Kaalga is a Firefox extension which integrates a very useful feature into your Wordpress blog editor. It basically highlights some particular words or phrases while you are writing your posts and suggests some possible links. Actually Wordpress is not the only supported platform but it works well with Blogger, TypePad and LiveJournal too.
Usage is very easy: use the combination “shift + right click” (shif+ctrl+click on a Mac touchpad) when your mouse is over the underlined words and a window with some suggested links pops up. The image below shows how it looks like:
Behind the scenes Kalgaa uses a semantic analysis engine called OpenCalais and shows the relevant results through Yahoo search.
A similar feature is provided by Zemanta too, a great plugin I use to insert links, tags and images to my blog posts very easily. Unlike Zemanta, one of the cool features of Kaalga is that it lets you insert your domain as the preferred source for links, making it very easy to insert links to posts which belong to your blog. The popup window then shows you your domain’s links first (with a red “L” which stands for “local”) then other links on the web.
My opinion? A big thumb up for this extension, definitely a must-have for any blogger and it is what I was always looking for. The funny thing? I had to insert the link to Kaalga.commanually
Writing a blog post from a portable mobile device has always been challenging to me. There are many solutions, but one of the main problems I experienced is getting a user experience as close as you can to that you are used to by writing through a blogging tool on your computer.
I blogged from my Nokia N95 a couple of times, mainly to publish to my blog a photo together with a comment. The overall experience has not that great, mainly due to the small screen and to the lack of a keyboard.
Now, with the iPhone, the number of options bloggers have to write and publish a blog post while on the go has really increased. The purpose of this post today is putting together a couple of solutions which make blogging from your iPhone a very easy activity.
Wordpress
This is a must-have for any blogger who run a blog on Wordpress (like me). They just released version 1.1 and it looks like very well designed and providing a user experience very close to the web version (even if with less features). You can also embed photos on your blog post and upload them to your blog, whether you have a self-hosted Wordpress blog or hosted by Wordpress.com.
The following video, provided by Automattic (the company behind Wordpress), offers an overview of the main functionalities.
As soon as I get a 3G iPhone, this is definitely going to be one of the first apps I will install.
BlogPress
Blogpress is a multi-platform blogging software for the iPhone, a great choice if you run multiple blogs on different platforms.
Currently the following blogging services are supported: Blogger, Wordpress, Movable Type, TypePad and MSN Live Space. You can easily upload your photos to Picasa Web Albums or to a self hosted BlogPress Public Album.
An interesting feature is the ability to post the same content at the same time to multiple blogs. In the screenshot below the author is publishing a photo to Blogger as well as to MSN Live Space.
BlogIt by SixApart
Unlike the applications above, BlogIt is a web applications that you can use from your iPhone’s Safari browser. It’s much more than a blogging tool which works for TypePad, MovableType, Vox, Blogger and LiveJournal, but it also lets you update your status on various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr, Friendfeed and Pownce.
SixApart also announced a native blogging application for TypePad available for free on the App Store already, but it doesn’t seem to be as much complete and full-featured as BlogIt. Even if web based, I would definitely choose BlogIt over the native one.
Tumble
If you are a Tumblr user this is the application for you. Tumble is a native iPhone application which lets you easily post photos and text to your Tumblr blog. You can download it from here.
LifeCast
LifeCast is an iPhone blogging application for Blogger and Tumblr. The focus of this application is to help users to create a timeline of their life and post it to their blog. Unfortunately not many blogging platforms are available and some options, like the ability to post photos, are available for Tumblr only.
Here is a list of feature this application provides:
Create multiple LifeCast timelines : one for work, one for home, another for a special event or maybe a vacation tour.
Optionally connect each LifeCast with a blog. You can have a different blog set up for each LifeCast.
Enter text entries with a title and body text
Take a photo, or choose one from your library, and give it a title
Fix the location of any text or photo entry. View the locations of past entries using the Maps application.
Post your entries to your blog* Choose which entries to post and which to keep to yourself.
