Typepad / Movable Type Blogging Software Review

In 2001, Movable Type was created as Six Apart’s flagship blogging software. The product was created by Ben and Mena Trott, co-founders of Six Apart, as a means to make a better blogging tool. Eight years later and the popularity of Movable Type has done nothing but grow.

Ease of Use (5/5)

Movable Type has been created especially for ease of use. It is powerful enough to be used in creating blogs, websites and even social networks. Making it even simpler, the company has created a virtual version of its software, Virtual Movable Type by JumpBox. This virtual version makes it easy to evaluate, simple to deploy on a home server, or even launch the program on a hosted provider environment.

Creating new web sites or blogs, customizing the design, managing and adding onto Movable Type are all included features and have been designed to take the work out of making a web site. Everything a web site creator could want is included within one neat package.

Price Value (5/5)

There are three different levels to Movable Type – regular Movable Type, Movable Type Pro and Movable Type Enterprise. The basic regular Movable Type is free and ideal for developers and open source enthusiasts. Movable Type Pro has two inner levels – free for bloggers and $395.95 for businesses. If the web site to be created with Movable Type is anything other than a design or development firm, or a small to medium business, the user can opt to download the free version of Movable Type Pro. The last level, Enterprise, is geared toward media companies – a custom quote is indicated.

The difference in levels and pricing show in what is available upon downloading the product. With the basic free level, community profiles, custom fields, social networking features, LDAP and Oracle/SQL server support are not included. As one goes up in levels more of these features are included.

Control Panel (5/5)

Movable Type’s control panel is extremely friendly with all needed administration tools a simple mouse click away. Users can easily manage files and media within a single screen and the admin area is set to allow content management for single standalone pages as well as posts geared toward blogs. Uploading images, video and audio is also a breeze through the Movable Type asset manager.

Customer Support (4/5)

When opting for Movable Type Pro for bloggers, support can optionally be added on for $99. With Movable Type Pro for businesses, support is included with the price for the first year. The Enterprise edition includes premium support. For the do-it-yourselfer, Movable Type has a support area online that houses documentation, webcasts and a knowledge base.

Overall Value (5/5)

Movable Type is a great piece of blogging software designed to assist web site owners in creating their online site easily and with a program that is both simple and powerful. Whether a small personal blogging site or a large corporate web site is needed, Movable Type can handle it with ease.

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