What's Following All About?

If you're previewing the new TypePad with our Beta team, you may see some new things on your Dashboard, and you might be asking yourself: "what's this following thing all about?"

The new TypePad will make it easier for you to discover great blogs, keep track of your favorite bloggers, and to help you attract and engage your readers. RSS, email, and other tools help, but we think following is a lot more fun and effective.

Your Dashboard helps you to know when someone you're following comments, answers a Question of The Day, follows another TypePad blogger, or adds a post to their TypePad blog.

Best of all, it’s fun! Being able to track what my most pithy and interesting commenters say and do is a great way to get inspired to blog even better.

"But, how do I find people to Follow?"

We’ve suggested a few folks you might want to follow as a way to show you how it works. For example, Sweetney is a great blogger, and some of her best zingers are in her comments. You can follow her to get an idea of what following feels like in your dashboard, and how it can help give you insight on ongoing conversations within the TypePad community.

Interested in previewing the new TypePad? Visit the Beta blog to find out more.

Connect your blog to your LinkedIn profile with Blog Link

Whether you're searching for someone to hire, or for someone to hire you, you're likely gathering information both from LinkedIn profiles and also from personal and professional blogs.  You've worked hard to establish your personal brand via your blog, so it makes sense to showcase it right on your professional profile.  The TypePad team that brought you Blog It has 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 extend your personal brand even further by sharing  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 Blog Link 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 all blog platforms, including TypePad, Movable Type, Vox, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, Blogger, LiveJournal, and many more.  To learn more, visit  typepad.com/bloglink and add the application to your LinkedIn account today.

For a demo and more details on BlogLink, watch the video with David Recordon. David's our Open Technologies Lead, who's known for leading efforts around OpenID and OpenSocial, which powers LinkedIn Applications.

Adding a job board to your blog

If you're writing your blog for a specific audience -- technology enthusiasts, healthcare professionals, designers, etc. -- a great way to help make money from your blog and provide a service for your readers is running your own job board.  Our friends at Simply Hired recently introduced Job-A-Matic, which lets you build your own job board, sell job listings on  your site, and make money along the way.

What we love about Job-A-Matic is just how easy they've made it to integrate a job board with a TypePad blog. 

• When you create a new Job-A-Matic job board, you can customize it to look like your TypePad blog by importing your TypePad theme.
• You can promote  your job board on your blog through the Job-A-Matic Widget.

And don't worry about having an empty board; when you create your job board you can choose to syndicate in job listings from the Simply Hired network.  And when someone posts a job on your board, that listing is shared across the Simply Hired network and out on to sites like LinkedIn and MySpace, giving your listings more visibility.

Job-A-Matic runs their blog on TypePad, and it's a great place to learn more about how to get started with a job board, and how to make the most of their service.

Turn your own blog into a Widget

Interested in spreading your blog's headlines around the web?  Last week our friends at Widgetbox introduced a really easy way to turn your blog into a viral Widget -- they call them "Blidgets."

Widgetbox has built a custom "Blidget maker" for TypePad users, and it couldn't be easier to use.  Just give Widgetbox your TypePad blog URL, pick your layout and color preferences, optionally select an image to spruce up your Widget, and in no time you'll have your Blidget listed in the Widgetbox directory.

And when you're through configuring your own Blidget, check out the other Widgets that are available at Widgetbox; we've partnered with them to make it easy for you to install any of their Widgets on your TypePad blog.

Adding some AJAX to your blog

One of the great things about all this Web 2.0 stuff you keep hearing about is just how easy it can be to create compelling user experiences by gluing different services together.  Our friends over at Google demonstrated that recently by putting together ajaxsearch.typepad.com, a demo site of some of the great things you can do with the Google AJAX Search API and a TypePad blog.

While mashing every single Google service into your blog may not be what you're looking for, it's great to see what's possible.  Google's Mark Lucovsky built demos on his TypePad blog of integrated web search, blog search, video search and even mapping.  We love seeing creative uses of our Advanced Template Set functionality, and Mark lays out on his blog how you can implement the solutions he built.

TypePad button for Google Toolbar

If you're using Google's Internet Explorer toolbar Version 4, we've whipped up an experimental button you can add for posting to your blog. It works almost exactly like our QuickPost bookmarklet -- clicking it will take any text you've highlighted on your current page and insert that text into a new post. Additionally, the button lets you stay up to date on the latest news from Everything TypePad.

» Install the toolbar button.
(Requires the beta version of Google Toolbar v4 Internet Explorer.)

Skypecasts and TypePad

One of most rewarding things about blogging are the communities that form around them. Whether you're a culture blogger, a tech blogger, a television blogger or using your blog to promote your business, chances are you're familiar with the roster of readers who tend to comment on or link to your posts. We're always on the lookout for ways to help TypePad bloggers bring their communities to life -- which is why we're so excited about Skypecasts.

Skypecasts is a new community feature from Skype that's currently in "preview." With Skypecasts you can host live, moderated discussions with up to 100 participants, and all they need is the Skype software. Yesterday Skype launched their Skypecasts Directory, as well as a Widget that lets TypePad users promote upcoming Skypecasts (either their own or Skypecasts they're interested in) on their blog.

