Blogging news

After enraging the MovableType community last month with their new pricing policy, SixApart have now done themseves proud. The new pricing policy is more than fair:

• Limited to 1 author and 3 weblogs for personal use remains the same
• Personal Edition (for $69.95) now includes up to 5 authors and an unlimited number of weblogs for personal use. This is a huge jump from 5 authors 5 blogs.
• Unlimited Personal Edition (for $99.95) now allows for an unlimited number of authors and weblogs for personal use
• They also include licenses for non-profit organisations

Seems like everyone is happy now in MT-land. Some people who switched over in a blind rage to other tools may now regret their decision - then again some people might have found tools that suited them better. I never felt that I needed to make a decision right there and then anyway - I'm quite happy with what I have right now and I'm looking forward to seeing if MT3.0 full version will offer goodies I just can't say no to when released in the near future.

The warm and fuzzy feeling isn't extended to the Weblogs.com community, who got carpet pulled from under their feet last Sunday without any notification. Dave Winer who has been running the service pulled the plug on thousands of blogs, stating personal reasons as the cause. While no one can deny that what he did was entirely within his rights, I still think it was an awful thing to do.

Winer also added in his audio message that he believed no matter how he had handled the shutdown, people would have complained.

Now that is not a good reason in my books - yes, whatever you do people will always complain, but that doesn't give you a reason to think that it doesn't matter. I know that even after keeping a blog for measly six months I would be mortified if one morning I couldn't log on - only to find out that I might get my data back in two weeks time if only I asked politely and didn't whine about it. I would like to offer my sympathies to everyone affected - if any regular readers of this blog are on the firing line please contact me and let's see if we can sort out a new home for your blog on dt.net.

Posted by kolibri at 17 June 13:14, 2004