Everything Typepad

Making it easier to find TypePad Bloggers

When we announced the Follow feature a while back, Shannan Sinclair of Original Bliss commented:

“I like it. I just wish it was easier to search Typepad for blogs I am interested in and could "follow."”

 

 

Introducing the TypePad Profile module, another way we're making it easier to follow your favorite TypePad bloggers and discover what they're posting, commenting about, and interested in around the web. See ours on the right hand side of this blog - it looks just like this:

 

 

If you spot the TypePad Profile module on a blog, you know they're a TypePad member. Just click the "Follow Me" button and follow that blogger's activity on your TypePad dashboard.

 

 

 

More Followers = More Readers

Adding the TypePad Profile module will help increase your readers in two ways. First, people who follow your profile are more likely to visit your blog on a regular basis. When you post to your blog, a link to your post will appear on the dashboard of everyone who follows you. This teaser link will drive more visits to your post.

 

But Follow has an extra benefit also. When Shannan comments on Mark’s blog, Shannan’s comment appears on the dashboard of everyone following Mark. Shannan’s comment is a way to tell everyone in Shannan’s extended network, “Hey, there’s good blogging going on over at Mark’s. Come check it out!” Think of your followers not as a status symbol (OK, it *can* be) but more, a way to help others find good content: your blog, and blogs you comment on.

 

Add “Follow Me” TypePad Profile module to your blog

It’s easy to add this fun feature. To add the TypePad Profile button to your blog just click "Design" and then in "Content Selection", you can pick the "TypePad Profile" button. It's a cool way to showcase your profile in your sidebar, too.

 

You can even customize how you want this to appear - you can show your number of followers, even customize the text and background color.

 

Add it to your blog and let us know

So this is the first of many steps to help make great TypePad bloggers and the community easier to search and discover.

Help Shannan and others find and follow you. Add the TypePad Profile module to your blog and let us know in the comments so others can follow you and your blog.

Favorite Blogs: Mowielicious

We asked one of our favorite bloggers, Mowie from Mowielicious about his new food blog, his favorite bloggers, and how his blog has changed his life.

How long have you been blogging with TypePad?
- Almost a year now.

What led you to choose TypePad as a blogging platform?
- I'd been a fan of many other blogs, some by TypePad, they all looked really good, so I tried it along with a few other platforms, but I was most comfortable with TypePad - it was the most user-friendly for me.

Are there some cross-posts (so to speak) with your former blog and your new blog?
- I started out blogging about everything really, then moved on to travel, then restaurant recommendations, until I finally started food styling and food photography which finally feels like a perfect fit. I can't imagine doing anything else now with my life. Blogging has led me to start a portfolio, and hopefully I can use the blog as a platform to new & exciting things. I've already had a few offers for entrepreneurs opening restaurants, brides to be, and a couple of magazines, all that have seen and loved the photos on Mowielicious and wanting me to take photos for them. Who knows what's next around the corner.

What’s your favorite comment/interaction from someone new you’ve had through your blog?
- Being able to meet fascinating and amazingly creative new people, but there was one in specific where we just developed an amazing rapport from the start and have remained friends ever since!

Who are your favorite TypePad bloggers?
- A Creative Mint
- Ohlala Mag
- n-judah love song  ;-)

Thanks, Mowie!

This Week's Release: New Themes, Comment with Twitter, and more...

This week's release is a great one - the new TypePad is really shaping up, thanks to all of your input. We're heading into a long weekend here in the US. To all our stateside readers, have a happy and safe holiday.

On with the show!

New Theme: Magnetic

 

 

Available in: dark blue, red, green, pink, or purple.

Help is on the way

Some things in the new TypePad can be a little confusing when you switch over. We've added some dismissable information "bubbles" that help point the way.

Beta-only!

Your commenters can log in though TypePad, Twitter and Facebook already, but for our beta team, we've put those logos on the comment form. This helps your readers know they can log in to leave you great comments with whatever service they choose.

Guest Author Improvements

• Guest authors can now set up external accounts to share posts with Twitter, Facebook, and more.
• Each guest author can also now use post-by-email with their own secret email address

Bug Fixes of note

• Display draft/scheduled posts on your dashboard
• Show post/comment count on your dashboard
• "View full screen" in compose is fixed
• Fixed IE7 crashes
• Fixed Bookmarklet double encoding issues
• Changed sharing posts to Facebook to display post images
• Moved Delete Blog to settings page
• tons more behind-the-scenes improvements

Known issues:

• UPDATED TO ADD: reply-to comments for some folks is replying to the comment thread, rather than the email address. We're looking into this and will update everyone here at Everything TypePadas soon as we can.
• While our TypePad Anti-Spam service is working just fine, some people are seeing spam comment notification emails. We'll have this fixed ASAP.
• If anyone is seeing oddness with custom HTML modules (making the design of your page look strange all of a sudden) we're shipping a fix for this too, ASAP. In the meantime, you can open up a help ticket with our support team, or to fix it yourself, you'll want to go to the Design > Content page and update the module by wrapping the custom HTML like so:
  
  
  
  
  
  <div class="module">
       <div class="module-content">
           [Custom HTML goes here.]
       </div>
  </div>

Here's our favorite comment about the new release so far:

Guest Author Improvements

• Guest authors can now set up external accounts to share posts with Twitter, Facebook, and more.
• Each guest author can also now use post-by-email with their own secret email address

