Following Dave Winer's posting ...
This is a question for non-technical bloggers. (That is people who use blogging tools, not those who develop them.) Premise: We've reached a plateau in blogging tools. There haven't been a lot of changes in the last two or three of years. The growth continues, lots more weblogs, and we've got better tools for reading (aggregators). Question: What's next in writing tools for weblogs? If you could influence people who are making the tools, what feature or features would you want? Think as big as you like, or as detailed as you like. What bug is most in your way. Ramble, please. Is there one thing you'd kill for? Or perhaps you're satisfied with the tools as they are. I hope your comments are on the record so I can assemble a quote sheet as the beginning of a conversation that I hope will yield better tools for all of us.
... Scobleizer has a great résumé of the current position, pros and cons: TypePad ('business model', 'great looking templates that are standards-based'), Radio UserLand (smart client: 'If UserLand's servers were hit by terrorists, for instance, I would be able to get all my data back up and running within hours on a different server. I bet your weblog tool can't do that.'), Das Blog (the most useful referer information I've ever seen in a weblog tool.) ... .Text gets a special mention as 'the best way to create group weblogs'. This last is one that all in education seeking to create collaborative blogs for teaching purposes should look at.
Scoble finishes off with his wish-list:
Some other things I want, but haven't found?1) An Outlook plugin. I read 1296 feeds. When I find something cool I want to drag it to a folder and have it AUTOMAGICALLY put it up on a weblog. I don't even want to click post. So, I want to have a "really public folder." ...
2) I want an XHTML WYSIWYG editor that writes nice and consistent code. You might not know this, but I hand code all the HTML on my blog (I'm typing into the HTML editor in Radio UserLand). Why do I do that? Because it's the only way that I can ensure that my page complies with the validator and gives consistent HTML markup so that my CSS style sheets (ugly as they are) can work properly.
3) Add in some service integration. Technorati and Feedster are two that I'd love to see integrated in some way into my tools/services.
Anyway, I'm still waiting for a blogging tool that wraps it all up.
BuzzMachine has a long and excellent wish-list: simplicity, mobility, distributed posting ... (Anil Dash comments, anil dash's daily links, 25.2.2004: 'a lot of Jeff's ideas are on my personal wishlist, too'.)
