As long as Blogonize doesn't make it into the techcrunch20 contest, I'm hoping to launch the site *around* August 3rd. It would be great if everyone could do one more run through to find some bugs I missed. I'm sure there's some because I find a few every day.

That's great news! Keep us updated Austin. I'm excited for ya

I'll have a look later today. Sorry, I've been meaning to for a while, but have been really busy.

Good stuff Austin! It's looking and working great!

Thanks to you, I now have a blog (http://www.dekrazee1.blogonize.com/) and I just put up my first post ever! heheheh

I really don't expect to go through a full enrollment session (including selecting the template for "my blog"  and verification that the blog name and url are "ok") only to get a message that I don't appear to have an invite. -- you knew that way back at the start of the process so why waste my time?

dekrazee1.... why have a blog if you don't let visitors see it?

Oh! I did make it public.... I'll go check

hhmmmm... it says I had 13 readers, and I only had 2 the last I saw....

and the setting does say guests can view...

A bug?

I get the header image then this:

"Sorry but guests are not allowed to view this blog."

So perhaps it only lets people that have their own blog on the site see other blogs? If so, unfortunately I won't be seeing yours! [Time for your own Tangle?]

[Bric, such a tangle already exits]

Yeah, but there's a setting that allows guests to view and comment, and I've allowed both, so it must be a bug

Fixed the guest view bug

Cool!

@Bricoleur: I had it like that before where it would let you know on the first step but I then moved that to the very end since some people would have errors in the signup process and it would take away their invite at the very beginning. I'll see what I can do to just show the message after the first step.

Changed the wording in the traffic section

Guest view bug doesn't appear to be fixed - at least dekrazee1's blog is still not accessible.

kay, I'll go check me settings

Nothing is wrong with your settings dekrazee1 Something on the backend....However it is working for me while I'm logged out (it shows)

oh!

Whoa.... I just went to my blog, and it's showing me a lot of warnings!

*scared*

Could you post a screenshot?

It might just be because I was uploading a file

yup, as we speak

At the time

Bricoleur: Can you refresh for me? Thanks

Already did before posting my comment (just to be sure). I also switched from FF to IE as a final check... and still get the same message.

Hmmm, I'll see if I can replicate this issue

Here you go Austin

Yeah, that's because I was uploading that right as you refreshed, go ahead and refresh and it should be fine.

Okay

nup.... still showing warnings

I even Ctrl-refreshed it

Odd, I'll work on that, and Bricoleur, still have the same message?

Sorry Austin

just created my first post-blogonize looks great!

Thanks

Can someone try accessing mine as a non member?

Okay, I have one question.  I use Vox as my personal blog (http://jmowery.vox.com/), and I did sign up for Blogonize, but I did not see anything that would even tempt me to switch from Vox, as I didn't really see anything in Blogonize that Vox didn't already have.  Also, add to that, Vox has an amazing community and tons of ways to interact with each other.

I just wanted to ask the owner/designers where you plan on going with this?

The only possible way I'd see this going anywhere (as I doubt it's going to be anywhere on a level like Vox is,) is if you let the users have an INSANE amount of customization.  I mean, they'd need to be able to add whatever they want to the sidebars, edit the layout to however they see fit.  There would need to be a way for users to comment without signing up, because I don't believe there is a serious community thing going on, and I would like to have people comment on my blog without signing up for the service if at all possible.

So, I just really wanted to ask these questions, because I don't see any reason to use this, over say maybe Blogger, WordPress.com, LiveJournal account because it just doesn't offer anything unique.

Harsh, but if your going to throw money into something, it needs to be unique, so I'm just hoping someone can explain to me what is unique here?  Where is the community aspect of this application?  What is one unique feature that the competition doesn't already offer?

Just kinda made me upset a little bit because I signed up hoping for great things that might draw me away from Vox, and I'm not seeing anything even near it.

Some suggestions:

Give us something new.
Give us ways to interact and find other bloggers on the site easily.
Give us ways to make our blogs easily readable (which kinda goes with the previous suggestion).
Give us something that all the other services don't give us, practically complete customization to the extreme.

I haven't done an in-depth review of the site, and I haven't read anything here on Tangler about this, but for someone like me who writes about Web 2.0 software everyday for Mashable and my own personal startup now, I must say, this idea has flop written all over it.  I just hope your not planning on making money with this idea in any possible way with the site the way it is.

