ShoutPost In The Wilderness
by
on January 25, 2007,
ShoutPost has just launched a free, innovative site for creating blogs. Following the new trend for advertising free blog sites, the creators of tBlog.com have built a site where users can be heard without the "noise" of advertising. According to their press release, ShoutPost is the first free blog syndication host with no advertising.
Unlike sites such as MySpace.com, Friendster.com and blog.com ShoutPost reserves user spaces for user content only. The new site also provides a unique syndication system that enables bloggers to create their posts and instantly syndicate them to any other web site they have control over. According to the release, this is the first time bloggers have had the ability to syndicate in this fashion.
"We wanted to give bloggers a free personal space to share ideas without having to worry about their message being corrupted by the latest DVD release, or the newest network sitcom," said ShoutPost.com creator, Taylor Bayouth. "With the new syndication system, we also offer the first free method for any website owner to easily syndicate their ShoutPost blog anywhere on the web. We think this feature will play a large part in ShoutPost's success."
Does It?
- No Ads in user area - Check
- Free - Check
- Syndication - Check
- Point and click editing/spell check - Check
- Image insertion - Check
- Free versatile templates - Check
- Feedburner - Check
- Video Supported - Negative
- Domains @ shoutpost.com - Check
- Web 2.0 - Check
Web 2.0?
This site appears to deliver what the press release indicates in every way, and it is definitive of a WEB 2.0 blog site. Signing up and figuring out the user controls for this site took less than 5 minutes. I created a blog page template and posted a cute little post in about 2 minutes. If you want to create a professional looking blog without redesigning the universe, this is the place to do it! I wanted to get this information out to our readers, so I did not do extensive site research, but I am really impressed folks! The site uses a Wordpress style point and click editor that is quick and slick. Templates are available for design or redesign, and images upload very quickly.
ShoutPost is the simplest, cleanest and most fun blog site I have been to in a long time, maybe even website period. Compared to the MySpace Customizer post I did some time back, ShoutPost is Web 3.0. No glimmering banner ads, pop ups, redirects, free plasma TV's. This place is going to rock folks! As advertised the user's space is fully customizable and navigation is as easy as it gets. My only negative comments about Shoutpost are that the site needs video embedding for the posts and the current content is sketchy. These things will surely be addressed or taken care of in the near future as the site gains popularity. I just like Ad free Web 2.0 stuff, and simplicity affords so much function for the time invested. As you can see from my little 1 minute post below, the "easy" button is not a bad tool to have!
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Bighorn
kalipso
Mav
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
So, either Taylor has deep pockets and will fund that service for the rest of his life, or he’s going to “repurpose” your content on some other site and make some money there.
It’s not very obvious to me how it stay afloat if it’s going to be a constant drain of cash for someone.
Would you care to enlighten me here?
I am not totally sure but what they promise is that your own blog will be ads-free. BUT their home page bears quite a lot of ads - so this may be the way to generate some money. Otherwise it is unclear. It is also possible that they will offer some premium services to bloggers - I’m not sure what they could choose.
P.S. By the way, they even have the link for digging this story on the home page. So if you like the story or the service - digg it.
That is true, the rest of the site does have advertising. I must say that so far it is really minimalized. It is not much when you think about it. Kind of like Burger King having free restrooms
Seriously, the user area is all that is ad free. Thanks for your comments.
Personally its a crock website, having been posting on it now since January. Its turned into a numbers game, where the more you post and only members who read your blogs, move you up the ladder. My counter is approaching 4200 hits since January, 80% from non shoutpost users. Doesn’t affect the “Hot Blog” reading list. The inmates are running the asylum, and the community is nothing but myspace light without the intelligence of a 13 year olds. They periodically block posts if any media is embedded and treat it as spam, and you have to wait days for someone to review your post and release it. Basically censorship in my opinion. There is no support, and even if you send a message to Nickster or Rocky, it falls on deaf ears. Taylor definitely is generating income from yahoo and others, just because your actual post doesn’t have a link on it to an ad site, he’s playing the pay per click game. He even has the members convinced it is still in beta stage, even though I just pointed out in a post that he has been running tblog for 3 years, and it would be the same as Ford announcing they have a new prototype called a “car” even though the Model T came out in 1908. So now we wait around to see what Taylor is really up to, time will tell.
Thank you for the insightful comment Adrian. Your words prove once again how important actual lengthy experience with a service is - and how much better you can get to know a service when you actually use it day after day instead of merely testing and describing it for news-savvy readers (as all the technology bloggers do). So thanks again for this comment.
Thanks Adrian,
You did my roundup no ShoutPost for me! It is unfortunate that so many promising sites are being converted into little “unsociable networking” sites like myspace, digg and others.
Sometimes I think we have created the real world equivalent of an “any age” rave at many Web 2.0 sites. I can imagine walking in expecting 1000 14 year old’s passed out on the floor and 1000 more trampling them to death to the beat of some dark, heavy backbeat.
It is not really an age thing I have discovered but a mental one. I belong to some supposedly professional sites that exhibit some of the same behavior. Mindless and or heartless comments over the top of meaningful inquiry.
Currently, there is no real way to predict what will come of any site except to say it will be popular or useful, and we all are forced to overuse words like “potential” and “innovation”. We appreciate you taking the time to let us know what you are experiencing as readers like you are really the backbone of the “viable” Web.
Always,
Phil Butler