I've been with Movable Type since the early days. I still remember when Mena posted the very first reference to MT on her ultra hip site: A Dollar Short. In short, the software that Ben and Mena had created was way beyond anything else at the time. For starters it included comments!
Suddenly, using Blogger had become ghetto.
In those days Movable Type was totally grass roots — you paid for licenses buy purchasing an Amazon gift certificate for either Ben or Mena. A short while later Mena would send a personal email with a short thank you and your license number.
Ah, the salad days of blogging.
So when I saw that version 3.0 of Movable Type had been released, without hesitation I clicked the 'Buy Now' link and entered the required mailing and credit card information. Within seconds I was approved and then asked to login to a Typekey account before I could download my purchase — because, you know, logging into a service that allows me to post comments to blogs is so necessary to complete a financial transaction.
How irritating.
Not wanting to delay the delivery of MT 3 I quickly filled out the form to create an account. Upon another approval I was told an email would be delivered with a link to confirm my Typekey registration. Pretty normal procedure but none-the-less irritating.
Minutes passed and still no email. Hour passed and still no email.
Even more irritating.
I found a contact form on the Movable Type website and noted my situation. Hours later I received a response. I was told that spam filters may have blocked the confirmation email. No problem I replied, just send it to my Gmail account.
But I'm sorry, there is no way for me to do that, came the official response. Please create a new account.
After grumbling a bit I tried again this time using my new Google email address. sure enough I received the Typekey confirmation. Click through, yes. Account has been verified, yes. Thank you, nothing more.
Nothing about the software I purchased that morning. Nothing to indicate that I had given Six Apart my American Express card number and oh thank you very much. Not even a hey we're having problems, please hold.
It's now Sunday, four days later, and I wait here with Powerbook in hand a little pissed at the lack of customer service. It would be totally different if Six Apart was still the cute couple start-up, but I guess those days are long gone.
If I had children right now I would gather them around me, move my brow forward and form a sneer.
"Kids," I would say, "back in my day if you bought software you did so by sending money directly to the creator(s). And you were immediately given a link to download it. There was no account creation, no account creation validation, no email spam problems, and you sure as hell never had to wait four or more days for a link to download the software."
Content management be damned.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
My fond memory of MT was of emailing Ben about 30 hours before New Years Day 2002 and asking if I could get up and running in time to start on January 1.
There were a few hiccups but he put in the time to help talk me through. In recent months I could not even get an automated reply to emails.
Sadly my MT blog is now on its way to a new home at ExpressionEngine. My more commercial blogs are already there.
I would recommend WordPress if you are looking for another option.
I prefer Textpattern over WordPress, as Textpattern is much easier to use in my opinion. Also, Textpattern has forms, which are resuable code blocks as custom templates are in MT. WordPress also makes it very hard to set up static pages.
That. Sucks.
I don't plan on moving to 3.0 for at least a couple months. I just don't have time. Also, down at my work we use MT very extensivly (it runs the whole damn intranet) and I don't think we'll bother upgrading there at all.
I do plan on looking at other solutions at some point as well. You never wan't to get too tied to just one.
I'm not upgrading... Too lazy
I won't upgrade until it's clear that I need new features. BTW, Greg, I'm sure you know that the current release is a developer release (i.e. not one fit for the masses...yet).
FWIW, I too had a support issue on the day that MT3 was released. I emailed them and heard back in a few hours.
Not to discount your experience, of course, but just to say that they do also provide good customer support at least in my case.
I'm hoping my case is rare but it still irritates me — bad customer service is bad customer service, no matter what company it's from.
FWIW, I also recommend WordPress. As for static pages in WordPress, I've had no problems whatsoever in creating static pages around my Wordpress blog page. Earlier versions of WP wouldn't allow you to create a blog page outside of the WP directory. With the release of version 1.2, that's all changed.
At the danger of sounding like an opportunistic raving loon, WordPress. I have been with them since their very first release, and I have nothing but good things to say about these guys.
