Communicating beyond the blog
December 19, 2006
Here at TypePad HQ we believe blogging is a great way to keep in touch with with friends, family, customers or people who share your passion. But we obviously recognize that sometimes you need to get outside the blog to connect with your audience, no matter how large or small. That's why we're pleased that we have two new Widgets that can help you do that: Meebo Me and VerticalResponse.
If you're an instant messaging user and you haven't heard of Meebo, we highly recommend giving it a try. Meebo is a web-based, cross-platform instant messaging client. Which means that when you're away from your primary PC (when you're, say, traveling over the holidays) you can log on to Meebo from any modern browser and sign in to AIM, Yahoo IM, Google Talk and ICQ from one account. With the Meebo Me Widget, you can now drop an embeddable IM window on to your blog to let your visitors chat with you in real time. It's great for answering real time comments and questions from your readers.
VerticalResponse, on the other hand, is a great way to extend your marketing efforts from your blog to the inbox. VerticalResponse is an easy-to-use, web-based opt-in email marketing system that helps you collect email addresses and other information from your readers, format and deliver email newsletters and even produce and deliver postcards to your customers. VerticalResponse -- whose CEO, Janine Popick is a proud TypePad blogger -- has built a Sign-Up Form Widget for TypePad that streamlines the process of putting a customized opt-in form on your blog.
And if IM and email weren't enough for you, we're proud to "announce" that here at Six Apart we're expanding our offerings to include a "Blogs by Phone" service, just in time for the holidays. Our intrepid co-founders, Ben and Mena Trott, explain just how the service works in this exclusive "behind the scenes" video.
From all of us at Six Apart, happy holidays!