I find some of them very innovative, even if traditional bloggers will find this app a little bit confusing (at least, this was the first impression I had by watching their screenshots, even if I have’t tried it yet).
VirtueSoft Blogwriter
BlogWriter is a very clean and usable blogging application which supports Wordpress blogs as well as MSN Live Spaces. It’s not a free app, but the $3.99 they ask for doesn’t seem to be that much even if I bet no bloggers who run a Wordpress blog would never choose this over the native WP app for iPhone. The good thing is that a RSS reader is included, so that you can read your favorite news from within this app.
Shozu is definitely the most complete application in this list. It’s much more than a blogging editor, it actually provides users with a powerful posting and sharing tool to various blogging and social networks as well as photo sharing services like Flickr.
I’ve been using Shozu for a while on my Nokia phones and I have to say it really rocks. I also used it to post photos on my blog some time ago and it worked really well. These premises lead me to think that the iPhone version is even better and surely more usable.
The video below shows you ShoZu in action on the iPhone. Really cool.
Shozu for the iphone can be downloaded from this link.
CellSpin
CellSpin is another application that is much more than a blogging editor only. With CellSpin you can easily post various types of content (text, audio, video or photos) to different sites, blogs as well as social networks or photo sharing services. The number of available sites is impressive. For each of them, all types of content are admitted, except for those specifically designed for photo sharing.
The iPhone and iPod touch are just a very small subset of supported devices, whose list is really impressive. One of the differences with the other softwares is that CellSpin is rather a service than an app only. After you sign up, you also have other options to post your contents, such as SMS, MMS and email. CellSpin was also awarded with the Top Mobile Application 2008. The video below, taken during DEMO 2008, shows CellSpin at work:
Conclusion
Even if many of the applications listed above are designed for specific blogging platforms and only a few of them give users a wide set of options, I have to say that they still don’t provide all the features you are used to find in many desktop applications like MarsEdit or Ecto. In addition, the latest version of the Wordpress web based posting tool provides you with so many great features that, together with some plugins like Zemanta, makes that user experience definitely unbeatable.
All that said, if you are a eager blogger and don’t want to miss the opportunity to post to your blog while you are on the go, these applications are for you (and your iPhone). I look forward to trying the Wordpress app on the iphone, as soon as I get a new one (I have a 1st gen version, but had to give it to my wife because my SIM is for 3G phones only…).
Do you know other apps not listed here? Please leave them in the comment section.
The new version of my company’s video micro blogging service Hictu, comes with a Wordpress plugin which lets you integrate video comments into your Wordpress blog.
Today it gets a major update, becoming more and more a standalone commenting plugin for Wordpress.
Here is the list of features:
Wordpress Hictu Plugin v1.1
Text Comments (1000 chars MAX)
Video comments
Audio comments
Mixed: video/audio + text comments
Video comments through a Youtube or Google video
Anyone can comment, leaving his name/nick and website
If you are a Hictu user and you have an open session on your browser, your nickname is recognized automatically
Ability to completely replace the standard Wordpress comments section
In order to integrate this plugin into your blog, you need to be registered to Hictu. Currently you need an invite to sign up, so please just leave a comment to this post and I’ll drop you an invite. I recommend to have two Hictu accounts, one for yourself and one for your blog, so all the conversations around your posts will appear on Hictu too, letting Hictu users discuss on your posts, too.
Last but not least, other minor enhancements are available, like many new moods!
If you want to give it a try, please leave a comment down here!
I still have to get my brand new iPhone 3G (tomorrow is my bday… who knows…) but I don’t have any doubt on which iPhone apps I’m going to install first. Here is my Top Five (+ 1) list.
1) Google Mobile App
How many times do I use Google to find everything? Always. So this app will definitely be on my iPhone.
2) Twitterrific
Are you a Twitter addict? I’m becoming it, more and more, and Twitterrific for the iPhone looks really cool. Definitely a must-have.
