Webware

At the Future of Web Apps conference in London this week, blog platform company Six Apart is announcing a new open-source platform called Motion, to be available for download, that enables any Web host or developer to host their own Twitter-like microblog service. The technology is derived from Pownce, the Twitter competitor Six Apart acquired last year (and then shut down).

With Motion, the company is "trying to evolve past a traditional blogging platform to newer social apps," Six Apart EVP Ed Anuff told me.

It's no surprise that this content platform company is working on a microblogging extension. Anyone in the blogging space would be a dope not to. What I do find interesting is that the product is software and not a cloud-based Twitter-in-the-sky Web service.

Anuff told me that many site developers want complete control over their branding, and want the capability to fully tweak their online product. You can't do that as easily when you're mashing up services from the cloud, he implied. It's why developers and Six Apart favor the software model instead.

However, Anuff did say that while the code for Motion runs locally, the data it calls is actually hosted by Six Apart. Anuff said Six Apart has the infrastructure to support the load that all their microblogging users might need. Also, since Motion-based microblogs can integrate with Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace (items posted in a social network can show up on Motion and vice versa), it does make sense to have one Web-based service acting as a gateway.

The official Zachary Quinto fan site's community page is powered by Motion.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

Six Apart will be announcing pre-qualified hosts for people who want the Motion product but don't want to run their own servers. The product will also be available later for the company's fully-hosted blog platform, TypePad.

To see Motion in action, Anuff recommends the Zachary Quinto fan site, whose community page is based on the service.

See also, Identica: Taking on Twitter with open-source software.

The news started to emerge in various Twitter feeds and personal blog posts Monday: David Recordon, a Six Apart developer and prominent open-standards advocate, has left the blog software company to take a job at Facebook.

Recordon, who formally announced the job change on his LiveJournal, will take on the title of senior open programs manager. "This past year as I've worked closer with teams at Facebook, I've been impressed by their products, smart people, and innovation," he wrote in the post.

It wasn't so long ago that Facebook was seen as the ultimate in closed-off technology, with profiles hidden behind a log-in wall and features built with in-house technologies rather than open standards. At that time, a hire like Recordon would've seemed to many a ludicrous match. But Facebook's changing: it joined the OpenID Foundation earlier this year, made a big chunk of its developer platform open-source, and its Facebook Connect universal-log-in product has earned both developer and mass-market approval.

Recordon told me he doesn't want to say too much until after he's actually started at Facebook, which will be on Monday. But I spoke to a few of his soon-to-be Facebook colleagues, and they sound excited: the 5-year-old company has never had an already-prominent open-source advocate on staff, .

Facebook, which plans to raise its employee head count by 50 percent this year, made several very prominent hires earlier this month when it acquired start-up FriendFeed in a deal that seems to have been aimed largely at getting its ex-Googler founders on board at Facebook.

Correction 2:25 p.m. PDT: This story initially misstated David Recordon's new title at Facebook. It is senior open programs manager.

Community members of Six Apart's Movable Type platform (MT) are launching a new blogging service on Tuesday. Dubbed "Melody," it's an open-source version of MT that community members are free to build on and change.

Unlike previous open-source efforts though, this one is the first to break off (or "fork") from the main product, allowing for much faster and drastic changes. In many ways it's an answer to WordPress, a competitor of Six Apart that began as an open source project and has benefited from rapid development because of it.

Even though it's going in a different direction as MT, the group of users that are creating it hope that many of its community-created features will make their way back into that product. "The word fork is a very charged word," says Byrne Reese, who has been one of the leading contributors to MT, and was its product manager at Six Apart for two years. He's now helping to head up the Melody project and organization that will manage it, the Open Melody Software Group.

In a call with CNET News on Monday, Reese said that everyone who is participating in the project has a love for MT, and that Melody is simply a way to get some new community-driven features into it at a faster pace than what's previously been possible. "When you are an enterprise product it comes with a lot of overhead," he said. "Change in the enterprise world can be dangerous. So that's been one of the great challenges, and where a lot of the pent up desire to contribute comes from."

Reese and the other community members behind Melody aren't trying to get rid of MT though. "What we really hope to do is build on top of what Six Apart has done, and what it's actively doing," he said. "When you have a commercial product, I think your priorities as far as feature development goes, are naturally going to gravitate towards the features that make the paying customer happy."

