Update: The Vox platform shut down in 2010.
As of recent, I'm giving a lot of thought to providing more documentation and even some public speaking on blogging. Why? Bloggin ain't easy! Companies realize this… putting yourself ‘naked' out on the web may or may not be a good strategy. Beyond the strategy and the content, though, is the technology.
Bloggin' ain't easy.
Sure, the great bloggers make it look simple. They throw up a blog and are met with thousands of dollars in advertisements. People throw them money. But how about Mom & Pop that simply want to put up a simple blog about their business or family? Web analytics, authority, search engine optimization, ranking, trackbacks, pings, post slugs, comments, user generated feedback, categories, tagging, feeds, feed analytics, email subscriptions… it's enough to make anyone run away screaming!
It's easy for me because I've been at it a year and dissected every component of blogging. I get it. I'm a geek. It's my hobby, job, and love.
The new kid on the block is Vox. I saw some screenshots of Vox for pushing content (audio, video or image) into the post and was impressed with how simple they made it. But that's where easy stopped.
Here's a screenshot:
There are no less than 30 links on my blog page for things to do. I simply wanted to upload an image for the blog and wound up confusing the blog image for the profile image. If you're going to tout yourself as the next “easy” tool for blogging, you sure as heck better make it easy. There's no way I would push a friend of mine to this tool. I'd rather talk them through WordPress or Blogger.
Perhaps one of the problems with Vox is that it was influenced by bloggers for blogging. If SixApart truly wanted to make a simple blogging platform, they should have looked for people that have never blogged before. I'm not sure what adoption rates are for climbing onto Vox, but I'm doubting they are spectacular.
You make a good point Doug. The future and growth in blogging and people coming to your blog is the “regular” people. Some people who may not even know what the term blogging means today.
I checked out Vox when it first launched as well and wasn’t that impressed with it. It has a fancy frosting cover, but when it dig deep down, it’s not as fun or simple to use. I think they could use an over haul on the system.