SixApart finally launched the new Movable Type (MT4) the other day. This is, by far, the biggest product release for MT. Lots of new features, plugins and improvements.
Nevertheless, all that splash hasn’t really made huge waves in the blog software industry. SixApart, even with its wide range of blogging products and services (LiveJournal, Vox, TypePad, MT and the now discontinued SplashBlog), may have lost its chance to get back its groove.
Is it too late for Movable Type? I’m afraid so.
- The product had a traumatic commercial history. Remember the free-to-pay move of SixApart before? That was bad rep and a bad rep that made many users stayed away from them for good.
- A lot of people have forgotten about MT. My last use of the app was way back in 2003. Familiarity can be a huge stumbling block in the re-introduction.
- Free themes. MT doesn’t have that much of it. One of the coolest benefits of going WordPress is the fact that you can grab tons and tons of kick-ass themes on the fly and install them in a jiffy.
- Plugins and extensions. Same as above, MT doesn’t have much of it in that area.
- There a new and more familiar players like Drupal, which are free too.
- Lastly, support and community. Since the product is free, expect little or no support from the company. It’s common to most free products. That’s where the community steps in, but, will there be enough experts in that realm to actually sustain it?
But hey, go look and find out for yourself. There might be some features there that could convince you otherwise. As for me, I… might… just play around with it.
@jorge, for more advanced bloggers like you, MT might have a better chance to regain users. But for the ordinary blogger who are already very familiar with WordPress or Blogger, it will need more than that.