Last week, Six Apart announced the release of version Movable Type 4.32. From what I can tell the sole purpose of this release is the introduction of Zemanta, an editorial assistance tool. Zemanta looks like a great tool, but I wonder if it is enough to warrant a new software release. Either way, the announcement has me curious and perhaps I'll try out Zemanta on my own choice of CMS.

Today we're announcing a partnership with Zemanta whereby the Zemanta editorial assistance tool will recommend content to you as you write your blog posts. The tool is built in to version 4.32 of MovableType, zemanta-logo.jpgso if you are a prolific blogger who produces a lot of content on a regular basis, you'll find this feature very helpful.

Many of you have likely heard of Zemanta, and perhaps some of you already use it as a plug in to your Firefox browser or other online tools. Using Zemanta is sort of like having a content servant at your elbow suggesting ways to make what you're writing more interesting and compelling through photos, videos, related articles, and useful tags.

Need a photo to match a post you're writing? Zemanta to the rescue. Like to be reminded to tag your post so that it's search engine optimized? Zemanta will help you out. Zemanta has indexed more than a million top media sources and quality blogs, including Wikimedia Commons, Flickr and various stock photo providers to make it easier for you to create compelling posts.

Royal Pingdom completed a survey looking at the top blog platforms of the top 100 blogs.  This survey mirrors other studies that I've read showing that Wordpress is king of the blog platform.

We found that Wordpress is the most-used platform among self-hosted
blogs, which perhaps isn’t a huge surprise. It has more than twice as
many blogs in the top 100 as Movable Type, the blog platform that came
in second place.

• Wordpress is used by 27 blogs in the top 100.
• Movable Type is used by 12 blogs in the top 100.
• Only 8 of the top 100 blogs use a custom-made blog platform.
• Drupal is the only general-purpose CMS with any presence worth mentioning, with 4 blogs in the top 100.

Royal Pingdom also takes a look at the role of blog services and blogging networks in the top 100 blogs.  I personally prefer to run my own Web applications instead of relying on a blogging service.  I have nothing against the blogging services, it is just that I like to be in control.  Also, there is always a question of who really owns the content of your blog when using a blog service.  If you use a blog service, be sure you always read the "terms of use".  After reading the fine print, you might be surprised who really has the final say on your blog.

CMS Wire recent took a look at Technorati's Top 100 blog sites and determined which CMS the sites were using most.  They concluded, not surprisingly, that Wordpress was the most popular CMS with 34% of the top sites using the blogging application.

Simply put, we found that WordPress dominates the list, that Movable Type comes in with a respectable second [16%], and the rest are either custom jobbies or a smattering of other platforms which are, relatively speaking, eating dust.

Probably more interesting, is that full-fledged CMS barely made a dent in the top 100 list.

Wider scope Web CMS technologies are not used much by the top blogs. Drupal scores 5 sites, with Plone used by 1. Other popular Web CMS platforms are conspicuous only by their absence.

CMS Wire isn't saying that CMS are not good for blogging.  I think what CMS Wire is observing is that when users want to only blog...they prefer to keep it simple.  Why use a CMS with more features than they possibly can use when something like Wordpress or Movable Type can do the job?  At least that is what I get from the article.

This excerpt reminds me of long debates I had in my meteorology days over which is sunnier, "partly cloudy" or "partly sunny"?  I like Movable Type's answer to the long standing IT question...can just a blog be a full CMS?

There are often debates about this sort of thing — if you’re using a tool like Movable Type, which is platform designed for blogging, but it’s being used as a general content management system, is the output still a blog? Our answer: Who cares?

Oh and answer I always gave to the partly cloudy/partly sunny question?  I always replied that the terms meant the same thing.  About half of my colleagues would agree with me...the rest would continue to argue with me after lunch.

"One of our main goals for Movable Type for 2007 is to make sure our community’s feedback is an even more integral part of product development. As a first step, we’re experimenting with getting your help fixing the plugin experience for Movable Type."

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Anil Dash writes: "I’m here at a technology evangelism event today, and one of the speakers here is Jeremy Zawodny, a long-time Movable Type blogger, one of Yahoo’s most prominent faces in the blogosphere, and a pretty good judge of how to promote things using blogs."

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"It’s only been two days since we announced SuiteTwo along with a world-class team of partners led by Intel, but the response has been fantastic. We thought we’d collect some highlights, offer a first glimpse at what some parts of the SuiteTwo experience will look like, and offer more details..."

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