They slave their ass off, and have on several occasions taken the time to personally help me fix a problem.
i had a similar issue with my purchase, and i still haven't gotten any email confirming it. what i ended up doing was going back to the purchase process, choosing the free license, and then at the end i was asked to login. so i used my newly created typekey login and there i was at a screen with my purchase info and downloads. not clear at all. i sent a note about this to them, and hopefully it'll help you if you haven't been able to download yet.
It's good to hear all the good and bad with these different technologies. A couple of questions if I may:
1. My biggest gripe with MT is "rebuilding" and WP says "no rebuilding" so how do they work their magic? Is there a trade-ff?
2. Any idea how painful the transition might be? Phileos.com is getting close to 1000 posts... would that be hours of manual work?
Cheers!
Greg, I had the exact same problem. As I told them:
"I purchased MT 3.0 Developer's Edition, but it required that I register as a Typekey user to download it. When I finished, it did not return me to the download page. Moreover, I was not able to return to the purchase page to print a reciept of my order, nor did I receive a product key, because -- evidently -- your site was down for a short while.
I have since downloaded MT 3.0 via the Free Version Download page, but I am uncertain if what I downloaded is the same as the Developer's Edition. If it is, how does it confirm that I have paid for the Developer's Edition if I have no key? And if there is a specific download for the Developer's Edition, where is it and how do I access it if I have neither a reciept or key?
This process has been quite confusing; I recommend you add some explanation on your site to clarify. You may be able to verify my purchase with my Recently Updated Key number, which is:"
Their response (three days later) was:
"The code in the free version is identical to the paid version (your license is what dictates usage of the system, there are no restrictions in the code itself).
We are working on creating an interface to the purchase database that will permit us to look up payments for users. If you can provide me with the billing information you used (name, address, etc. and last four digits of credit card number and type), we are keeping track of who needs confirmation once the system is available."
Not a very satisfying response. ("...your license..."? what f-ing license?) All I have to say is that I have no problem if they want to charge for their software like a "real" company. They just need to manage purchases like a real company. (e.g., clear instructions, reciepts, license numbers.) All I know is that I paid $49.95 and got nothing more than the free version.
Badly done, Six Apart.
Blogger just released a new version that looks really snazzy, you should check it out
Beerzie, if that's the case then I'm going to cancel my order. That's just nonsense.
I'm not there yet. In my response to them, I praised their past good work and told them I trusted them to make this right. We'll see.
Have you seen Mena's latest response? I read it twice, and am still confused. They have made licensing more confusing than the rules to Dungeons and Dragons. The first step at Six Apart would be to hire a business analyst and a good writer; mostly this is a business process and communication problem.
Already updated to the free version of MT3. My experiance: even slower on rebuilding and no new features that are realy worth the deal.
There is a pretty tough debate going on in the blogosphere which some even called a blogware war. IMHO WordPress is not the solution for a bunch of reasons. But the first question would be: What do we need?
WordPress doesn't rebuild because it gets the data from the database each time the page is requested, unlike MT which generates static files by rebuilding the whole site.
WordPress has a Movable Type importer by default.
What!? No email response? Me, too!
Hey, Greg, how come you don't use trackbacks?
That's what happens when a good thing gets better - more people find out about it, the demand grows, their company grows, their form of getting the product to you changes, the customer slowly becomes more of a number than a valued, well, customer.
But hey, we still have to applaud their hard work and amazingly versatile blogging system in Mt.
And remember, it ain't ghetto!
I wrote my own content management. It sucks. It really does. However, it gets the job done. I wouldn't recommend it.
Paying for MovableType,( in some ways) -- it sucks. However, it more than gets the job done. I would recommend it.
I'd also recommend switching to TextPattern.
I am of the opinion that PHP/MySQL CMSes are not even worth breathing near, because:
1. It wastes bandwidth, because you can't send 304s
2. It's very easy to break, under heavy load (ever seen the can't connect to MySQL resource messages?)
3. PHP is an easy language to code in; while this is nice, it leads to a lot of slow and insecure scripts because the coders are inexperienced or (sorry,) stupid. Hey, I can't design my way out of a paper bag, it's okay if you can't code your way out of one. [1]
I'm also willing to bet that WP and TP are as vulnerable to spam and crapflooding as MT was.