That also means a faster progression of new releases. While MT is getting a new major release every six months or so, Reese is expecting Melody's to be much faster. "We want to create features that stem from real need. But we also don't want to do that at the expense of being able to draft off the experience of Six Apart. The company is often the first to create new standards. When there's a new service that comes on the market you can expect that Six Apart will be one of the first to have it. If we didn't draft off that we would fail."

Instead, Reese wants Melody's feature set to become the "bleeding edge" of what the MT platform is capable of by implementing community-driven features that can coexist peacefully alongside the work of Six Apart. Although he admitted that doing that while making sure that changes can migrate over to the other platform will be a challenge. "What melody hopes to do is to merge those two sides of the coin. We hope to exist somewhere in the middle," Reese said.

Melody is being released as an early alpha version on Tuesday, with a version 1.0 release later this year. Reese says that this initial version is less "sexy" as much as it is a re-architecting of the core of the existing MT service to more easily integrate code from third parties. "I don't know what the right metaphor is...but I like to think of Melody as a leading edge of a knife. A very long, thin knife. Hopefully we can start to make these little changes, and features that amount to something much bigger."

Correction at 7:15 a.m. PDT: The spelling of Byrne Reese's first name has been fixed.

Whether you're moving to a new place or you just want to be more familiar with your surroundings, there are a variety of sites on the Web that fill you in on everything from restaurants to businesses to apartments in your area.

Find some businesses

BooRah If you're only looking for restaurants, BooRah is for you. The site features information on how to get to a restaurant, but really shines when you read through the informative reviews from users and consider the "similar restaurant" tab, which features a listing of local eateries that are similar to your search. Also good: The site's "explore" tool, which lets you look through the city your restaurant is in to find other eateries. It is not as full-featured as Yelp, but BooRah is a fine alternative if you want to find a place to eat tonight.

CitySearch makes it simple to find places in your area.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

CitySearch With a revamped site that includes new features and Facebook Connect support, CitySearch is a solid alternative for those who want to get to know their surroundings. The site gives you the option to find bars, restaurants, shopping locations, and more. Each page includes a description by an editor, supplemented by user reviews. In most cases, those user reviews provide valid insight into different locales.

InsiderPages If you're looking for specific type of businesses in your area, InsiderPages is a great resource. You start in a city of your choosing and input keywords like "dentist" or "plumber" to find all the companies providing those services in the area. Once you find a company, InsiderPages displays reviews it takes from CitySearch and other sites, and it includes a description of the business that was written by users who have been there.

FindnTell FindnTell is a useful site, although it's only got New York City info right now. It allows you to search for local businesses anywhere in the U.S. and uses Google Maps to make it easier to find places. It's designed well and its listings are informative.

NearbyNow If you're looking for specific products, try this site. It features categories ranging from appliances to cell phones to luggage. Once you input your location and choose a category, you'll be brought to a page detailing products that are available and where you can get them in your area. Looking for a Stilettoi t satellite radio? It's available at the Best Buy 20 miles from your home and it costs $250. That's the kind of information NearbyNow will provide and it comes in especially handy when you know you need something and you have no idea if it's available. It's a unique service.

TripAdvisor It might not be designed specifically for those who want information about their neighborhood, but TripAdvisor is still a great place to go if you want to find out about hotels or other tourist locations in your area. Whenever I want to get out of the house for a night or simply want to check out something notable in my area, TripAdvisor is my first stop.

Yahoo Local Yahoo Local reminds me of Yelp in quite a few ways. It includes a huge listing of businesses, the option to create reviews, and its page design makes it easy to search around the site. And thanks to the massive Yahoo community, it's also one of the more active sites in this roundup, featuring numerous reviews on restaurants, bars, shopping malls, and other frequented locales in your area. That said, it doesn't have the same social flavor as Yelp, and its listings pages are a bit cluttered. Regardless, it's worth using for a second opinion.

YellowBot is simpler than CitySearch.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

YellowBot If you're looking to find places and you don't want to deal with all the extras that sites like CitySearch offer, use YellowBot. The site makes it simple, with two search boxes entitled, "What" and "Where." As you might expect, you're only required to input what you're looking for and where you want to find it and within seconds, you'll have a page displaying the company's user rating, reviews by those who have been patrons of the firm, and contact information. The site also finds reviews from across the Web to supplement its pages.

