prolific.org

It’s almost 6.30 am in The Netherlands, 8.30pm in San Diego. In a few minutes, U2 will be going on stage, for the first concert of their 2005 Vertigo tour.

Most of tonight’s concert will be taking place while I commute to work, while several U2log.com editors and associates will be at the show. They will hopefully provide instant feedback on what’s going on. G. is there too, but his texted updates regard his own well being more than that of the band. Natch.

My life will revolve around U2log.com/U2book.com for much of the rest of the year. See you on the other side.

Some of you may have wondered ‘Who the hell is Declan O’Rourke’ since he was featured so prominently in my Best of list. Or perhaps you skipped the post, I wouldn’t blame you.

I’ve now written a little more about this album and the song that first woke me up and then took my breath away on a bus journey from Dingle to Dublin:

U2log.com editors recommend // Declan O’Rourke – Since Kyabram

This album’s seriously making me consider buying an (any) MP3 player because I don’t want to be without it while I commute.

I was just going over to Plasticbag’s to steal their comment disclaimer for u2log.com when lo and behold, Tom writes:

“U2log.com – one of the first and best single-subject magazine-style weblogs. I’m not a great fan of U2, but it’s still an impressive site – and more importantly was created way before Gawker media and the current fad for commercial webloggery. I wonder if it makes any money…”

Finally, someone recognises U2log.com. I always feel it’s been ignored by web pundits — probably because they find its subject matter distasteful. I think I entered the site into the Webbies twice without being short listed while the much younger and more derivative Whedonesque got in without problems.

Do we make any money? No, we don’t. We don’t make any ‘big’ money. We make pocket money. Enough for me to buy my many editors a Christmas gift. Enough to pay for bandwidth over-usuage. We’re probably in the Top 5 U2 fansites, but nowhere near the largest. We get 5000 to 7000 (front)page hits per day and just had our busiest day last week at 23000 page hits.

We started this site as a joke, just some old IRC friends mucking about. Our style reflected this. We were irreverent, with a Brit/Aussie type humour – unlike any other U2 sites. Always taking the mickey out of the band. These days we’re rather professional, with press accreditation and access to big events, old skool reporting and what have you, but we’re still doing it because we’re obsessive about documenting the band and still in love with the music.

Briefly (and roughly, since it’s 2.30 am already) then, my take on today’s Movable Type 3.0 release and its pricing scheme.

Good software costs money. Well, a lot of the time, anyway. Deal with it. That said…

Do they EVER need a full time PR person! ‘Mena’s Corner’ did very little to improve communication. The announcement was very abrupt and confusing. They could save themselves so much trouble if they got it together in that department.

So, beta testing had ended? How come we didn’t know? Hey, I had signed up for beta testing. Never did get in, despite being told everyone would be phased in.

The naming is confusing too. Developer? Huh? It took me a few hours reading comments and threads to find out there will be another version later on for non ‘developers’.

Equally, all the talk about ‘commitment to developers’ and other corporate quack meant zilch to me. Dumb user here, what’s in it for meeeeeeee? (What I got from it all was the impression I should be using TypePad, not MT. But I don’t wanna!)

How many announcements do you need? A blog entry here, a statement with quotes there. Yet nothing on the Six Apart homepage itself?

I am quite willing to pay. When Six Apart quizzed users on this, I said I’d pay $100 dollars for a version that had comment registration.

The site I ‘needed’ MT 3.0 for (and put on design hold for many months to wait for this release) can just about fit into the 6-author license. Just about. There’s not much leeway. Still, we could ask users to donate to get the next license up. or I could kick some editors out. Heh.

Since you can only install the free version on one computer, all the other sites I use MT on will have to stick with the 2.6xx version as I simply cannot afford paying for multiple installs. And that’s ok. (God knows, I can live without comments.) But I do think the schemes for personal usage at least need to be re-evaluated.

By the way… Blogger? That redesign/launch was some impressive timing.

Update: Here’s some other people who say a lot of sensible stuff about MT 3.0 ‘developer’’s pricing scheme.