Everything Typepad

Feedback in moderation, and a new Widget

This afternoon we released two new features that are the latest in our efforts to provide TypePad bloggers the best tools for growing and managing an active community of readers and commenters.

• You can now moderate TrackBacks independently of comments.  Before today, our moderation preference was set on both types of feedback at once.  Now you can choose to moderate one, the other or both.  Our recommended configuration for active blogs is moderating TrackBacks, requiring CAPTCHA for unauthenticated comments, and providing users the ability to sign in via TypeKey to comment.

• It’s now much easier to set those feedback preferences.  Even though they’re the kind of preferences you want to set and forget, we still want to make the experience as straightforward as possible.  The Weblog Configure tab now has a new “Feedback” page for setting your preferences for how your blog should handle inbound comments and TrackBacks.

Additionally, we just posted a new Widget that shows off a little bit of what's possible with the magical combination of Widgets and JavaScript.  We've heard frequently that users want to have links to outside sites open in a new Window; this new widget does exactly that by installing a simple bit of JavaScript on your blog.  We've got a few more of those in development, so stay tuned... 

New Widgets for TypePad

Last week we introduced a baker's dozen of fresh new Widgets to the TypePad Widget Gallery, bringing our current Widget count to more than 45!  Here's what's new:

• Newsvine adds live, up-to-the-second Newsvine news feeds from the Associated Press to the sidebar of your blog.
• Bitty Browser is a small browser for the sidebar of your blog.  It can be customized to display any URL or links from Delicious, Digg, Flickr and more.
• Stylehive allows you to display pictures of your favorite products on your blog
• SiteMeter's widget allows you to easily install SiteMeter's visitor tracking code, to help you understand the traffic on your blog.
• Gada.be is metasearch engine that will allow your readers to more easily find (and subscribe to) RSS searches.
• WhoLinked shows other websites that are linking to your blog.
• JotSpot's Affiliate Program pays you for traffic that you send to JotSpot, the Application Wiki.
• BlogBar is a free search engine bar for searching within your site, or across the blogosphere or the web.
• Clipro allows you to create your own TV show from their video clips, photos and music, and then display it in the sidebar of your blog.
• Blog Barrel is a traffic networking system designed to give newer blogs a chance to gain exposure while expanding the audience of more popular blogs.
• Blog Tattoo is a simple but fun Widget that displays a "Kanji" (Japanese/Chinese character) at random on your blog.
• Andertoons lets you pick topic, click a button, and add a daily cartoon to your blog's sidebar.

And rounding out the lucky thirteen, a Widget that does more than just spruce up your blog...

• DonorsChoose is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack.  Their Widget can help you raise money for public school teachers and students.

If you haven't installed a Widget yet, check out the screencast to see just how easy it is, and then browse the Widget Gallery to find one (or more) that's right for your blog.  Interested in developing Widgets?  All of our developer documentation is online, and we're always on the lookout for more great Widgets to feature in our Gallery.

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.

Word banning, and a word of thanks

The storm seems to have passed, and to mark a day of (relative) calm, this evening we introduced a new feature to TypePad: Word Banning.

You can now block comments and TrackBacks from reaching your blog if they contain words or phrases that you find offensive. For example: say that are you sick and tired of comments on your blog about Mary Poppins. Now you can simply ban the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and comments that contain that quite atrocious word will be stopped before they reach your blog.

Word and IP Address Banning in TypePad

Banning keywords is easy. We've combined word banning and IP banning into a single page in your Control Panel. IP banning continues to behave as it always has on TypePad -- adding an IP address to the list will block any comments or TrackBacks which are sent from that address.

Speaking of banning IP addresses... We want to thank everyone in the extended Six Apart community for all of the supportive emails, IMs and blog posts we've received in the last 24 hours. The team here appreciates it very, very much.

TypePad Update

Since approximately 4:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time, Six Apart has been the victim of a sophisticated distributed denial of service attack. This has affected all of Six Apart's sites, causing intermittent and limited availability for TypePad, LiveJournal, TypeKey, sixapart.com, movabletype.org and movabletype.com. Our network operations staff is working around the clock with our Internet access providers to resolve the issue. We appreciate your patience and support, and will provide updates as we have them.

Update, 11:40 pm PDT: Access and availability to our sites has improved. We continue to work closely with our Internet access providers and will monitor the situation through the night.

Updated, May 3, 12:32 pm PDT. TypePad's availability returned to normal levels during the night, and at approximately 3:50 a.m. we turned our status site back to "green." Our operations staff continues to work with our access providers to monitor the situation, and if things change we will post about it here and on status.sixapart.com. The team appreciates all the email, help tickets and blog posts of support from the entire Six Apart community. Thank you!