Is there such a concept left in the lexicon as mobile blogging, or “moblogging”? Devices like the iPhone, services like Twitter and mobile photo blogging apps like Shozu blur the lines between “presence” updates, micro-blogging and mobile blogging. What is left to be done in this space that’s new?
The UK-based Moblog.net thinks that a platform play might be it and plans to tackle it in few different ways. They are launching (deep breath) an API, a hosted solution for anyone to create a mobile blogging community, integration with Shozu and Spinvox (you can create a blog just by calling into the site), groups and domain mapping. A key aspect will be geotagging incoming SMS and MMS - something the average Web-only startup would find hard to do. They are also focusing on the ease of account creation, with set-up via SMS or voice call in the UK, USA, France, Germany, and Spain. You may wonder why all the emphasis on SMS, but although the mobile Web is poised to take off, text messaging remains by far the most popular non-voice mobile service, and makes the largest single contribution to the data revenues of mobile operators. But can they pull it off, with existing online social networks extending deeply into mobile, especially with native iPhone apps?
I’ve been using moblog for 3 years now and the recent site upgrade has dare i say… “Made my life better”
Geo mapping, better features and you can do everything you can do on other blogging sites with the added advantage of everything being mobile!
If you haven’t got one, get one now!
I’ve been using it for a year or two, and the community there have always been unusually friendly and supportive, although largely UK based.
tried using it but …
MOD_PYTHON ERROR
ProcessId: 9214
Interpreter: ‘main_interpreter’
ServerName: ‘newness.moblog.co.uk’
DocumentRoot: ‘/home/manmacx/mb2/siteroot’
URI: ‘/’
Location: None
Directory: None
Filename: ‘/home/manmacx/mb2/siteroot/’
PathInfo: ”
Phase: ‘PythonHandler’
Handler: ‘django.core.handlers.modpython’
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mod_python/importer.py”, line 1537, in HandlerDispatch
default=default_handler, arg=req, silent=hlist.silent)
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mod_python/importer.py”, line 1229, in _process_target
result = _execute_target(config, req, object, arg)
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mod_python/importer.py”, line 1128, in _execute_target
result = object(arg)
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/core/handlers/modpython.py”, line 190, in handler
return ModPythonHandler()(req)
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/core/handlers/modpython.py”, line 163, in __call__
response = self.get_response(request)
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/core/handlers/base.py”, line 64, in get_response
response = middleware_method(request)
File “/home/manmacx/mb2/pt/accounts/middleware.py”, line 50, in process_request
ban = Ban.current_objects.is_banned(request.user, ip, session)
File “/home/manmacx/mb2/pt/../pt/accounts/managers.py”, line 29, in is_banned
if bans:
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py”, line 170, in __nonzero__
iter(self).next()
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py”, line 164, in _result_iter
self._fill_cache()
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py”, line 586, in _fill_cache
self._result_cache.append(self._iter.next())
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py”, line 252, in iterator
for row in self.query.results_iter():
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/query.py”, line 204, in results_iter
for rows in self.execute_sql(MULTI):
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/query.py”, line 1619, in execute_sql
cursor = self.connection.cursor()
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/db/backends/__init__.py”, line 33, in cursor
cursor = self._cursor(settings)
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/db/backends/mysql/base.py”, line 188, in _cursor
self.connection = Database.connect(**kwargs)
File “build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/MySQLdb/__init__.py”, line 74, in Connect
File “build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/MySQLdb/connections.py”, line 170, in __init__
super(Connection, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs2)
OperationalError: (1040, ‘Too many connections’)
Seems to be working fine for me…
As you’d imagine, rather a lot of visits, site should be fine now.
I think moblog has a great future. And with companies like that trying to make it easier for people, I expect a boom in the next year.
Terrible Coverage. Six Apart and Words Press have Mobile Blogging Utilities. MoBlog, go home.
@ #1 Nice post for your own company. You couldn’t have made it more obvious. N one has been using this for 3 years.
“@ #1 Nice post for your own company. You couldn’t have made it more obvious. N one has been using this for 3 years.”
Easy tiger… Just one look at my moblog profile will tell you i have been on the site for 2 years, 10 months…
http://moblog.net/profile/4368/
that’s about 3 years no?
Mobile blogging will be exactly like video blogging . It will be a big fail.
Twitter’s big innovation was allowing cellphone users to make micro-blog posts. If I understand moblog, it aims to bring mobile posts to full scale blogs. But who wants to type more than 140 characters into a complete blog post from your cellphone? How about a company blends voice recognition with a mobile blogging service? Then the user can just call in the blog post which is converted to text for posting to the site. Perhaps the readers of the blog are given the option to listen to the post as a podcast or read it? Would be a nice step in this evolution.
Er Joe, Moblog does that already. The Spinvox integration means you can just call a post in, it gets converted to text and posted to your moblog along with the audio file. Heck, you can even signup just by calling one of our international numbers.
We’re not about microblogging per se, mobile captured images convey an entire story without words, all we’ve done is update the platform to make everything much much easier.
Moblog has a multifacted offering and that is what makes it difficult to coin exactly what they do. What makes it even more complex are the varying ways in which people are using the service. In its infancy the focus was on taking pictures on your mobile phone and posting them to your moblog via MMS or the phone email client. This expanded to people uploading pictures from their desktop (perhaps after post-processing, or because they didn’t want to pay for data rates from their phone, or because they were using point & shoot or DSLR cameras without the ability to upload on the spot).
Now that the service has expanded to incorporate SMS, voice-to-text (through Spinvox), inline video, geotagging etc. there are even more ways that the site is beginning to be used. In this article, Moblog is being positioned as a “Wordpress for mobile blogging”. I’ve also heard of it being likened to a cross between Twitter and Flickr, but IMO it’s an amalgam of all three of the aforementioned, plus a Vimeo (or another good video service) and it’s all wrapped up in a fully accessible “mobile” bow. In addition the entire proposition is backed by the fantastic core community of people that has been continually growing since launch.
Mike is 100% right about the interface, but this is somewhat offset by the blogs being customizable. People really need to go and see for themselves what moblog have to offer and put the service through its paces. There really is a lot to be excited about.
cough.
http://www.mobog.com
cough.
ah dear Mobog, the porn of mobile blogging sites
I remember when you guys launched and I was like ‘yup, people do like posting porn on the internets’.
yes agree with alfie to some extent, unless the site has been cleaned up , seemed to be a bottom feeder. SMS rules the youth culture in many countries , so it will always have users
This last weekend I sent 4 posts to my wordpress blog using email and attachments (images) via a smartphone - dead easy. Why did I do it? Because it was WordCamp UK 2008 and I wanted to provide up to the minute reportage of the event. OK, so you need to use the postie plugin and tweak it a bit, but once set up it’s a doddle. And now you can download an iphone/wordpress app to blog from your iphone.
If you want more than a sentence forget Twitter for that kind of scenario. All these things have their place. Don’t get hung up on one solution. Moblogging is alive and well.
Micro-blogging site http://onhandblog.com is a convenient, straightforward approach to mobile blogging. You don’t even have to sign in to post to your account. They use something called a Master Key embedded in your micro-blog’s URL. That way you can bookmark your posting page, bypassing the step of signing in with a username and password when on your mobile phone.
belangrijke mensen plus een porno
via a smartphone - dead easy. Why did I do it