The MovableType/Mac conspiracy…

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on August 5, 2003). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Another IM conversation, investigating the MovableType/Six Apart/Mac/Apple conspiracy…

Me: i’ve got a blogger account for a side project of mine, but it’ll probably be moving to TypePad pretty soon
Me: i can’t do anything on a free Blogger account, and if I’m going to give someone money, I’d rather have it be the Trotts

Phil: Keep it for testing at any rate, could you? I don’t really know anyone who uses Blogger and has a Mac.
Phil: Other than me.

Me: sure, will do

Phil: The Mac populace seems to prefer MT, interestingly. Except the people at Forwarding Address: OS X.
Phil: Hm…. maybe I could get Cory Doctorow as a beta tester. That’d be amusing.

Me: i’ve noticed that, actually – been pleasantly surprised at how often Macs get mentioned on TP blogs

Phil: Interesting correlation, really, if you think about it.
Phil: People who use Blogger often go on forums and curse about how unreliable and buggy it is.
Phil: People who use Windows often go on forums and curse about how unreliable and buggy it is.
Phil: People who use MT are often like “Look at this cool trick I can do with my blog!”
Phil: People with Macs are often like “Look at this cool trick I can do with my Mac!”
Phil: Do you see a trend?
Phil: I think maybe Movable Type is the Mac of the blogging world.

Me: i think you just get in a mindset…using computer == dealing with bugs (if you’re on the Windows side)

Phil: Same way with Blogger.
Phil: Using Blogger == dealing with bugs.
Phil: Oh!

Me: Is Six Apart the New Apple?

Phil: Yeah, I saw that.
Phil: And (using Blogger/using windows) == no help at all from the parent company.
Phil: Well, except the UNIX geeks and developers.

Me: ‘zactly
Me: and us Mac users are spoiled by the “It Just Works” syndrome

Phil: True.

Me: MT “just works” – and you never have to deal with the underlying code if you don’t want to
Me: OS X “just works” – and you never have to deal with the terminal if you don’t want to
Me: but in both cases, if you do want to, a whole world of new toys and possibilities open up

Phil: Hacks, plugins, new applications you’d never even thought of.
Phil: And I could be talking about either one with that last sentence.

Me: bingo

I think we’ve got something here!

12 thoughts on “The MovableType/Mac conspiracy…”

  1. At first I thought everybody running OS X was a TP beta tester. Some friends and I wanted to do a gang blog before the Gulf War so I went to Blogger. The whole thing died after a week as three out of the five were using Macs. Blogger was far too much of a pain.

  2. I used Blogger with my mac and honestly I have to admit that it was too much of a hassel to keep it going…
    I’ve spent the better part of this year looking at all the different blog type pages out there
    Live Journal
    Blogcity
    Blogger
    Upsaid

    and I have to admit that, in substitute for hosting my own blog (which i have done as well) TypePad seems to have the most bang for the buck, but the buck isn’t that cheap..

    Give a little take a little, right?

  3. I was going to say something intelligent here, but then I found the Live Comment Preview feature of TypePad (under Safari, at least) — which, combined with NetNewsWire’s Live Post Preview feature, is eerily tangential proof of your post.

    MovableType and TypePad are beautiful examples of what software applications should look like — but I guess that very few people seem to think about web application UIs when designing programs. Very cool, in any case. Nice blog!

  4. Very cool and eyepleasing.One thing about blogs is they are not sore to the eye.They give us what needs to be looked at.

    (spam url removed by Michael)

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