Again, sorry for being all evil, but, for crying out loud, this was one of the first web 2.0 products I've ever been upset with, and almost inspires me to write an article questioning the lack of creativity in some web 2.0 products.

... James has now calmed down, and will resume breathing now
 

Again, sorry for the above outburst, but, something needed to be said.  I've given developers at Wakoopa, Wallop, Particls, and even hear at Tangler where I suggested adding the Participants section.....

But........  the only suggestion I can give this product is to scratch it and start over with a great concept in mind that is community oriented (so you can have users circulate your site often, and increase chances of making revenue), or continue on with this, give us total customization, and shove advertisements in our faces before we can even view the blog itself in hope that you'll generate revenue.

I just really want to know what the business model for this product is so I can get a better understanding of what the owner was trying to accomplish.  We have a horrid WordPress.com clone essentially, with even less community features than WordPress.com it would seem.  It's just astounding to me, and it is just really disturbing to me as a person who sees creativity at all levels, and then sees Blogonize, which offers nothing new, period.

It's just really getting under my skin, and I don't understand why.  Someone please come in here and tell me to calm down, lol.

hehehe okay okay, calm down

I don't know as much about the field, so there's not much I can say.... but it does sound like you have a point. In which case, I see no harm with you asking these questions. In fact, it might help Blogonize with their product focus and road map!

Okay, I'm calm now.  I once again apologize for my outbreak.

Let me explain why I'm fairly upset with some reasoning.  A guy named John C. Dvorak, who is a brilliant mind some days, and a nutcase the next wrote a fairly controversial article here.

He essentially is predicting an explosion of the Web 2.0 bubble.  Now, I see the potential for something like this, but I think John took it way too far.  Yet, he does bring up a good point.  All these great applications are going to need to make money EVENTUALLY.

You get users by offering something new and fresh.  You get users by giving them a place to chat (like Tangler, for example.)  You generate revenue by having those users generate it for you.

So you launched a site publicly without a single new feature that isn't already available today from much better competition.  Your basically setting yourself up for failure.  No VC's are going to be down with that.

So, let me get off of what you have done wrong, and explain what you could have done right instead:

Some amazing ideas right off the top of my head:

• Make a serious community for blogging.
• Reward users for interacting with other blogs.  Perhaps a karma system?
• Maybe have a way to have a blog featured more for users that are more interactive with the community, thereby inspiring users to be more active, and maybe finding a way to use that to make you money in the process.
• Give us complete customization over the blog design, and give us a very large selection of pre-made templates and let us build off of those to make it completely our own.
• Incorporate a digg-like system into your blogs.  Maybe have the community vote up or down each blog posts, therefore getting the best content out from your users, and giving users something to read all the time, again keeping them circulating your site.
• Let us create groups.  Vox & Newsvine has done this well.  Yet it is a concept that can be taken further still if some imagination is there.
• Multiple authors of blogs.  You can create a collaborative type blog for a group.  Tangler has groups for web 2.0 startups, so why not make your site a great place to host a blog for those startups and allow several people make edits or post sticky notes or stuff like that.
• Find a way to feature your best bloggers on a single page, or create a network like Associated Content or Newsvine, except maybe not needing to be as complex.
• Find a way to link blogs together.  If you write something similar to another person, have the site automatically link those two up in a network and allow them to share ideas and inspire them to create more content

So, it's almost 6 am and I might have repeated a few suggestions and my spelling is probably getting sloppy.  But, all of those suggestions, I just thought up in the timeframe of 5 - 10 minutes right here without any prior thinking about the subject.

So, that's all really.

Hehe, and I posted almost the same time you did Dekrazee.

I'm calm now  I just really don't like seeing things like this, because I really want websites to succeed, but when I don't see anything new on the table, and nothing better than alternatives, it just makes me question things seriously, and yeah.  Maybe when I wake up I'll have some more suggestions, but gah, this product just drove me mad tonight for some reason, and I certainly didn't feel at my breaking point, it just infuriated me for some reason, along with reading how your having so much trouble getting everything working.

So I apologize, and wish all of you a great day, or night, as I head off to bed  Ciao for now!

hehehe no worries from my end JM.... it was/is thought-provoking, and I welcome that.

Goodnight!

