Six Apart, creator of the blogging platform Movable Type, has partnered with LightPole, a mobile application provider. The two companies have co-developed a plugin for Movable Type that will allow bloggers to geo-tag their posts, create geo-located Points of Interest, and publish content through LightPole channels to mobile phones.
The plugin brings Movable Type to two distinct (and important) markets: Geo-enabled websites and location-based phone services. These features could be a boon to bloggers, especially those that write about real-world locales, such as restaurants or landmarks. They may also help writers reach a much larger audience through mobile phones.
The news comes soon after LightPole’s implementation of Yahoo’s geo-information platform FireEagle last month.
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Very Nice!
I like it when web businesses tries to branch out to new domains especially the mobile space. This will definitely boost up their rep and reach.
I am also looking for more news on how the mobile platform is monetizing old/new web businesses. There is a future in it and I think the innovation we see today has not yet fully harness its true potential. Look out for it
Location based services are doomed to fail, unless you are looking at the problem with valleygoggles. This is yet another case of two flailing services trying to boost themselves via a weak alliance, and it’s a shame that a plugin that could have been written in a weekend makes the front page.
niceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
شات
hmmm…aren’t most blogs almost always posted from the blogger’s “home office”?!?
As much as I love geosync-based apps (I’m building the mother of all such products) I this might be a somewhat wanky application of the technology.
Parker: I guess we’ll just have to have very different opinions about the probability of location based services. The last I looked everyone I know, at one point or another during the course of a normal day, is looking for something or someone that is someplace. Bringing this capability to the mobile world is not only natural, it’s inevitable.
Raskin: The relevance of blogging and location has two different aspects. A lot of bloggers write from one location about other locations. Other bloggers are actually writing about the place they are (think travel blogs). The point of the plug-in is to allow them to embed the geo-data of the places their writing about within their feeds, building an automatic repository of location focused content.
How can mobile be effectively monetized in the US if the carriers continue to have a stranglehold on software distribution? All of these start-ups are living in a small fishbowl.
Parker, you certainly have a right to your opinion. But you call your credibility into question when you characterize Six Apart as “flailing.” They’re great company with a solid product and a real customer base. Personally, I’m proud that we’ve had this excellent opportunity to partner with them.