Yelp If you're looking for the best local search service on the Web, go to Yelp. The site has it all. According to the company it now has over 5 million user reviews and based on my searches, I believe it--nothing was left out. But where Yelp really shines is in its coverage. Regardless of whether you sign up for the site or not, you'll find more cities in Yelp than in any other service in this roundup and I found that since the community is much larger, there are more reviews, giving Yelp an advantage over competitors. (On the other hand, there are questions about the credibility of Yelp business pages.)

Apartments, events, and more

ApartmentRatings Looking for a new apartment and don't know where to begin? Check out ApartmentRatings. Once you input a zip code into the site's search box, you'll find a listing of apartments in the area. Once you click on a property you're interested in, tenant reviews tell you if it's worth living there. I've used the site in the past and the reviews are spot on. If you're moving into an apartment, don't do anything before you consult ApartmentRatings.

Craigslist What good would a local site roundup be without Craigslist? As if you need to be told, Craigslist is the single destination to find anything you want in your area. Whether it's a used couch or open slots on a softball team, you can find it all on Craigslist. And since it's such a popular destination, there's no shortage of local information. It's one of the best destinations in this roundup.

Upcoming helps you find out what to do tonight.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

Upcoming Upcoming includes information about upcoming events in your area, such as conferences, concerts, and other social events. But what sets the site apart is its geotagging, which allows you to search for events by neighborhood or general area. And if you meet someone at a show and you want do something with them next weekend, you can friend them on the site and see where they're going next.

Zvents If you're looking for something to do this weekend, Zvents is worth visiting. It automatically determines your location and lets you search through all the events that are happening in your area. Whether you want to check out the free concert at your neighborhood hangout or the big event at the local arena, Zvents has it all. It's my go-to destination when I want to go out.

Social-media pioneer LiveJournal is the latest company to announce a round of layoffs, trimming down its employee head count in its San Francisco and Moscow offices.

A statement from the company came after a rumor on gossip blog Gawker suggested that a shocking number of LiveJournal employees--20 out of 28--had been cut. LiveJournal clarified that it was "about a dozen" cuts, amounting to about a fifth of the company.

"LiveJournal Inc.'s headquarters, technical operations (and servers), legal, administration, and the customer service teams will remain in the United States," the release explained. "LiveJournal's global product development and design will now be coordinated out of its Moscow office. The pooling of resources between the U.S. and Russia will allow the company to build a stronger business model, well positioned to guarantee the long-term success of LiveJournal."

Yahoo veteran Matthew Berardo, who was hired as general manager of the service less than a year ago, was affected by the layoff.

LiveJournal was founded nearly a decade ago by OpenID creator Brad Fitzpatrick, who sold the company to blog software firm Six Apart. But that led to widespread reports of management difficulties, and late in 2007, Six Apart resold LiveJournal, phenomenally popular in Russia, to the Moscow-based software company SUP.

In case you had forgotten that microblogging and file-sharing social network Pownce is shutting down in mere hours, here's your friendly reminder.

If you were a user of the site, now is a good time to go back and take one last look at all your past quips, shared files, and discussion threads, since they'll soon be wiped clean.

As mentioned before, there is an escape hatch to take everything you've posted to the site and bring it elsewhere--the only catch is that you have to request it before the site shutters. You'll get a download link to the data file e-mailed in "a few days," but you must begin the process from this page while it's still up.

There's a post on the official Pownce blog about what to do when you get your hands on the data, in the form of import instructions for Vox, TypePad, and WordPress.

Most of my Pownce contacts seem to have left for Twitter or Vox. There's also a room in FriendFeed called "Pownce Exiles" with just fewer than 200 members. It's hard to believe that there was a time in which invitations to this site were fetching cold, hard cash on eBay.

Update: Pownce has now shut down completely, although the export page, along with the links to download exported user data files remains. Of note is that my data export from earlier today only took a couple of hours, instead of days as the site stated. One reader also wrote in to let us know ex-Powncers can export their identity to Soup.io, although I'm not sure if this works since Pownce's site is no longer there to serve up the data.

