Where do I even begin? asks Lee in a rant that I suspect will resonate with many bloggers who use offline blog editing software.
As Lee writes elsewhere in his blog, and as I’ve said before, there is plenty of choice in tools for managing your blog and writing posts offline, whatever type of computer you have or operating system you run. Yet, as Lee’s posts indicate, few of the tools currently out there are robust or reliable enough to take their place alongside other applications on your computer that you view as essential.
The market really is wide open for some enterprising software developer to build a tool that gets close to the wish list Lee has offered. My benchmark is simple – something that is close to a hybrid Microsoft Word and FrontPage rolled together in terms of features and ease of use. And, ideally, is cross-platform so will work on a Mac and a Linux system as well as on a Windows PC.
I thought RocketPost was closest to my benchmark. But, as I’ve mentioned previously, I strongly suggest you steer well clear of this product.
You’d think that with the continuing growth of the blogosphere and more people starting blogs, a developer would grasp a very clear opportunity. Yet I think to develop something like my benchmark idea will take signficant resources (people and money) so maybe it does mean a Microsoft or an Open Office rather than the smaller, often hobbyist, developers in this space right now.
Office 2007 (aka Office 12), due out later this year, seems to me to be a great candidate but I see nothing in the current specs that talks about blogs and other social media.
Then there are online editing tools, ie, the interface you use when you log in to your blog. You’re logged in to your blog account and you use the editor provided by your blog platform. And browser-based tools like Performancing for Firefox (which I’m using to write this post).
Big opportunities waiting for someone to grab.
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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.
Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.
