After testing and tweaking TypePad for almost almost a month, i would like to present the long overdue Typad review. I was unable to publish the review earlier due to unavoidable circumstances.
The review is divided two three segments, what i like, limitations and what i dont like. The review is based on TypePad Plus subscription thus certain functions are not available in Typepad Basic. Click here to compare all subscription plans.
What I like
TypePad is very easy to learn and use. I believe anyone without HTML knowledge should be able to make sense out of it after playing with it for a while. It has heaps of features for both novice and experts alike. It also has a brilliant interface.
One of its innovative feature (not available in TypePad Basic) is Mobile Blogging (Yeay!). You can post via email or via SMS/MMS. I have yet to test out the MMS functionality as i do not have an MMS phone.
The Photo gallery is another brilliant feature in TypePad Plus, although it have some limitations. These limitations will be discussed later in this post.
Other than that, it is w.bloggar and zempt friendly. I have tested both applications and they work fine.
Support is efficient and fast. My help ticket was responded within 2 hours.
Limitations
One big limitation in TypePad Plus is No HTML customization. Full HTML customization is available only on Typepad Pro. I believe HTML customization should be included in all subscription type. Afterall blogger is giving it for free.
As i mentioned earlier, the Photo Gallery have some limitations. First of all, it limits the picture size according to the predetermined sizes when you upload the pictures (small, medium, large). The photo album templates are not customizable and there are not much standard templates available.
One important function missing is the ablility to manage files on typepad. You might have created a folder but dont know where it is located and cant change folder name once it is created. i have sent a ticket to tech support and according to their reply, file management is a priority and will be included in the latest update. kudos for the prompt reply.
Readers' comments also have its limitations. Comments open the post's permalink in current window. I would prefer the comments to open in a separate window like all other commenting system. There should be some sort of customization to allow Typepad to handle comments. Then again it is up to personal preference.
Team blogging feature which is currently available on TypePad Pro sghould be included as well. (Again, blogger is giving it for free)
The statistics are very basic. However, a more detail statistics system are currently being brewed by the guys at TypePad. Until that happens, I will be using a third party stats counter for the time being.
What i dont like
A bit slow on 56kbps. Even on broadband some of the pages took a bit of time to open.
Some of the navigation function can be quite a chore.
On the photo album, write up on images can only be edited one by one. A big chore when you have uploaded 25 images at once. Other features that would require the user to edit the items individually are photo cloning and blogroll/people list.
Comments list at side bar not customizable. It shows the latest 10 comments. Even the typelists are not fully customizable. My imported blogroll list sorted the other way round. They should have customizable blogroll/people typelist.
Another issue i would like to highlight is the price. USD 8.95 per month (for Typepad Plus) may be affordable in the US but it is a bit steep for the rest of the world. Not only that, it would certainly deter advanced users from subscribing. For that amount of money, techie would prefer to get a domain name and upto 500Mb of disk space on a third party web server.
Wishlist
A more robust formating feature would be cool to have.
Ability to put up images on sidebar. Currently only images of the photo album can be displayed on the sidebar. How ever this functionality is being addressed. According to TypePad Resources, an image Typelist is currently in the works. Still on typelist, it would be great if one could customize typelist like perhaps limiting the typelist to display only ten items and have a sort of like extended view link at the bottom of the list.
On the photo album, it would be cool to have image copy protection feature (no right click on image sort of thing) or at least a default watermark of sort. Comments on photo album would be cool to. I believe this feature is currently in the works.
Other features that could be useful is perhaps a Tag-board like feature for general comments, and also online poll. The ability to import comments third party commenting provider would also be cool.
Last but not least, an offline tool that can be downloaded to a local machine would make life much easier. Something like bloggar or zempt but more TypePad centric with the ability to publish posts, images, manage typelists, archive post etc. I could go on and on... but that would be in another post perhaps :)
Hmmm... that's all i could think of now. I will update as I discover any other limitations. For the sake of comparison, here are a few reviews by other typepad users Gorithm is one example. Richard Eriksson of movableBLOG was kind enough to provide a review AND compile a list of TypePad reviews by other users. Other than that, there are a few resources online. Six Apart have published the official TypePad Resource site called Everything TypePad!. Be sure to checkout the features in development!
The unofficial TypePad Resources site was set up by snowman and he also maintained the TypePad Users Webring . The unofficial TypePad User Group is also gaining popularity among TypePad users.
In a nut shell, TypePad is very easy to use and maintain. I would highly recommend TypePad to anyone who would want to create a weblog. Even if you already have a web log and would want to migrate, i would recommend it. Although it is a Preview Release, it has some great features and very stable (i have yet to encounter any error) and I am eagerly waiting for the next release. I give it a 9/10.
tak tido lagi ke sayang?
Posted by: graceshu | Monday, September 01, 2003 at 03:27
eh, you pun tak tido lagi...? Apa buat malam2 buta? :)
Posted by: KaZ | Monday, September 01, 2003 at 12:10