging features
- Comment post. The system should give the ability to the readers to comment posts. It should optionally give the possibility to moderate these
comments. I think that all blogging systems have the feature.- Max adds that it would be nice
if comments were displayed in a pop-up window instead of the bottom of the posts. - Sudar adds that it would be nice to have a permalink for each comment. It is effectively really essential when come the time to track your comments!
- Sudar also adds that it would be really nice if each user that comments has the possibility to receive all comments on the post by email.
- Tom add that the system would need to have a preview comment feature.
- Max adds that it would be nice
- Anti-spam for comments. The system should give some sort of anti-spam system for comments. Spam comments are becoming a real pain on the Blogsphere.
- Anti-hammering feature. Tom add that the system would need a feature to prevent auto-spam bots by putting a limit of time between each post (Movable type is 15 seconds, b2Evolution is 30 seconds).
- Trackbacks.
The system should give the possibility to other bloggers the to trackback posts. - Anti-spam for trackbacks. The system should give some sort of contrul (anti-spam or moderation) on the trackbacks. I had many problems of spamming in my trackbacks and I unfortunately cannot do anything to delete them with Radio Userland.
- Search engine friendly. The title of the posts needs to be the name of the perma-link.
- Max adds that it is not only important for search engine, but also for your readers, because it make the perma-link "human readable".
- Jack say that would be even more interesting if the the underscores ought to be replaced by dashes. It seems that this way, URL are much more “search engine friendly”.
- Import/Export.
The system should give the possibility to import and export the posts, comments and trackbacks to other blogging platforms. - Categories.
The system should implement categorization. It should optionally implement sub categories. It could also be interesting to dynamically create the categories with tags defined on posts (it could be viewable as a tag cloud).- Max specifies 2 important things that the category systems need to do: (1) post a single post in more than one category, and (2) create a web feed for each individual category.
- Archives.
The system should implement a good archive system. - Multiple-Blogs.
The system should permit multiple-blogs. I should not be supposed to
reinstall the software to create a new blog on the same host. - Guest blogging. The system should permit to create profiles for more than one blogger.
- The source code should be accessible. The system should distribute his source code to give the possibility to the blogger to add/change features.
- Images.
The system should give the possibility to the blogger to easily upload and add images to his posts. - Search engine. The system should give the possibility to search within posts, and this on the entire blog including the archives.
- Full feed/Abstract feed. The system should create full and abstract feeds. Then the reader will have the possibility to choose which is best
for him. - Comment feed. The system should create a feed for the comments posted on the messages of the blog.
- Max reminds me something we already talked about some months ago: the possibility to add the comments directly into the posts’ feed. It would be really interesting, because comments are an integral part of posts.
- Web interface. The system should give the possibility to post messages on a blog via a web interface.
- Post by email. The system should give the possibility to post messages on a blog via email.
- IP banning. The system should give the possibility to ban an IP address to the system.
- Binary file upload.. Jack add: “Not only should the system allow easy posting of images, but you may as well look for easy posting of any kind of binary. With images you want it to understand thumbnails (creating them may be a function of your host). What about videos, pdfs, podcasts, etc?”
- Good web post editing tool. Radio Userland have a good web posting editing tool. I only had to do my editing in Word then copy/past my text into it. I think that such web editing tools are essential. Otherwise you will have to do the editing, with HTML tags, by hand.
- Supporting user community. Tom add: You’ll end up leaning on it eventually! This feature is blog platform specific.
Layout management
- Custom code. The system should allow the possibility to add custom code in the template, like JavaScript code.
- Template modification. The system should permit the total modification of the templates.
- Search engine friendly. The themes need to be search engine friendly.
Hosting service
- Unlimited bandwidth. The provider should not restrict the bandwidth of their hosted blogs.
- Technical support. The provider should give a premium service to all of his customers via phone or email.
- Availability of the source codes. The provider should give the rights to the blogger to change the code of the hosted blogging system.
- Domain name. The provider should give the possibility to map a domain name to the blog.
- Statistics.
Sudar adds that it would be nice if a good statistic system is implemented on the host server. It is more than essential, because bloggers are addicted to all type of stats. - Unlimited space for posts. The provider should give unlimited space for text posts. At least 1 gig should be available for photos and other documents.
- Low cost. The cost of such a service should be under 15$ per month.
Some Wishes
- “Wizard” system for generating category/user/date-specific feeds. All of the tools I’m familiar with still require too much technical expertise to customize feeds, and even when you do this, there’s a good chance the feeds won’t validate. Tom’s wishe
- Full-featured API. I would replace “post via email” with this, as it allows one to post from a user-friendly desktop client (like SharpMT) as I regularly do. Tom’s wishe
Am I demanding? I do not think so considering the blogging systems available today and the cost of the storage space. The best blogging services are open-source, and 1 gig of storage space cost less than 1$. Why such services are so rare? I cannot understand…
Have I missed some feature? Do not forget to leave it in the
comment section or byemail; I will take care to add them to the list.
