Ben and Mena "Movable Type" Trott have announced a new service, "TypePad," which is a hosted Movable Type blogging service: you can either publish your MT blog to your server, or store it on one of theirs. I just set up my first from-scratch MT installation, which was easier than I expected, but still harder than it shoulda been; TypePad is the solution to this. Best of all, they're financing it with a small investment from a VC fund run by Joi Ito.
Technically, Typepad has embraced all the new things that have appeared or been requested in the blogging world in the past year. There is a built-in photo album creation tool, for instance, as well as a built-in Blogroll – a list of all your favourite sites, or lists of books and music you are reading and listening to.
The standout feature is the template maker. Users can design their blog without knowing, or seeing, any HTML code whatsoever and with a very great range of control.
Other features include real-time statistics, posting by email, and automatic creation of Friend of a Friend data – instantly taking an experimental standard and taking it to the mainstream.
(via Ben Hammersley)
