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This blog has moved!

Please note that beginning on Monday 9th I will migrate my blogging activity to my new blog. Please update all of your feed subscriptions and bookmarks to http://blogs.forrester.com/ian_fogg

There will be no further posts on this blog. I look forward to continuing the conversations with you at http://blogs.forrester.com/firstname_surname

Thanks.

Why do I blog so much more here compared with other blogs? Simple: It’s much more convenient as the WordPress mobile tools are superior.

Take the respective platform’s iPhone support as an example: All three blogging platforms offer iPhone apps. But only the WordPress app allows editing of published posts, comment moderation, and the creation or editing of static pages.

Typepad, only offers post creation as does the iPhone Livejournal app. I find that I often wish to amend or add to published posts. I’ve also discovered that on mobile phones it’s easier to hit ‘publish’ by mistake. Or, to be unsure if a post has published successfully due to the vagaries of mobile phone networks. In both situations, being able to edit published posts overcomes the issue. On any important blog I find that lack of ability to edit published posts unacceptable as it leads to error-ridden mobile blog posts staying live until I am back near a PC and able to fix them.

WordPress also has richer post creation options: It has full support for category selection and tags; draft posts can be stored online as well as locally. Storing a draft on the phone enables offline support, and allows the quick storage of posts with large photo attachments, that can be later published when there’s a fast 3G connection or WiFi available. Typepad only has limited local draft support and doesn’t work with the categories in my experience.

On other platforms, WordPress also seems better supported. I’ve found a competent, although unofficial, app for Android in wpToGo, but nothing good for the others.

WordPress:

Typepad:

Livejournal:

Last week on holiday I did hardly any work.

This wasn’t my choice: My new’ish employer only allows Blackberries to connect to office email/calendar/contacts, and no other phones. As I only had pocket space — didn’t carry a bag most of the time — I chose my personal phone over the corp one. I didn’t have space on me for both phones.

Even people that are usually prepared to carry multiple bits of kit — like me — will have many times in their lives when it’s not convenient to carry more than one phone. Companies that want to encourage 24/7 working had better make it easy for employees to work on their personal phone, because no one will leave their personal mobile behind in these situations to make space for a corp Blackberry / other work phone. A personal phone will always trump the work phone if there’s a conflict.

My old work blog at JupiterResearch is about to die. I’m wondering whether to publish the archive of old entries on this site? Or elsewhere? Or just let them pass away?

Thoughts?

Note – the new work blog is here on the Forrester website. It has some recent JupiterResearch entries from the last few months (only).