Ready to start talking with your readers? Hosting a Skypecast is easy...

1. Schedule your Skypecast. Got a topic for discussion? Got a time? Visit skypecasts.skype.com and schedule your Skypecast. It will be listed for anyone to discover and join.
2. Promote it on your blog. Once you’re listed in the Skypecasts directory, promote your Skypecast on your blog. Link to your listing directly in your post, or use the Skypecast Widget for TypePad.
3. Host your discussion. Connect using your Skype client to share your passion with your audience and have a bit of fun.

We'll be hosting our own Skypecasts soon -- look for an announcement here for the dates and times.

Introducing TypePad Widgets: Bling for your Blog

Ever wanted to spice up the sidebar of your blog with some content or functionality from another site?  Today we just made that a whole lot easier.  We’re excited to introduce TypePad Widgets, a new feature for TypePad that will bring dozens of features to your blog from the sites you're already using. 

What’s a Widget, you ask?  It could be a list of your most recent photos, or a topic-oriented search box, or a stats counter, or ads that help you make money, or a badge to help your users subscribe to your feed, or even a Flash game or a chat window.  We call it "bling for your blog."  We're launching with dozens of widgets from more than 30 partners, and more are on the way.  Here are just a few of the things you can do with TypePad Widgets:

• Add your Technorati profile to your blog
• Share a custom search roll with Rollyo
• Publicize your FeedBurner feed
• Let your readers find their next job from Jobster, Indeed and Simply Hired
• Highlight your favorite lens from Squidoo to your blog
• Let your readers subscribe to your blog via email, thanks to FeedBlitz

Adding a Widget is simple.  Just browse the TypePad Widget Gallery to choose the Widget that’s right for your blog, configure it at the Widget provider’s site, and then post it to your blog.  We’ve added an easy way for you to choose the blog you want to add it to and preview it before it gets posted.  To learn more, read our Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about TypePad Widgets, which has information about why we developed Widgets, what you can do with Widgets on your blogs, and more.

Interested in developing  your own Widgets?  Today we’re also launching an open program for Widget developers.  The API is easy to use; if you’re interested in developing a Widget and want to learn more, get in touch. 

We love bling, we love blogs.  What’s not to love about bling on your blog?  We’re excited about the launch of Widgets, and look forward to bringing you more...

Video Blogging on TypePad

We’re excited to announce two partnerships with companies that are making it easy to add video to your TypePad blog:  VideoEgg and Serious Magic.  What’s great about these two products is that they provide two very different ways of video blogging, but they’re both great fits with TypePad.

When VideoEgg debuted at Demo Fall 2005 and won a DEMOgod award (alongside Mena's mom), we knew we had to figure out a way to connect their VideoEgg Publisher with TypePad.  The Publisher is a web-based plugin that makes it simple for users to capture, edit, encode and post digital video.  VideoEgg has been kind enough to make a preview version of VideoEgg Publisher available to TypePad users free of charge, at typepad.videoegg.com.  From their site you can log in to your TypePad account and use VideoEgg to post a short video to your blog.  Use it to share a short movie of your friends, your kids, your coworkers. You can learn more about how TypePad and VideoEgg work together in the FAQ that VideoEgg has put together.

Serious Magic's Vlog It is a Windows application that makes it easy to produce professional newscaster-style video blog posts.  You can combine your own clips, photos and sound effects with Vlog It’s titles, graphics and transitions to create your own personal newscast or documentary without knowing how to use complex video editing software.  TypePad users can download a special edition of Vlog It that provides free video hosting and an easy way to post videos to your blog.

We love products that make it easy to add rich, engaging content to your blog.  Vlog It and the VideoEgg Publisher are two tools that are making video blogging easy and fun. We're happy they're working with TypePad, and we're looking forward to seeing what you do with them!

Breathing Life into Moblogging

When I started working at Six Apart, I pledged to get a new camera phone and try this whole “moblogging? thing for myself. I admit it, I was skeptical at first. Primarily because my experiences with camera phones up until that point were disappointing at best: the photo quality was pretty poor, and it was too difficult to get my photos off the phone and put them some place where others could see them.

And that’s the whole point right? I mean, what good is taking a photo, if I can’t share it just as easily? What I want is a way to share the photos I take with my phone with my friends and family online. If you are using a camera phone and have a bunch of photos stuck in memory, it's a snap to send them straight to your TypePad blog.

We've teamed up with the folks at Nokia so that moblogging to your TypePad account is now even better. The TypePad multimedia templates are even optimized for Lifeblog, ensuring that your photos look their best. I am no longer a skeptic. Lifeblog and TypePad combine the sharing of photos with the taking of photos – in one phone, in one mobile application, in one action: point, click and share.

If you have a TypePad weblog and a Lifeblog enabled Nokia phone, you should seriously consider downloading Lifeblog. Viewing, managing and sharing your photos just got a whole lot easier . So, what are you waiting for? Moblog!