GigaOM » Collaboration

Hosted Community App Vanilla Forums Now Embeddable

Charles Hamilton — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:00:58 +0000

Vanilla Forums, which I wrote about last year, has added several new features. Notably, forums can now be embedded in other website using simple JavaScript code. The embedded forums can use your site’s theme and CSS, or can use one of the many Vanilla themes.

Plugins are available to embed Vanilla Forums in WordPress (please see disclosure at the end of this post), Blogger, Tumblr, Drupal, and Squarespace sites. The WordPress plugin can automatically log WP users into Vanilla without having to sign in again, or to create a separate account. Vanilla also has tools available to import forum content from phpBB and vBulletin.

The cost of the hosted version of Vanilla Forums ranges from a free, advertising-supported plan, to a “premium” plan with unlimited users and 15 GB of storage, costing $199 per month. If you wish to host a forum on your own server, an open-source version is available, for which there are a large number of add-ons available to customize the forum.

Disclosure: Automattic, the maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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ZooLoo Updated: Now Do More With Less

Scott Blitstein — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:00:38 +0000

It’s been a while since I looked at personal dashboard/site building tool ZooLoo, so when I recently had the opportunity to speak with the folks from the company about its new features, and how they have scaled things back to focus on the core product, I jumped at the chance.

When I last wrote about ZooLoo I mentioned how ambitious a product it was, and how that could make it overwhelming, especially for the small business audience it was trying to attract. The new release seem to have addressed a lot of my concerns; quite a bit has been removed from the product and the interface has been spiffed up. Gone are the confusing calendars and tasks, while more emphasis has been placed on social media services, the site creator and a new “Graffiti” microblog feature.

At its core, ZooLoo is still two separate products: a dashboard and a site creator. The private dashboard allows you to create a start page for your browsing experience (similar to iGoogle) but it can also capably work as a front-end or aggregator for your email, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Posts and status updates can be added from the dashboard page and each can also selectively be cross-posted to all of these platforms as well.

The dashboard area is functional and does a good job of bringing together the various services that folks are using. It is much cleaner and easier to manage than the prior iteration and the customization options are plentiful for those who want to tweak it to match their mood. Power users who are already hooked on third-party apps may not find the features rich enough, but it performs nicely.

One of my favorite parts of ZooLoo has always been the site creator, and a addition of the new Graffiti microblogging makes the option even more compelling. Working much like Tumblr, a bookmarklet grabs content while you’re out surfing and lets you quickly share it on your Graffiti page. You can link all of this to your own domain, which makes it a compelling option for small business folks and others who want to a site online but who don’t have the technical skills, time, or resources to build it, or deal with hosting and such. It can also move into the next level of sophistication, with some advanced options for theme creation and styling. For the really technical folks who want ultimate control over their site, using a self-hosted CMS would be the better choice, but if you’re looking for a no-fuss solution that you can get out there quickly then Zooloo is worth a try.

In my original look at ZooLoo I was thrilled with its granular permissions system that allowed for the control of sharing and viewing of pages on your site. I’m glad to see that it’s still in place.

Along with the site refresh is a new “choose what you use” pricing model. I particularly like the way add-on options are broken down so you can select only the ones that you need. For example, to remove adverts from your site is a $1.99 per month option. Other add-on options include additional storage, advanced SEO, stats and even the ability to manage your own adverts if you are looking to monetize your site.

I’m still keen on ZooLoo — actually, even more so following these recent changes. While I’ll stick with my stand-alone self hosted site, I’m comfortable recommending it to friends and family who are looking for a simple yet powerful way to manage a web site.

Could ZooLoo’s all-in-one approach work for you?

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iPhone Blogging Tools Roundup

Will Kelly — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:00:53 +0000

When I made the jump to the iPhone 3G it was most definitely a platform play for me. As a web worker who can be on and off client sites all day, I still want access to my personal web properties, especially my blogs, which serve as a professional face for me online.

Major blog platforms WordPress, TypePad and Tumblr now have very capable iPhone applications, enabling bloggers to publish on the go, with many of the same features they enjoy when publishing from a desktop browser (Disclaimer: Automattic, maker of WordPress, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True). These applications are handy for everything from publishing a posting with a photo and pithy observation to correcting a comment or editing a page.

All of these applications are a free download from the iTunes App Store.

TypePad for iPhone. SixApart’s TypePad platform has long been a leader in mobile blogging almost since the inception of the hosted service. From TypePad for iPhone, you have the following options: “Create a Post,” “Take a Photo,” and “Add a Photo.” The application’s control panel lets you specify TypePad account information, New Post defaults, and even your Twitter login. Including a photo in a blog post is as simple as choosing “Take a Photo,” shooting the photo, and then creating a post and publishing it. Having the “Take a Photo” option available at the top level of the interface makes posting a photo to your TypePad blog simple and easy. The application has a clean user interface.

WordPress for iPhone 2. The recently released (and much-improved over the previous version) WordPress for iPhone 2 enables you to access comments, posts and pages on any WordPress blogs hosted on WordPress.com or on your own hosting domain. Some notable features in this release include a New Comments interface; passwords storage on the keychain; automatic saving and restoration of posts if the network connection is lost during publishing (especially useful for AT&T customers!); and persistence (when you load the app it automatically opens the last post you were working on). Adding a picture to a blog post is as easy as easy as tapping Photos when you are composing a new post and adding a photo from the library or taking a photo with the camera. WordPress for iPhone 2 is a clean and very usable application.

Tumblr. The microblogging service Tumblr is also available via an iPhone app. With the Tumblr iPhone app, you can post text, photo, quote, link, chat, or audio content Tumblr. The audio feature enables you to record audio and send it directly to your tumblelog. I rank myself as a light Tumblr user, but find this application to be very consistent with the web interface, which I find to be one of the application’s positives.

Do you publish blog posts using your iPhone? Share your experience below.

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Grou.ps Wants to Enable Your Team's Collaboration

Jason Harris — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:00:46 +0000

Grou.ps, aims to be a catch-all for teams seeking collaboration. This Swiss army tool of a collaborative site includes ‘Modules’ that enable various degrees of functionality, based on your teams’ needs. Grou.ps currently offers:

chat
blogs
wikis
mailing lists + forums
photo albums
links (centralized bookmarks)
maps
subgroups
personal profiles
calendaring

Grou.ps has smartly offered these tools in such a way to capitalize on your existing assets on the web. That is, your list of links can be based off links already existent on del.icio.us, your photo gallery can be made up of pictures from Flickr, log entries can come from an exisitng blog on the web, and finally, collaborative member’s updates can come from Twitter, if they wish.

These modules exist on an attractive webpage that contain your own template, absent of any branding. Modules can be customized through extensive preference options. No ads or branding exist on the site, including the emails that are sent out from the service to users. Want to access your Grou.ps site on your mobile phone? No problem – just surf to your site’s mobile address.

Grou.ps’ main advantage to collaboration is they allow you to leverage assets your team already has established on the Internet. Similar to Tumlr, this means you don’t have pictures, links, and other assets existing in multiple places, minimizing maintenance.

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