[workshop] what's your ideal blogging tool?

[Michal Wallace]

[crossposted to innercircle and web app workshop lists]

Hey Everyone...

I'd planned to work out a business spec for my rantelope
blogging tool / content management system yesterday and
post it to the webAppWorkshop list.

For anyone who didn't follow the development articles 
( http://www.rantelope.com/ ) I've built an incredibly
ugly content management system, with all the basic features: 
post and publish, RSS, categories, templates, and a search 
engine (not yet hooked up). So I've got the basic technology,
and now I want to create an application.

The trouble is, there's a million ways I could build it. It
could be like blogger (central server, remote publish), like
movable type (cgi script, local publish), like livejournal 
(central server, local publish), or maybe something entirely
different. 

More importantly, it could be a tool for managing a whole 
site, or a blog, or a link directory, or many sites, or...
Whatever!

I know what *I* want to use it for, but I'm not really 
writing it for me. I want to be able to offer a preinstalled
blogging tool for people who sign up for hosting. So far
I've not been able to work out a win/win deal with the owners 
of any of the famous blogging tools, which is why I finally
decided to write my own.

But my question is... What do people want? So I'm asking you
all. :) 

  - What features are most important to you in a blogging tool? 

  - If you use one, why did you choose it over something else?

  - Would you want to use the same tool to manage the rest of 
    your site, if you could?

  - how important are standards? For example, is it better to 
    use a complex standard like XSLT for your templates, or
    a simpler but nonstandard template language?

  - for the programmers: have you ever wanted to add your own
    features to your blogging tool? If you could extend the 
    tool just by writing a simple plugin class, what would
    you want to build?

  - what DON'T you like about the blogging tools you use, or 
    have used?

  - what would it take to get you to switch to a new tool? 
    (or to start using one if you've never used one before)



Sincerely,

Michal J Wallace
Sabren Enterprises, Inc.
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contact: michal@sabren.com
hosting: http://www.cornerhost.com/
my site: http://www.sabren.net/
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