3) Wordpress
Blogging on the go has always been painful for me, never found the right app for my Nokia phones. This seems to be the definitive solution. It’s not available yet, but should be in the following weeks. In the meantime, enjoy this video.
4) NetNewsWire
After many trials, NetNewsWire has been sticky for me and it’s my everyday companion to go through my over 200 RSS feeds. It’s now available for the iPhone, so why not?
5) Facebook
The Safari version is already very hot, but this one looks like even better.
Special Mention (SIX): (6) Truphone
Truphone has been the first ever VoIP application working on the iPhone. Now everyone can get it from the iTunes App Store and it looks like a clear winner in this space. Congrats to all the Truphone team for this great goal. We had to wait but it was worth it.
I’m happy to announce that Hictu, the first video micro blogging service launched on June 2007, has been released today with a new and improved version 2.0.
This new Hictu brings a ton of new features to end users plus a major restyling aimed to improve the overall user experience of the “video conversation”. A main video strip has been added on top of the main page where different videos from different Hictuans appear randomly.
In addition to that, we think that with Hictu it’s very important that any user could see it in a different way and use it according to their feelings. For this reason, there are different Hictu home pages, representing different ways to see Hictu and to use it.
For example, Hictu can become your speaker’s corner as well as a way to declare your darkest vices or brightest passions, or maybe to tell the world your view about the meaning of life… what does really matter for you? Tell us through a video on Hictu and look at people who join the conversation and leave video comments to your video. It’s gonna be fun.
Speaking about features, I would like to give you a brief overview on what’s new here. First of all, the posting interface has been optimized and you can now easily choose what kind of post you want to publish, whether it’s text only, audio, video from your webcam or a video taken from YouTube or Google Video.
In addition, the mood has been added. You can reinforce your post with a nice icon representing you mood, something related to important concepts like “rich presence”, additional information on your status, more than the post only.
Features like the Twitter cross-posting and the Jajah calling capability are always there. You can easily configure those services from the “Settings” tab. You can also import your Twitter friends and send them messages directly from within Hictu.
An interesting feature is the ability to add video comments to your blog or website. You can configure and customize your Hictu widget from the Widget tab and insert the generated code directly on your site. People will be able to write comments, post videos and so on, even if they are not registered to Hictu.
A new specific plugin for Wordpress is available too, in order to make the integration with the most popular blogging platform as easy as possible. Think of leaving realtime video comments as well as YouTube or Google videos. You will face a completely new experience and definitely expand the audience of the conversations taking place on your blog, since everything will be public on a specific channel on Hictu too. This means that also people not visiting your blog can join the conversation and their comments will appear on your blog too (for those who are familiar with that, something similar to what happens with services like disqus). Expect bugs… But we will solve them immediately
This is how the conversation looks like on my Wordpress blog posts:
I was forgetting: to join Hictu 2, you need to get an invite from people who are already registered. Sign up is currently closed and will be kept closed for now. If you need an invite, just leave a comment to this post and I’ll send you one.
Do you want more and you are a developer? A comprehensive set of APIs is now available to developers to integrate Hictu in 3rd party services or applications. You can post videos from other applications or even create mobile applications to send videos directly to your Hictu account. To get more information, just send an email to api@hictu.com.
Another important thing, the last one, something that I really care, is that Hictu has been built by a bunch of engineers and developers that we are very proud of
A few days ago I wrote about a problem related to the wide availability of tools which let you share your lifestream, like FriendFeed. You post something on your blog, for example, and realize that people are leaving comments on it through FriendFeed.
A solution? This fantastic FriendFeed plugin for Wordpress which lets you pull any comment on FriendFeed and show them on the correspondent post on your blog. This way, you are able to put together all the elements of the conversation around your article.
You can find a test example here. I left a comment on FriendFeed to one of my blog posts and it appears on my blog too. You also have the ability to leave a comment on FriendFeed directly from this blog.
You can download this plugin from here. Check it out, it’s really worth it.
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