Capn Design Archives: Thoughts on Vox

Thoughts on Vox

June 7, 2006

I managed to snag a starter account for Vox (aka Six Apart's Project Comet) and I'm definitely impressed so far, despite not being able to post entries. Vox is a Typepad-ified version of Livejournal, which is exactly what I've always wanted. It gives you all the ease of adding photos, music/book reviews or straight blog posts while being able to restrict who gets to see your thoughts. The best part is the beautiful templates. I'll be happy to leave behind tweaking blog code.

As a starter member, I can't post anything aside from comments and my profile, but my homepage is still filled with everything I want to see.* I've got 10 recent posts, five recent pictures and a list of recent comments on the right side. Since a lot of friends are already on it and I'm sure more will follow, I'm confident that Vox will become my personal blog and will suplmement Capn Design.

I said it before, but Vox is about bringing the fit and finish of Typepad to Livejournal. Millions already use LiveJournal and I think they'll get a whole new group of people with Vox. It seems like something I could actually convince my family to use.

* I won't lie, I'm anxious to start posting. I understand and appreciate that they want to preserve the quality of the service by slowly allowing people full access, but it's like being told you got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas but not being able to play with it for a few weeks.

Update (6/7/06): A big fat thanks to fiveohseven, aka Jennifer, for the full invite. I've now got my full blog going on.

Comments (2 comments so far)

Comment #1:

Matt, I'm with you -- messing with blog code is not what it's about*.

Which is interesting, because when I started, that was a big part of what it was about. The technology was new and I wanted to figure out how to get the scripts, databases and custom templates up and running.

Now that stuff all feels like chores. It's such a chore that I have a site powered by MT and a site powered by WordPress, both wearing the dull, default templates with software that is several point-level releases behind current.

I'm interested to hear what you think about the tools and the community features after using Vox.

Will everyone be friends on Vox just like Flickr and MySpace or does the Vox system encourage a more judicious doling out of "friend" and "contact" titles?

Will the tools find that sweet spot between "Do it our way!" and the ugly, bug riddled mess that is MySpace?

We'll see!

* It is ironic of course, that you and I bumped into one another, as I remember it, over a question about MT templates.

Posted by Paul on June 08, 2006 at 7:48PM

Comment #2:

hey i'd love an invite if you have one goign spare!

Posted by sanzu on July 08, 2006 at 3:41PM

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