Jun | 07 | 2007

MovableType 4 Beta Released and Goes Open Source!

Posted by Sophia as Blogging News, Blogging Tools, Software Features

MovableType 4

SixApart has just announced the release of MovableType 4 Beta. Many have known MT as the definitive blogging software that has forever changed the way people blog.

Beyond WordPress

Those who are well-versed with the history of blogging will know that the boom did not start with WordPress. The first wave came with MovableType. Few blog software were as easy to customize, and this attracted a large following.

Movable Type was once the darling of the blogosphere, especially from its original launch in 2001 to about 2004 (when licensing issues upset many bloggers). Since 2004/05, many bloggers have migrated to the open source Wordpress – and perhaps of more concern, a lot of third party developers transferred their efforts from MT to Wordpress

Source: Read/Write Web

What’s New With MT?

The latest version of MovableType will include a completely revamped user interface, improved scalability, and over 50 new features like tagging, widgets, as well as static pages and media management. It looks like SixApart wants its blog software to provide more uses than straight-up blogging, which WordPress has managed to do.

MT Goes Open Source

Perhaps the most important part of SixApart’s announcement is that an open source version of MovableType will be released at MovableType.org (under the GPL).

This is big. Being open source is one WordPress’ greatest assets and is one of the biggest reasons it gained the following that outshines MT today.

Also, most professional blogs out there—whether under a blog network or not—have taken advantage of the cost-effectiveness of WordPress. Its open source license had a lot to do with that.

MT Goes Social

MovableType serves a well-defined purpose for a well-defined market: ultra-flexible yet no-frills blogging for the expert blogger. Yet SixApart’s more social blog services, LiveJournal and Vox, provide proof that adding social (community- and relationship-oriented) features opens up new possibilities in the blogging context, aside from making it a lot more interesting and “human”. MovableType 4 will soon join this social shift:

MT4 has been re-designed and re-architected as a platform to address their needs while providing a basis to build social networking features that re-define the scope of blogging.

Source: SixApart Press Release

I’m personally curious how well these features will be put to use by the MT users/audience.

More to Come

SixApart says this announcement is just the first of several that will cover new products and services for for MT4. Shall I stay tuned? Definitely. I’m genuinely interested in how MovableType’s open source version will compete with WordPress’ own and how new developments in blog software will reshape this industry once more. Never a dull moment in blogging, it seems!

You can download the beta version of MT4 at MovableType.org.

Comment (1)

One Response

Jamaipanese
08|Jun|2007

very good news, I will look into this

Our Features

Design and Themes

Is Your Blog W3C Compliant?

Last night I checked my personal blog’s code hoping I can proudly display the W3C Validated Button. Since I use Blogger and do not really do anything to clean up the code (beyond adding Alt-tags to the images I embed) I wasn’t surprised at all to find that my blog contained lots of errors – [...]
Read on
More Design and Themes Features
Software and Widgets

Wordpress Plug-ins

If you blog using Wordpress and can’t do something that you want done like adding Sphere-related content at the end of your blog posts you might be surprised to find out that there are already plug-ins available that make it happen.
To find good Wordpress plug-ins all you need to do is search for “wordpress [...]
Read on
More Software and Widgets Features
Reviews

A Friend In Need

I’m helping out my friends from the UA&P – IShareHappiness Blog Team.
Whenever you feel pessimistic, angry, troubled, frustrated, and depressed – what have you – you need someone to talk to. Someone who could help you be more optimistic and help make you feel that there is hope. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to someone [...]
Read on
More Blog Reviews
Monetization

Review: Logical Media

Logical Media is one of the innovative services that pay for ad placement within blogs. Do you have a blog and are you seeking a way to make additional money from the blog? Are you seeking a way to offset other programs with the use of ads? Through the registration with Logical Media, the blogger [...]
Read on
More Monetization Features
Marketing and Search Optimization

Search Rank Drop and False Alarms

Happy Holidays!
What are the chances of someone being concerned about their blog’s search ranking dropping on Christmas Eve? I have no idea but then again if I’m writing about it right now then there’s probably someone somewhere around the world doing SEO at this very minute.
If you have experienced a sudden drop in ranking, [...]
Read on
More Marketing and SEO Features
Blog Resources