So, thank you, I'll stick to MT. I also plan to sit back and laugh heartily when, as half the blogosphere has switched to WordPress, the GNAA trolls issue FloodWP.
[1] Yes, my site's pages on are in PHP; however, there is only a little logic at the beginning of each page to either send XHTML 1.1 with the application/xhtml+xml mime type or XHTML 1.0 as text/html. (Individual entries have no logic until I can dive deeper into the TypeKey scripts and make those pages valid XHTML 1.1.) No database queries, either. Besides, I don't think I'd ever become popular ;)
I'd like to second the recommendation of ExpressionEngine for anyone who wants a really full-featured CMS.
I've been using TP for months, pretty heavily, and I haven't gotten one spam comment. TP isn't some teenager's pitiful attempt at making a CMS. Dean Allen is writing it, and he has amassed quite a following of supporters, myself included. From my own experience, TP is easier to configure, install, update, and has some pretty unique features that MT and WP (along with other popular CMS's) have yet to adopt (steal). I'm actually amazed at how fast it's grown, and also in terms of features. It's unique, and while it's still a pretty early in development, it's very promising.
Just my two cents.
You said "If I had children right now I would gather them around me"
Don't let them get too close, because if you let them use Movable Type version 3, you'll violate the license agreement.
I love your site. Just wanted to share.:)
I encountered the same problem with not receiving the TypeKey email. The reason? I run postfix as my mailer and require a valid "HELO" response, which implies that the server is who it says it is. I checked my logs and found that Six Apart set up it's DNS entry for the TypeKey mail server incorrectly.
I emailed them to let them know. Guess what? No response. ;)
I sent a couple of questions to the MT people via the contact form a few days ago. I still haven't heard a word. I wonder when they'll reply. I've been so thrilled with Ben and the software, but this is just a bit ridiculous. I'm sure they're busy, but that's no reason to ignore loyal customers.
I had the same problem - purcahse, few hours for a confirmation and barfed typekey access. But after a few days, i got a response to my email, downloaded 3.0 (same files as free, licencing an honour-based affair).
No it wasn't the smoothest of transactions, but I exchanged a few emails with a real humand and i figure they're overwhwelmed. Yes, I agree the process wasn't the smoothest - but hey they've made a bit of mistake - it happens.
And I think this is the fundamental reality - they're growing fast and they've implemented things that could have been a bit smoother. They did say it was a developer release - I'm not a developer but I bought it - maybe they simply didn't expect millions of 'normal' people to go and buy it?
Definitely wanted to mention, again, ExpressionEngine - Josh, the coding is first-rate, with good attention paid to security and fine user management. Seems to be pretty powerful as far as blog-related CMS's go.
Seems we are already getting into a CMS specific mindset in the blogosphere, all we need now is the name calling as seen between Macintosh, Windows, and Linux users. I will try to refrain from such actions, but give a few responses to some of the comments above.
I must concede that there are PHP CMSes out there that are worth next to nothing, and I guess some of this is due to the accessibility of PHP. At the same time, however, I believe we should give credit where credit is due. I have not stress tested Textpattern or WordPress, but I know that at least Dean Allen is known for putting out some solid solutions.
Concerning rebuilding, I really like the fact that you have the site in static form, for very large loads (slashdotting, etc.) this is definitely the way to go. Normal everyday blogs, however, will not see this kind of traffic and will be alright with any of the larger CMSes. Static pages has another advantage, if the database goes (as recently happened to me) you still have the whole site up as is, of course I must now spend the time trying to get something intelligible extracted from the database which is a bother.
On the MT 3.0 Dev license I can only refer to Like a Lead Zeppelin over at Daring Fireball which pretty much mirrors my sentiment.
2¢
Misspelled my name... tsk. tsk. tsk.
I just wanted to point out that even though MT 3.0 is a developer edition, it is the only version which is described on the Movable Type homepage.