Anil Dash, chief evangelist for blogging software platform Six Apart, announced today that blogging platform has launched a a plugin that provides WordPress users with access to a suite of Six Apart’s add-on features for blogs. Dash made the announcement at WordPress blogger convention WordCamp Mid-Atlantic. While some of Six Apart’s functionality have been available to WordPress users, this is the first time the site is offering these services as a suite to a rival blogging platform. These features include TypePad AntiSpam, a free open source anti-spam service; TypePad Connect, a commenting profile service; integration with Six Apart Media, the site’s advertising network; and inclusion with blog directory Blogs.com.
Dash says that this move represents “baby steps” in Six Apart’s tentative first efforts to provide a suite of features and functionality to WordPress users. This a big deal, considering the long standing rivalry between the two blogging platforms. Last year, the two companies had a heated duel via company blog posts, Twitter and in TechCrunch comments.
Perhaps this integration between the Six Apart and WordPress will help settle the peace between the competitors. And perhaps this is a strategic move on Six Apart’s side to integrate with WordPress, a widely popular platform in the blogging world. One thing is for certain— it’s a blessing for many WordPress bloggers, who will now be able to use the plugin to access some of the useful features of SixApart without having to switch platforms. WordPress offers its own free and paid features for bloggers including a stats system and the commenting and spam technology Akismet (which TechCrunch uses).
Here’s a video clip of Dash talking about WordPress plug-ins and blogging:
Didn’t Google already conquer Open I.D. and Open Connect?
Yeah, this is just another “Connect”. Don’t we have enough of these?
We should make a Uber-Connect that connects to all these Connects.
To some degree, Melvin, that’s what’s interesting about TypePad Connect — it lets people sign in with Google or Facebook or Yahoo or AOL or any OpenID. Maybe we should have called it “Uber-Connect”! :)
Leena, thanks for covering the story! It was a pleasure to talk about the new plugins today — though we’ve had a number of Six Apart folks attend over the years, this was my first WordCamp, so that was a lot of fun.
I think the big point here is that, though we’re eager to compete with Automattic with all the work we do on our platforms, there’s also a nice way for the WordPress community to benefit from the huge amount of innovation and investment we put into our platforms.
The best thing today for me was to see how many people at WordCamp were just regular WordPress users who really liked what we’re doing at Six Apart and wanted to be part of it. I think that’s just a response to the idea that we can make stuff that’s good for blogging and good for the web as a whole, and that there’s a vision that’s bigger than any one piece of software.
http://wordpres...extend/plugins/
“4,245 plugins, 22,152,788 downloads, and counting”
Interesting how the other 4,241 didn’t get TC posts.
I doubt these will float to the top too.
@Anil Instead of posting here. Push some API docs for vox.com online. You said you’d do it in 2006. And yet there is nothing. You see random comments on vox about something that will be added soon, but nothing has happened.
…rival wordpress? I doubt it.
Jessica, check out Anil’s keynote at WordCamp Mid-Atlantic and his announcement of the WordPress plugins on ISTEConnects.org and you might not think it’s about a rivalry.
Six Apart is a joke and probably should keep their hands out of the wordpress pot. They couldn’t keep pounce afloat. They had to sell off live journal. I can’t even begin to express how badly they manage their affairs, and now they are spending time and money playing around with wordpress. All I can say is I’m glad I’m not an investor.
I don’t think their rivals anymore…
This is a symbolic ‘white flag’ ;) and a wise move…
Why would anyone use Typepad Connect when Typepad Profiles are burdened by Sixapart ads?
Smart move Six Apart, but WordPress has the blogging platform. They have the community. They have it all.
They obviously have to do more. And, more than be meaningful advocates for ‘open’ APIs (the efforts of Recordon). They need to go in a direction that would be considered out of character and enable some other form of communication better than Automattic. Skype’s imminent independence may push it to a more commercial enterprise and there need to be other options.
I think open is in the user experience, for example it’s easy to move your blog off of WordPress and onto another system without losing any information. It’s impossible to do that with Typepad, you’re locked in.
Wow, so WordPress users now have access to TypePad anti-spam? Looks like the end is near for Akismet…..
But seriously, this doesn’t provide any substantial functionality that WordPress users don’t already have. The headline should read “Six Apart opens its advertising network to WordPress users”.
There’s actually a lot that MT offers over WP. Community features alone, a more robust template engine with a tag library for rapid development.
I use MT, MT Community, WP, WPMU and I like them all.
It does smack of a white flag of sorts frankly but there are reasons to use MT. It’s a solid platform.
However the documentation has gone to hell and back IMO.
Not sure what’s new here. These products have been out for a while.
robert’s right. Those who have actually spent time with movable type recently will know that for certain applications, it’s preferable to the wordpress’ offerings.
Everyone is welcome to develop for WordPress, and offering services has always gone both ways. The first non-WordPress plugin for Akismet 4 years ago was for MT, and our other services PollDaddy, IntenseDebate, and Gravatar are also used on MT and Typepad. Conversely, the Typepad Antispam plugin is in our directory. :)
Just as a note (I’ll have more to say about the whole thing after I decompress – I was the organizer of WordCamp Mid-Atlantic), SixApart using the opportunity of a WordCamp to announce a suite of SixApart products for WordPress may be a white flag of sorts. However, my invitation to him to come Keynote at the event was a white flag of sorts as well.
Our two communities have made strides to move past historical differences and this is just an extension of that effort. This doesn’t change the fact that I think WordPress is the best product out there, or, I’m sure, Anil’s feeling that MovableType or TypePad are the best products out there.
I think we both agree, however, that the war should be over content, not over platform. If we’re doing our jobs right, the platform disappears.
woohoo TypePad Connect for WordPress! I’m a WordPress evangelist but I respect the community building services that Six Apart has developed.
Yes, there are similar plugins for Wordpress already but they were not developed by a dedicated team at Automattic. I think there is a real difference between plugins and features developed by the community and plugins developed by company that developed the platform.
I spoke with Anil at length about SixApart’s Wordpress moves.
He should start by fixing Typepad export first.
Broken since 2003. SixApart deliberately make it impossible to export with permalinks, requiring twenty step workarounds to export from Typepad to Wordpress.
It took me two years to get my own weblog back intact.
Stronger together we are :)