New Webloggers, New Experiences

While looking through our referrers, I found a great post about TypePad and community.

Carried Away writes about The "Recently Updated Weblogs" Effect:

"William, who publishes "the life - or NOT!", checked his referrers list and found a hit coming off of my site, and in turn checked out my site and then TrackBacked a post to me here. I know that's the whole point of the TrackBack feature, that  readers are allowed more insight into a particular topic, but there is also an element of "connecting" going on. At least right now when blogging is still realtively new to a lot of us."

Placing the "Recently Updated List" on your own weblog is certainly a great way to help foster this community. While it may not be an option for those who like to selectively link to weblogs, it's a way to get discovered through reciprocal links. Of course, you have to be comfortable with the idea that you may end up having a link to a weblog that expresses an opinion that you may not agree with. It's this sort of gamble that is what makes weblogging appealing -- different opinions to read, consider and even sometimes ignore.

We'll be soon adding some new and very exciting community features to be found on the blogs.com domain. Look for these features in late September!

Comments

[Marion]

Thanks for bringing up the idea of the gamble involved in web logging. Let's hope many more will be encouraged to risk the thoughtful interchange of ideas, especially in schools.

[carried away]

Sweet sassy molassy! *

Ever since this post linked to my weblog I've gotten hit more times than someone who uses the phrase "sweet sassy molassy". Thanks for the traffic Mena.

(*I heard Ray Romano say that on SNL once.)

[Dinah Sanders]

It's great to hear that new features to accentuate this best part of writing on the Web. I've been blogging for almost 5 years now and building connections to new people is still one of the things that brings me the most pleasure.

What I'd really like is some way to have a feed from other blogs I like in a page for me (which other people can look at if they like). Sort of like a daily newspaper I select the columnists for. My regulars up top, then some "people who read...also read"s showing up in smaller quantities for me to try new things.

I basically want the text & visual equivalent to my music station on Launch. :)

[Robin Good]

Hi Mena,

here is Robin bringing many flowery kudos to you for this outstanding tool. After MT this is just great. I am only looking forward to MT Pro as that would be my personal paradise.

I wanted to point your readers and potential users to a new application of TypePad that I have just written about and which may be of interest to your users involved with delivering presentations online.

Please check:
http://tinyurl.com/n82h

All the best,

Robin Good

[Chris]

Hi there. I have been using Blogger to publish my weblog for the past several months. I now want to switch to TypePad. Does anyone have any experience doing this? If so, please email me.

I would like to know the following: Is this easy to do? Will TypePad simply import all my old posts? I assume I'll have to create a new domain; should I redirect my old site to the new URL, or just post a link and hope my readers go with me?

Thanks in advance. All the best weblogs use TypePad! :)

[Cyn]

Chris: In re: importing Blogger Blogs to Type Pad.
This is all relative, of course.
The staff at Type Pad were very friendly and helpful, but after getting instructions from them twice, and following them to a *T,* when I went to transfer my Blogger file (it is turned into one file in the process) I got error messages.
I gave up, finally. I made the Blogger file a clickable file that opens and I am cutting and pasting each entry into posts in Type Pad, then back dating them. The one good thing is my jpeg files came intact and transfered nicely.
Still, the process is long and labor intensive. I don't think this is a Type Pad issue, though--I think the problem or maybe more accurately *difficulty,* comes from Blogger's end. Best of luck!

[brenna]

If you have problems importing, then please submit the error you are having, and a link to your export file. It's easy to see the problem if you provide a link to your export file. An issue really sticks out once you are familiar with the format. :) Which, for most people this is a one-time thing so it is understandable that the problem is not easily spotted.

Also, when you submit a request for help, responding back with an update or letting us know that it did not work will let us know to help you further with it.

But you are right that this should be easier and hopefully it will be in the future. Once your content is in the right format it is a breeze with the actual importing.

[Roger Bell]

I am the Webmaster for my church at http://www.allsaintsccu.org. I have intermediate HTML skills, using HTML-Kit as my primary design tool. My Weblog design skills are *none.*

I want to make our church Web site more interactive and have been considering making it a Weblog. Typepad hosting with movable type seems to be the way I want to go.

However, I have a few questions. I want to keep our current church Web address, so how do I handle the domain transfer? If I want to keep the current site look and feel "as is" until I create and test a blog, can I create a subdomain to do that on your site and ftp the existing Web site files in the meantime?