I'm a fan of having all the tools to blog in one simple editor, but if you're more the piece-work type (hence the LEGO reference) then check out Swift, a new blogging tool created by the folks at Proteus. Swift lets you design and maintain a blog built specifically for handheld devices. It's completely free to use, although it's subsidized by targeted advertising based on the content you're serving up on your site. Paid "pro" members who pay $10 can get rid of the advertising altogether.
Similar to Zinadoo, which we checked out back in September, Swift rallies around a two-part editor that lets you input data on one side, and see how it will look on your mobile phone (in real-time) on the right. You can edit the site's style sheet, as well as introducing custom headers and footers complete with your site's logo. When you're done, visitors can check out the site at a special .swiftmob.com URL you get to customize with each new site you make.
Unfortunately the actual blogging quotient isn't so hot. While it's relatively easy to drop in an RSS feed from another site and pull in all the text, links, and images, using the editor to write out a post requires creating element by element and reordering them on a long and narrow area of the page. It's not a show stopper, but it'll make you long for an all-in-one page editor like WordPress or Blogger when it comes to adding links and trying to manage your content in modules. For a new service, though, it's off to a good start.
Related: MoFuse vs. Zinadoo: Who makes a better mobile site?
Tweaking various page elements in Swift is pretty simple, blogging, however, is not. Seen here is Swift's dashboard where you can keep an eye on all things blog.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
MoFuse, a mobile Web site-creation service, has removed even more steps when converting a .com Web site into a .mobi site, which is optimized for viewing from a cell phone, smartphone, or any other Internet-lovin' device.
With MoFuse Grow beta, individual and business bloggers can simply feed their site's RSS link into the blank field to generate a MoFuse URL with a .mobi suffix. New users looking for a more articulate link are enticed to join the service, which has both free and affordable options (compared here with Zinadoo's similar offering.)
Images render nicely with MoFuse Grow.
The MoFuse Grow interface carries a lush pastoral theme, and stays true to its word with a straightforward field for pasting a copied RSS link. Another link ushers bloggers to a partially-emulated view of a stripped-down mobile site that, in turn, takes you to a full emulator with navigation and appropriately rendered images. Back on MoFuse Grow's landing page, there's a prominent area that market's MoFuse services and gives users the option to register so they can customize and style the newly-created mobile blog site, or buy into additional services, like choosing a catchier domain name.
MoFuse Grow is essentially a supremely accessible, one-click Web app for drawing users in and promoting MoFuse.com's more powerful and more involving WYSIWYG interface for customizing a blog's mobile look. The tool is a gift for those who want a no-fuss, no-muss way to get at their blogs from the small screen. Those who plan to share their URL around, however, are best served by Mofuse.com's full visual design process and by shedding the clumsy, free .mobi URL. For them, MoFuse Grow produces the bud, but by no means the blossom.
In September I reviewed Zinadoo, a free service for creating mobile Web sites with a ".mobi" domain. Zinadoo, and now MoFuse, which joined the mobile Web site creation space last week, give individuals and companies a chance to put their wares in a format that will render well from the mobile phone each and every time, from any browser.
So the question is: which service serves you better? The bird's-eye answer is that they both purpose WYSIWYG editors to make site creation painless. They've both worked well, every time. Zinadoo is much more bubbly, graphics-rich, and a touch more gratifying to use.
Zinadoo's bright WYSIWYG site design page is also well-designed
(Credit: CNET Networks)MoFuse differentiates itself by emphasizing content through feeds; it wants to be the ".mobi" location of your ".com" site, particularly your blog. MoFuse populates the bulk of your mofuse.mobi site with that feed, though you can create static content and more capability is in the works. In many ways MoFuse caters more elaborately to users, who can add quickly widgets and redirect codes where serviceable to promote their mobile site. Customized ".mobi" domain names are also free with MoFuse, in contrast with Zinadoo, which charges 18 euros a year to drop the ".zinadoo" suffix from the URL. Zinadoo also sells text messaging credits. For the time being, MoFuse has shunned all premium services.
That's not to say it's shunned a business plan. Users can place ads from either the AdMob or Google AdSense with MoFuse's revenue sharing program; gains split straight down the middle. Zinadoo also places ads, but doesn't announce a revenue-sharing program.
While there are limitations to both sites in terms of interaction and universal click-to-call capability, MoFuse strikes me as a more practical and user-friendly site for the current clime, particularly for individual bloggers. Zinadoo, however, is better suited to create original content that's exclusively mobile.
A blog feed rendered through MoFuse
(Credit: CNET Networks)
My Zinadoo mobile app
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