Thank you for all the replies, feedback and ideas - I haven't had a chance to read them all yet though. As a 1-man operation I have become a bit "burnt-out" with blogonize so I'm going to give it a couple of days and come back fresh and full of energy Sorry for the wait!

No worries!

Alright everyone, I'm starting to get back into the swing of things...Where do I plan on going with Blogonize? I've noticed that Vox, Blogger ect they don't update with new features as quickly and I hope to do that with Blogonize. When a member asks for a feature and if I think it would improve the site, I'll have it added.

You do not need to signup to comment.

"So, I just really wanted to ask these questions, because I don't see any reason to use this, over say maybe Blogger, WordPress.com, LiveJournal account because it just doesn't offer anything unique."

Two of the main "unique" features are a bit buggy and haven't been released yet. One is text->voice so every blog post can be listened to without the auther having to record a podcast. The other is a system similar to digg.com where interesting posts can be voted on and make it to the Blogonize "Hot posts" page.

The community aspect does need some work, I haven't found out how to perfect that yet. Right now there's a "blog buddies" system where bloggers can be "friends" with other bloggers. There is also a forum where users can interact and of course they can interact with comments on the users' blogs. The "Hot posts" page I previously mentioned will also hopefully add towards a good community.

"Again, sorry for being all evil, but, for crying out loud, this was one of the first web 2.0 products I've ever been upset with, and almost inspires me to write an article questioning the lack of creativity in some web 2.0 products."

I understand how you think their might be a lack of creative mostly due to the fact that the idea has been done before. What hasn't been done is the whole system in ajax so users don't have to load new pages. What hasn't been done is the "Hot posts" system. What hasn't been done is the text->voice. Ect ect ect....

"the only suggestion I can give this product is to scratch it and start over with a great concept in mind that is community oriented (so you can have users circulate your site often, and increase chances of making revenue)"

The thing is, Blogonize is funded by myself and myself only. I don't have the money to scratch everything and start off fresh. With the whole unique community thing, I'm hoping Blogonize can achieve that with the features I've told you previously in this response. If you have any other specific suggestions that would help, that would be great.

"All these great applications are going to need to make money EVENTUALLY."

Blogonize does have a system for that I'm not in this to get acquired.

"    * Make a serious community for blogging." Like I said, I'm working on that now.

"    * Reward users for interacting with other blogs.  Perhaps a karma system?" Good Idea Will seriously think about implementing. Most-likely will put that in but I keep thinking of new things and that keeps pushing back the launch date.

"    * Maybe have a way to have a blog featured more for users that are more interactive with the community, thereby inspiring users to be more active, and maybe finding a way to use that to make you money in the process." Hopefully the "Hot posts" page can achieve this.

"    * Give us complete customization over the blog design, and give us a very large selection of pre-made templates and let us build off of those to make it completely our own." Pre-made templates cost quite a bit so I will try to get some more in. Right now users can edit the css but are you suggesting I should make it easier for those who aren't familiar with css?

Off-topic, for some text tangler won't let me change the font color?

"    * Incorporate a digg-like system into your blogs.  Maybe have the community vote up or down each blog posts, therefore getting the best content out from your users, and giving users something to read all the time, again keeping them circulating your site." Already done as mentioned before http://www.blogonize.com/hot/1.html Like I said it's not completed

"    * Let us create groups.  Vox & Newsvine has done this well.  Yet it is a concept that can be taken further still if some imagination is there." Could you explain further on this?

"    * Multiple authors of blogs.  You can create a collaborative type blog for a group.  Tangler has groups for web 2.0 startups, so why not make your site a great place to host a blog for those startups and allow several people make edits or post sticky notes or stuff like that." That's already a feature in blogonize

"    * Find a way to feature your best bloggers on a single page, or create a network like Associated Content or Newsvine, except maybe not needing to be as complex." Hopefully the "Hot posts" page will be able to do that

"    * Find a way to link blogs together.  If you write something similar to another person, have the site automatically link those two up in a network and allow them to share ideas and inspire them to create more content" Interesting idea

Thanks so much for taking the time to critique Blogonize!

You handle criticism well, I like that a lot, as you probably handled that better than I could have.  I just really hope you can incorporate community features into the product, because without it, it might be very difficult to encourage users to actually remain at your site.