Bug Fixes of note

• Display draft/scheduled posts on your dashboard
• Show post/comment count on your dashboard
• "View full screen" in compose is fixed
• Fixed IE7 crashes
• Fixed Bookmarklet double encoding issues
• Changed sharing posts to Facebook to display post images
• Moved Delete Blog to settings page
• tons more behind-the-scenes improvements

Known issues:

• UPDATED TO ADD: reply-to comments for some folks is replying to the comment thread, rather than the email address. We're looking into this and will update everyone here at Everything TypePadas soon as we can.
• While our TypePad Anti-Spam service is working just fine, some people are seeing spam comment notification emails. We'll have this fixed ASAP.
• If anyone is seeing oddness with custom HTML modules (making the design of your page look strange all of a sudden) we're shipping a fix for this too, ASAP. In the meantime, you can open up a help ticket with our support team, or to fix it yourself, you'll want to go to the Design > Content page and update the module by wrapping the custom HTML like so:
  
  
  
  
  
  <div class="module">
       <div class="module-content">
           [Custom HTML goes here.]
       </div>
  </div>

Here's our favorite comment about the new release so far:

CSS Hack: 1 Column with 3 Sidebar Modules Underneath

Let's keep hacking away! Last time we turned 3 Columns, Right layout into 1 column with 2 sidebars tucked underneath.

Then Yvonne and Samjien asked if there was a way to do 3 columns underneath.

Here's how:

Create a blog with theme Journal, Black and layout 2 Columns, Right.

Add 3 test posts and 3 'Embed Your Own HTML' modules (Design > Content : Modules : 'Embed Your Own HTML').

You should have a blog with 3 posts and 3 sidebar modules that looks like this:

First let's do the width changes like we did last time: (Design > Custom CSS)

 /* change entire width to the same as the content column */

#container { width: 450px; }

/* change pagebody width to the same as the content column */

#pagebody { width: 450px; }

.layout-two-column-right #alpha { width: 450px; }

.layout-two-column-right #beta { margin: 0 0 0 0px; width:450px; }

So far so good - here's what the bottom portion looks like - notice the three sidebar modules in our 1 sidebar are stacked one on top of another:

To get our faux 3-columns underneath we are going to widen the sidebar modules until they are equal widths and stretch underneath the content.

/* shrink sidebars to 1/3 width so they stack side-by-side */

.module { width: 130px; float: left; padding: 10px; }

That puts our sidebar modules - which are 3 modules inside 1 sidebar - next to eachother:

 

A few little tweaks:

/* get rid of the top padding in the sidebar */

#beta-inner { padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px; }

And the banner fixes from last time:

/* correct banner, navbar and footer width to match pagebody */

#banner-inner { width: 450px;}
#nav { padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; width: 420px;}
#footer { padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; width: 420px;}

/* add padding in banner */

#banner-inner {padding: 10px; }

And here we go!

 

And here is the complete CSS:

/* change entire width to the same as the content column */

#container { width: 450px; }

/* change pagebody width to the same as the content column */

#pagebody { width: 450px; }

.layout-two-column-right #alpha { width: 450px; }

.layout-two-column-right #beta { margin: 0 0 0 0px; width:450px; }

/* shrink sidebars to 1/3 width so they stack side-by-side */

.module { width: 130px; float: left; padding: 10px; }

/* get rid of the top padding in the sidebar */

#beta-inner { padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px; }

/* correct banner, navbar and footer width to match pagebody */

#banner-inner { width: 450px;}
#nav { padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; width: 420px;}
#footer { padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; width: 420px;}

/* add padding in banner */

#banner-inner {padding: 10px; }

Tah-dah!

Remember: Always experiment on a test blog!

Caveat: I'm not sure what will happen if you put more than three modules in the sidebar. They should continue to stack in layers since they all have that 1/3 width.

Have fun!

Meet the New TypePad

We're bringing everyone onboard to the All New TypePad! We've got a walk-through on what's changed and where you can find your favorite features (and show off some new stuff we think you'll love).

The old TypePad is being retired soon. Join us for a call and ask us your questions.

Here's the slides from the 22nd - still waiting on video:

Meet The New TypePad

View more presentations from Andy Wibbels.

Streamline your operation: collect & manage data directly from your blog with FormSpring

At the Small Business Center we have been talking to many great companies who create tools to help small businesses save time and hopefully make money. They believe the closer they can bring their services to the customer the less the business owner has to do to manage it all and the more efficiently things can run. And, to be honest, when you are a one man/woman product-marketing-sales-design-finance team, you need all the help you can get.

Removing tech and IT support, to as great an extent as possible is often a good way to save time and hassle. Many companies, even large ones like Rubbermaid, Photobucket, and Patagonia have decided they would rather have TypePad handle the IT side of things so they can focus on their core businesses.

So here is another tip for streamlining things a little further. FormSpring.These guys have built an app that allows you to build custom forms that you can integrate with your TypePad blog. You can use these forms for

• building your customer database
• customer surveys
• event registration
• contests/competitions

All are excellent ways to engage a customer further to complete the cycle from visit to sale.

FormSpring have integrated with some of our favorite services too like FreshBooks, Email Center Pro, Mail Chimp, SalesForce and many more so you can put the customer data straight to good use. Find out more about FormSpring for Typepad

Let us know what you think in the comments