What Is It?

Movable Type (MT) was the world’s first professional blog publishing platform and, since its first release in 2001, it’s powered the most innovative and creative online experiences around the world. MT customers from “Boing Boing to Boeing” have used this software build compelling personal blogs, redefine online community, grow into major media publishers, and become the voice of some of the world’s largest organizations.

In 2007, Six Apart Ltd. Announced the commercial release of the Movable Type Community Solution (MTCS), a package of social media features built on top of the popular core Movable Type 4 platform. In response to user demands, this company also has initiated the Movable Type Open Source (MTOS) Project that will consist of a GPL-licensed version of Movable Type 4.0. This Open Source project is to be released in Q3 2007, with resources for the already large community of Movable Type developers.

Who Is it For?

Movable Type is available for personal, commercial, education, nonprofit or enterprise use. Resellers and hosting providers also have access to a program to support their needs. MT has become an easy-to-use publishing platform that allows anyone to contribute and to publish online. Easy enough to use for a first-time blogger, this tool can be extended to meet the needs of the most advanced online community or integrated enterprise architecture.

Features

The core Movable Type platform, Moveable Type 4, is free to use for the individual blogger (although a support contract does carry a price), and licenses are available for commercial solutions. Users will find the ability to produce unlimited blogs, interactive Web site with video sharing and podcasting, and online community capabilities.

Movable Type 4 incorporates more than 50 new features and delivers benefits that include social media features, the power to manage an entire site, advanced scalability, and an extensible platform. This platform includes many of the top plugins available from the MT community. Upon download and integration into a Web site, users can immediately create blogs and create venues to connect with an audience.

Community builders can find advanced user registration with industry-leading support for OpenID authentication standards, ratings and recommendations for community members to promote favorite content, member blogging allowances, and integrated commenting and profiles between forums, communities, and blogs among other features.

Compatibility

Movable Type can be run in multi-server environments with support for a broad line up of operating systems including Linux, Windows, and Solaris. Database requirements include MySQL 4.0+, Postgres, SQLite or Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle and Microsoft with Enterprise solution. MT’s new framework allows users to import content from any Web platform. While users can obtain a plethora of information about MT from its Web site, a recommendation is to open the MT Reviewer’s Guide to learn more about this tool from one concise source.

Web Hosts that Offer Movable Type