901am

New Media News Every Morning

WordPress 1.0 Now Available for BlackBerry

By

The mobile version of WordPress seems to be having a tour across smartphone platforms right now.  Or is it perhaps because of the resounding fact that the future of blogging is mobile?  Anyway, after appearing on the Android market for all Android phone users and mobile bloggers to use, WordPress 1.0 is now also available for BlackBerry devices. And like the Android version, the BlackBerry version is equally robust and quite good if not better.

WordPress for BlackBerry has been in beta for quite some time now and after getting subjected to the scrutiny of selected beta testers, Automattic finally decided to take the app out of beta mode and release the final version of WordPress 1.0 for this smartphone.

So, what’s in store for all of you BlackBerry users who blog on your WordPress installation using your smartphone? The app lets you write posts, upload photos and videos, edit pages and manage comments on your blogs.  It supports both self-hosted blogs as well as WordPress.com blogs.

Aside from the usual mobile blogging features of other WordPress mobile app, this one for the BlackBerry also features:

 

  • overall enhancements to the speed and stability of the app
  • streamlined UI and functionality relating to comment moderation
  • support for HD video service VideoPress
  • ability to record and upload videos from your phone

Since I don’t have a BlackBerry yet, I can’t test how good this app is. I really wish I could compare it with the Android version. Perhaps next week, after I got my BlackBerry Bold 9700. But the app must be so great that Darnell mentioned something like this app putting the iPhone version into shame. Now I’m intrigued.

Originally posted on February 5, 2010 @ 8:50 pm

ZooLoo Puts a New Spin on Blogging with Graffiti and iPhone App

By

Sometime in July 2009, we’ve covered this online life management site called ZooLoo.com.  Now, after several months, ZooLoo has launched a new blogging service, an iPhone app and a storefront with one main objective – to give you a facility to promote yourself and your interest from your own domain and social networks.

The site’s new blogging service is called the “Graffiti”. It allows you to publish links, thoughts, status, quotes, photos and videos to the site and share these as a blog posts to on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. The site lets you post content either from the ZooLoo homepage or by using a Share button or through their  newly released iPhone app. (iTunes Link)

As for their  new storefront, the site gives you various paid packages that they offer. The free service is still there, but if you want your blogging service hosted on a paid account you can choose from the different packages which have the following key features:

  • Custom domain names
  • Web Dashboards that bring all of your interests into one place
  • Patent-pending privacy manager
  • Customizable site pages using ZooLoo’s site creator
  • Third party tracking integration
  • Photo manager and gallery.

Each feature can be purchased with monthly micro-payments.

If you want to run ZooLoo on an enterprise setting, they also have solutions for this purpose.

Originally posted on February 3, 2010 @ 5:13 am

WordPress 2.9 Available fror Download

By

Here you go, the endless updates to everybody’s favorite blogging software, WordPress 9 is now available for download. Codenamed “Carmen” after the legendary jazz vocalist Carmen McRae, WordPress 9 boasts of several nice features with the built-in image editor as probably the one feature you would surely like.

If you’re looking at WordPress 2.9 from the point of view of a user, here are its nicest features:

1. Global undo/”trash” feature – lets you restore posts or comments which you might have accidentally delete.

2. Built-in image editor – crop, edit, rotate, flip and scale your image attachments before publishing your post.

3. Batch plugin update and compatibility checking – lets you update 10 plugins at once, also check whether plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress.

4. Easier video embeds – this feature is going to make all our lives easier. This will let you paste a URL on its own line and WordPress will turn it into a video embed code. Supports YouTube, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revisions3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy and WordPress.tv.

If your inclination is a bit on the technical side of  WordPress blogs, here are just some of the features under the hood:

1. rel=canonical support for betther SEO.

2. automatic database optimization support, which you can enable in your wp-config.php file by adding define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);.

3. Themese can register “post thumbnails” which allow them to attach an image to the post, especially useful for magazine-style themes

4. a new comment meta table that allows arbitrary key/value pairs to be attached to comments, just like posts, so you can now expand greatly what you can do in the comment framework.

5. Custom post types have been upgraded with better API support so you can juggle more types than just post, page, and attachment.

Alright, time to do some WordPress upgrading folks. Good luck!

Originally posted on December 19, 2009 @ 10:30 am

How to Monetize Your Blog

By

How to Monetize Your Blog

Despite the uncertainty of the economy and the convenience of microblogging, blogging is hot again, baby — and during a gold rush, it’s the shovel salesmen who make the most money. The Joy of Tech shares the real secret to monetizing your blog. Time to polish those event management skills.

Originally posted on October 21, 2009 @ 11:29 am

Say What? iPhone app offers multi social network searching

By

say-what-iphone-1A recently launched iPhone application called Say What? allows integrated searching of Twitter, Digg, plus thousands of forums and blogs, from one interface.

iCrossing’s application has actually been freely available for about a month now, but I’ve only just discovered it.

While I personally don’t search in Digg much, the ability to search across both a significant section of the web (blogs and forums) as well as Twitter sounds appealing.

[Read more…]

Originally posted on October 12, 2009 @ 10:20 am