Max
June 18, 2005 — 9:16 pm
Hello, Fred.
I would like to add some points about your wishlist.
#1
In some blogs, when you click comments, the system loads the permalink page, with comments at the bottom of the post. I prefer the good old pop-up window, faster and easier to manage.
#5
“Search engine friendly. The title of the posts needs to be the name of the perma-link”.
This is useful not just for search, even when you store HTML files onto your HD. I usually save pages about things I’m interested to and put them in a folder. Alas, about half of them have a name like: “00251447.html”. Not so friendly, IMO.
#7
It would be nice to have the possibility to file a post under more than one category, and it would be very nice having the possibility to generate a feed for each one of them. Why? I’ll give you an example: I often check for Apple related blogs feeds, but I’m interested just in iPod/iTunes posts, not in Mac OS ones, because I’m a Windows user, so I waste a part of my time to search for what I’m really interested to. In your blog you could talk about “semantic web” and about your dog. Maybe I’m not interested in your dog’s life (or vice versa), so why not having a specific feed for “semantic web” (or about your dog)?
#13
Yes, a good search tool would be great, anyway I think is better using Google, that does its work very well, than a not so perfect “independent” search tool. In other words: if your search tool is *really* good, that’s OK. Otherwise, your readers would prefer an external tool.
#15
Yes! Comments are integral part of the posts (like you wrote some time ago), so they should have a feed. It would be great if the post items have comments inside, but I don’t have noticed any blogging system have this feature.
Fred
June 19, 2005 — 9:16 pm
Hello Max!
Thank for these comments. I added them to the original post. Great hints 🙂
Salutations,
Fred
Sudar
June 20, 2005 — 9:17 pm
Hello Fred, I would like to add some points to what you have said. 1) I would love to have permalink for comments too.. 2) I would love to give an option to my users who comment, to get an email automatically when some one add comments to the post they have commented. Swaroop has this feature in his blog (http://www.swaroopch.info/archives/2005/06/18/ode-to-the-moonwalker/) 3) I would love to have good and detailed stats for my blogs or website What do feel Fred ?
Fred
June 20, 2005 — 9:18 pm
Hello Sudar!
Great addings! They are all present in the new “28 things” to have 🙂
The one with the email is really interesting. I really did not think about it and it is true that it is a really interesting feature.
I am currently rebuilding my whole blog with b2Evolution and I’ll create the feature on the next version of this blog.
Thank for the tricks!
I like to have all your feedbacks 🙂
Salutations,
Fred
Fred
June 20, 2005 — 9:19 pm
Hello David!
Yup, I am hehehe, it is probably a professional deviation 😉
However, I found exactly what I wanted with a local hosting company. All these features worth 9$CAN per months. I have the total control of the source code and other cool features given by the hoster.
I am currently rebuilding the whole blog. All the new features are done (I done it today, all the day 😉 Now the worse is comming: transferring all my posts and comments, by date, to my new blog. What is the problem? I had to do it by hand because Radio do not give any option for importation/exportation of the posts; it is a real pain. I will finish in some days. So, I will post all the details when I will finish it.
Take care all,
Salutations,
Fred
David
June 21, 2005 — 9:17 pm
Wow…I think you are asking for a bit much. Multiple-Blogs…why? Unlimited space for posts…wow! Technical Support…well… See I use WordPress. It has a great community for technical support. It does not totally support Multiple blogs as of yet, though there is a hack as well as a version of WordPress called WordPress mu. I bought my own domain, and paid for my own hosting for this blog. I have all the other things you are looking for, and my service is around your $15 mark. I do not have unlimited space for my posts though, but 500 megs has been more than enough for all of my little projects (I have 60 folders in my root dir of my hosting). I think what I am doing is as close to ideal as you are going to get for what you are asking for.
Jack Vinson
June 23, 2005 — 1:23 pm
I don’t like to see comments in pop-ups. They should appear in the unique page for the posting. This means that you should be able to create a unique page for each posting – something that older tools don’t do automatically.
It would be cool if the blogging system didn’t support comment spam, so bloggers don’t have to go to the trouble of dealing with anti-spam. I don’t know if that is possible, since it sounds like any online form can be spammed.
A friend claims that search engines like dashes better than underscores when making permalinks “search engine friendly:” http://underscorebleach.net/jotsheet/2005/04/url-migration-underscores-to-hyphens
With respect to categories / tags / keywords, it is good to think about this in advance, though I suspect the tagging concept is going to continue evolving. Technorati has essentially merged the ideas of categories with their tags.
Not only should the system allow easy posting of images, but you may as well look for easy posting of any kind of binary. With images you want it to understand thumbnails (creating them may be a function of your host). What about videos, pdfs, podcasts, etc?
Feeds are another thing that is moving all over the place. You want your tool to be flexible enough to allow for any kind of web feed you want: full posts feed, excerpt feed, individual post feed (for comments), category feed, comment feed, etc. I’ve created a “posts and comments” feed that creates a separate feed entry for each comment, rather than re-creating the post entry with a comment embedded in it.
