The most important standard is the one that we've set for ourselves - giving our customers the tools they need to get the things done that they want to do.
We support several types of standards; official ones, de facto ones and emerging ones. We chose what we chose simply because they help our resellers and their customers to accomplish important tasks. There's a subtle implication here that should be drawn further into relief: we're not supporting standards because they are cool, we're picking specific technologies because our customers want to pay for them. Our customers want to pay for them because they each solve specific problems.
Here are a few of my favorite examples;
- XML-RPC; "Extensible Markup Language - Remote Procedure Call". This mouthful helps us in one important way - it allows Blog publishers to post to their blog remotely from third-party client software like w.bloggar andNewzcrawler. This software uses XML-RPC to connect to our publishing API which masquerades as Blogger, MoveableType and Radio to ensure 100% compatibility with the broadest cross-section of publishing tools. We're working with some pretty cool people to make this even easier and more productive for Blogware users - pretty soon, publishers will have access to some pretty nifty tools that will make today's blog publishing experience seem downright medieval.
- DNS; This one is easy. The Domain Name System maps common names to internet addresses and provides internet users with greatly simplified navigation based on words, not numbers. Imagine trying to navigate the internet with phone numbers - that's the problem that DNS solves. Blogware is pretty cool in this regard, we've integrated DNS pretty tightly with the system and give our resellers and publishers a degree of flexibility with addressing that you just can't find anywhere else. Domain Names aren't an afterthought with Blogware - they're something that we made central to the design of our system and you can tell. Did you know, for instance, that when you create a new hostname for your Blogware blog that they are automatically available on the internet? That's right, no waiting for your blog to be set up - and that's a nice change.
- RSS, "Really Simple Syndication" is one of the backbone standards that make blogging different from regular webhosting. RSS is an XML-based document format that allows other users to read your content in a variety of ways that just aren't possible with regular HTML. For instance, your RSS greatly simplifies the job that search engines have to do because it is an XML-based format designed for maximum readibility by automated systems. Really neat stuff that is just starting to be used in a myriad of different ways.
- JPEG; I would be remiss if I didn't mention the amazing support that we've built for graphic image formats. Not just JPEG, but all of the popular ones. For instance, Blogware automatically manipulates your images for maximum visual impact in your online photo-albums. No longer do you have to struggle with desktop image management software just to get a decent looking image uploaded to the web. Look for a lot more really cool imaging stuff from Blogware - we're just getting started with this feature-set.
A lot of this wouldn't be possible without our partners. These are the people that really make everything stick together in a way that makes sense for end-users. At this point, its just not possible to mention all of the partners behind Blogware for legal reasons. BUT, that doesn't mean all of our relationships are hush-hush.
I can talk about what some of the things that we are doing with Technorati for instance. Technorati is an amazing service that indexes the blogosphere and provides you with information about who said what. For instance, Technorati lets me know who is linking to my blog, when they linked to my blog and why they are linking to my blog. Translation: Technorati lets me know who is talking about me ;)
We're working with the great folks over there first and foremost, to improve the search experience for blog users. We've also got some other neat things under way that are geared towards improving the general experience. Some of it focuses solely on our users, some of it focuses on all users. All of it is really cool and we're pretty excited about it.
I can also talk about our resellers. These are our most important partners because they're each putting their own finishing touches on the Blogware product. Each has their own magic combination designed to specifically appeal to their own users and markets. Today, this means things like product bundles that include domain names, email addresses and blog hosting all in the same package for one low price. Past experience indicates that this means that tomorrow this will mean things like local language versions, enhanced features and a whole myriad of things that we haven't thought of yet.
Which brings me to the subject of our next installment - the cool things that you can do with Blogware today and the cool things you can expect from us down the road.
Stay tuned for more.