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)
Monitoring the SXSW Twitter on my smartphone.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Tip from Scoble's Twitter: Twapper, from the 30boxes team. It's the app I was wishing I had earlier today: A mobile Web site that monitors Twitter feeds.
Why? Because Twitter's default mobile channel is SMS, and SMS is a rotten medium for reading a constant feed of trivial posts from a ton of people, which is what you get with Twitter. First of all, no one wants their phone buzzing every five seconds, and second, a lot of people have to pay for each SMS. Until now, I've been using Twitter's Web site on my smartphone to keep up to date, but a full-sized Web site is not a good match for a small device. The Twapper WAP site makes it much easier to monitor Twitterers you care about.
Still no way to post a Twitter from Twapper, but give it a few days...
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