Fred
June 23, 2005 — 10:42 pm
Hello Jack,
Thank for your inputs. I added them to the post.
I would like to thank your to have remembered me that I already wanted to have the comments into into the feed of my posts. I posted the result today, thank!
Salutations,
Fred
tom sherman
June 24, 2005 — 10:42 am
This is a good list. I’d like to add a couple of things that I find important.
1. Support for an image library (e.g. Image Magick) to do image resizing and manipulation on the server.
2.WISH: “Wizard” system for generating category/user/date-specific feeds. All of the tools I’m familiar with still require too much technical expertise to customize feeds, and even when you do this, there’s a good chance the feeds won’t validate.
3.Full-featured API. I would replace “post via email” with this, as it allows one to post from a user-friendly desktop client (like SharpMT) as I regularly do.
4.Comment previewing.
5.Anti-hammering feature. MT has a poorly documented but useful feature for blocking # of comments per time period, allowing you to insulate yourself against automated spam attacks or malicious manual attacks. (example: no more than 15 comments in a one hour period)
6.Strong user community. You’ll end up leaning on it eventually!
Fred
June 24, 2005 — 5:32 pm
Hello Tom!
Thank for your valuable inputs. I added a list of wishes. So if you have some, leave them in the comment section and I will add them to the list!
Salutations,
Frédérick
Sudar
June 27, 2005 — 2:02 am
Hello Fred,
Me again, just found one more good feature for blogs. How about a ‘Email Permanent link’ feature. I just found this in O’Reilly Radar blog.
Fred
June 27, 2005 — 11:26 am
Hello,
I can’t see where is the “Email Permanent Link” on the O’reilly radar blogs. What this feature is used for?
Thank to point me out where it is 🙂
Salutations,
Fred
Sudar
June 28, 2005 — 12:23 am
Hi Fred,
It’s just a link which emails the permanent link of the article to the email address specified, when clicked.
Check out this url (http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/06/it_turns_out_rs.html) and you can see this link on the right side bar under the Tools heading.
Upon investigation I just found that it is nothing but an anchor tag with mailto link. Initially I thought the mail was sent from server and that’s why I posted it here as a feature.
Sudar
Fred
June 28, 2005 — 12:31 am
Hello Sudar!
Okay I see now 🙂 Yup, I saw that feature when I surfed their website. However, a “Send this article to your friend by email” link could always be interesting 🙂
I think that I will add it to the list and to my blog 😉
I come back on it later,
Thank and take care sudar,
Salutations,
Fred
Sudar
June 28, 2005 — 12:48 am
Yes Fred, I agree with you. It would be better to send the article itself, rather than sending the link.
BTW I just found a plug-in for Word Press for ‘Subscribe to Comments’ feature I was talking about in the beginning. Here is the link (http://www.scriptygoddess.com/archives/2004/06/03/wp-subscribe-to-comments/). I know that you are using B2Evolution, but anyways have a look at it; it may give you ideas for implementing it in B2Evolution.
Regards
Sudar
Fred
June 28, 2005 — 11:01 am
Hello Sudar,
Yup, the whole article would be much better 😉
Thank for the link to the plugin. I will eventually check to implement this feature. There is already something in b2evolution, but only for people with an account on the blog. I will check it out soon (if I found the time).
Thank
Salutations,
Fred
Anil
July 5, 2005 — 6:15 pm
This is a great thread for us to watch as we develop Movable Type. So far, we have everything that’s been listed on this thread, but we’d be glad to hear more feedback about what you’re all looking for.
Fred
July 5, 2005 — 7:45 pm
Hello Anil!
I am happy to see that you are interested in that thread. It is something that changed in the industry in the last years: the interest of web startups into the view of their products by their customers, or the harvesting they do on the Internet to upgrade their product/service. I always enjoy receiving comments by people like you, thank for this honor.
However, what you needs is our comments about your product, and it is what I will give you.
First of all, I never used Movable Type. It look likes a great product, and people say good things about it despite de comparison between it and WordPress during the last week (http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/06/21/wordpress-vs-movable-type/).
If you read the last posts I wrote, you can see that I moved from Radio Userland to b2Evolution (on a traditional web hosting company). Why? Because Radio Userland crew support is absent and this is not really what I finally want. Have I considered Movable Type (TypePad)? Yes I do. Then why I did not move to it?
What I needed was a blogging system and a hosting service. TypePad was probably a good possibility. However, some things make me considering another service.
1- The Pro service seemed to answer to my needs, but it cost 15$US per months (twice the price I currently pay).
2- It does not seem possible to add new plugins/modify the comportment of Movable Type on TypePad servers.
3- The ratio of the space available and the bandwidth per month seem low (1gig:10gig).
They are the main facts why I did not choose movable type. It is my vision of your product/service.
It was my personal comment trying to answer to your question. I hope that people leave other comments to help out with Movable Type. However it is becoming old . A way to give him another life would be blog about it. This is a problem I already blogged about: the life span of blog discussions.
Salutations,
Fred