Pownce users can export their user data to another network before the site shuts down. The exported data takes a couple of days to show up elsewhere, though.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Another one bites the dust? Pownce, a would-be Twitter rival that was heavily hyped due to the involvement of Digg co-founder Kevin Rose, is closing its doors in two weeks.

It's not quite going away, according to a post from Pownce founder Leah Culver on the start-up's official blog. The technology has been sold to blog platform Six Apart, which runs TypePad and Movable Type. And its two full-time employees, Culver and Mike Malone, will be joining Six Apart's team.

"We'll be closing down the main Pownce Web site two weeks from today, December 15," Culver wrote. "Since we'd like for you to have access to all your Pownce messages, we've added an export function...(you can) import your posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress."

Pownce, which is like Twitter with additional features like file-sharing, was so buzzworthy at its debut that people were auctioning alpha test invites off on eBay. It also had a business model, with paid accounts available for sale. But the Pownce hype died off, and Twitter gained more and more market share.

Additionally, we heard that the self-funded Pownce was trying to secure a round of venture capital. It looks like that didn't work out. This is, after all, not a great time to be raising money.

Six Apart is encouraging Pownce members to join its blog platform Vox. "We hope the Pownce and Vox communities can come together, just as the teams have, towards a better future," Six Apart's Chris Alden wrote on the company blog.

Pownce's two other co-founders, Rose and Daniel Burka, will become Six Apart "advisers."

The new TypePad comments are a lot more attractive than before.

Six Apart's paid, hosted blogging service, TypePad, is getting improved community features. The first thing most users will notice is a new blog commenting system. It has both a cleaner display of comments (with icons for the comments, WordPress-style), as well as a simpler comment entry interface. Users can also reply to particular comments and the system supports one level of threading.

The updated comments service hooks into TypePad's new profile system. Commenters with TypePad IDs get a place that collects all the comments they leave on all TypePad comment-enabled blogs, and users can add feeds from their accounts on Flickr, Twitter, Friendfeed, Digg, and about 45 other services. That makes the profile pages a lot more dynamic and interesting.

The TypePad comment system can be embedded on non-TypePad blogs. The service can automatically install on WordPress.org, Blogger, and Tumblr sites. HTML code is provided to put the comment system on other blogs.

This new comment ecosystem is certainly an improvement over the previous version. But bloggers have other very good commenting systems to choose from. I favor Disqus, for instance. Although I do like the new TypePad system, I don't see a reason to install it on my WordPress blog ProPRTips, (and actually, I couldn't if I wanted to--users of WordPress.com-hosted blogs can't get far enough under the hood to make the switch; bloggers using WordPress.org software hosted elsewhere can, however).

The new system is certainly an improvement, and more than that it's interesting to see Six Apart continue to spin core functionality out of its paid products and offer it to the world for free. Previously, of course, the company made Movable Type open source and free. The company clearly hopes that exposure to these products will make revenue-generating products more attractive. Whatever the motivation, these are serious and full-featured products, now available for nothing, and I'm cool with that.

The new TypePad profiles collect all your commenting activities on TypePad-enabled blogs.

Andrew Mager posted an illustrated play-by-play of Saturday's WordCamp, a conference devoted to the popular open-source blogging platform WordPress. According to Mager's report, the hosted version of WordPress has 2.3 million new blogs in 12 months and 35 million posts, and more than 6.5 billion page views.

(Credit: Andrew Mager)

Of particular interest for the WordPress crowd is BuddyPress, a set of plug-ins that brings Facebook-like features, such as friends, groups, private messaging, status updates, and extended profiles, to the blogging platform. (WordPress competitor Six Apart also recently introduced a social dimension to its Movable Type platform.)

BuddyPress is slated for 1.0 status in December 2008.

(Credit: Andrew Mager)

As Mager reported, unlike the popular social networks, BuddyPress isn't a closed environment: "Why do we need another social network? BuddyPress is not another "data silo" like Facebook and MySpace. It's mission is to be more open source, handle better control of data, give people better choices, and build greater support for open standards."

Being more open isn't a necessarily going to move people out of Facebook, MySpace, Bebo or other semi-permeable walled gardens. However, the combination of emerging open standards, such as OpenSocial, and the growing WordPress and Six Apart communities will have an impact on embedding a social dimension into the fabric of every application.