I don't really know how to explain the groups feature I was referring to.  On Vox, I have joined a Technology, Geeks, Photography, Gramer Nazis, and a few others I believe.  With all of them, you can post content directly to that group.  So the group, almost acts like a blog on it's own, except any user a part of that group can participate and post, and they can all comment and interact with each other and receive updates and such.  It's essentially the same way on Newsvine as well.

I'm not saying it is a perfect addition for what you are going for, but it would be a quick and easy way to generate a good community who wants to stick around and discuss things.

You could also maybe incorporate a karma system into this by taking into account who has posted the best (highest rated) articles in groups and then allow the highest rated members moderate the content, or other rewards.  An idea like this would essentially allow your community to interact, give motivation to create content (because many people could see it easily), allow people to vote on other content, and allow people to be rewarded for content and then allow those people to have a bit of control, and then help the other members, and in turn inspire others to post more so they can be that way.

Sorry for the horrible writing of the above, but I'm almost drop dead tired again.

Seriously though, I'd love to see a community where you get rewarded for the effort you put in.  If I'm writing an article a day for a group, and people constantly enjoy it, I want to be featured more, I want to be able to influence the community more, and all that other stuff.  The majority of the members would of course be promoting the good users through a rating system and all that.

There are so many more ways to expand upon this idea, and you essentially allow your users to do the work and moderate themselves generate interest and discussion

The above ideas are only simple things that I just thought of, but I'm sure you could come up with even more better ways to expand on those ideas if your seriously considering.  Stuff like that would make me want to participate more, and that is what people need to be creating.

About the page editing.  Make the interface drag & drop.  Make modules for each section and allow us to move them around.  If you have a Facebook account, you will know exactly what I'm talking about.  Give the users a simple interface to customize, and then give us access to the CSS for the hardcore users who want to tweak out their pages.  Let users upload custom banners, graphics, and backgrounds.  Those are things I haven't really seen in other blogging platforms.  I guess you could say that WordPress gives you the drag & drop functionality with the sidebars, so even if you gave us something like that, but with regards to the entire blog, it would be amazing.  I also would love to see the ability to have 2, 3, and maybe even 4 column layouts.  (I am a fan of the three column layout, and then farther down the page combining the 2 columns into a single one for additional content like advertisements and such.)

To just give you some final ideas, I'll tell you exactly what my ideal blogging system would be able to do:

• Complete customization
• Drag & Drop interface of all the components that make up the blog itself (sidebars, columns, sections that go in the sidebars, etc.)
• Ability to incorporate widgets easily into the blog's interface easily (for example, the Twitter status update, and the MyBlogLog widget, etc.)
• Ability to keep track of the users who comment on your blog, and ability to have the comments rated (digg like fashion possibly), and for users to be held accountable for their comments and posts and a karma system in place.  (I use SezWho on Tech In Demand, you might look for that for some inspiration possibly if you go through with that idea)

Ability to save drafts and access them easily.

• Ability to use Windows Live Writer with it (This probably isn't essential in the near future, but it certainly would be a big draw for me.  You might want to look into it)
• Be able to find writers similar to you within the site, and easily interact with each other.
• Ability to have many users come together who share the same interests and discuss things (Groups like I suggested above are great)
• Ability to import and export my posts easily (incase I want to move in, or incase I want to move out, I like to know I have that assurance all that I'm writing today won't be gone a few years from now)
• Great privacy controls
• Easily able to insert multiple types of media, be it images, tables, maps, flash, videos, hyperlinks.
• A great visual text editor (something that Vox has let me down on) that is fast and easy to use, but allows you all the functions you need and want to use (with the ability to define styles for heading styles, using css maybe?)
• Ways to quickly share your content on other social sites.  The "Share this" button you can see on my site http://www.techindemand.com/ and as well as http://www.mashable.com/
• Automatic conversion of typed in urls to hyperlinks.
• Included spell checker.
• Ability to have access to site statistics..... the more the better http://www.getclicky.com/ is my favorite right now for tracking my site statistics.
• Ability to create multiple pages for my blogs,  maybe not essential for your site, but would be interesting to see
• A great search for my blog so people can find what they want easily.

I'm pretty sure there is more, but I'm too tired to continue on with this.

Hopefully some of those provide more depth into what I personally would like to see, might be good to post a poll on your site and ask your current users what they'd love to see as well.

That's all from me for now.

Hope it works out.

Ciao.