Did you participate in the first WordPress 2.7 survey? If you did, you may want to check out their second survey. As with the first, it includes mockups to help find answers to bloggings big question, “how to improve WordPress”.

Survey number two is concentrating on:

• Where to put the search box

• Where to put the Add New Post button/favorites menu

• How to label the Future Publish/Edit Timestamp function

This time around the survey will be limited to the first 5000 responses. The survey covers three possible placements for the search box and includes screenshots.

The second question deals with a favorites menu that will be a dropdown/button that will provide quick access to frequently used screens – your favorites. The third question covers the time stamp feature and includes questions related to previous use.

In all honesty the survey questions are not earth shattering problems requiring mass input. I am sure there are much more important questions that need answering. If you enjoy participating or just want a quick look at some of the new features, then take a look.

WordPress 2.7 is due out in November and once again there will be some big changes. The most noticeable will the change in navigation. Your current WordPress setup is to have all the menu items at the top of the screen. WordPress 2.7 will most likely use a sidebar navigation system instead.

To help fine tune this new navigation system, WordPress.org are looking for users to fill in a quick survey. The survey shows several navigation options and they ask you to select the one you like. A couple more questions after that on some other options. It only takes about five minutes.

It will be interesting to see what the finished product looks like. Between now and then, WordPress 2.6.2 is now available. These are just minor changes and you don’t really need to upgrade unless you allow multiple sign ons – it may be advisable to upgrade if you do.

WordPress is still the most popular blog software available at present. It keeps growing and changing – often to the annoyance of the users. Provide your feedback and perhaps you will get a system you do like.

I have been involved with computers for a long time. During that time I have also gotten used to the frequent software updates and upgrades that occur at regular intervals. Microsoft was infamous for their annual upgrades and almost monthly updates. They pale under the history of blog software giant, WordPress.

WordPress is not happy with an annual upgrade. No, they have to upgrade every six months, then provide updates every six to eight weeks. WordPress 2.6, or is it 2.6.1 now? is not even hot on the hard drive and now they are discussing version 2.7 – and they say it is going to be bigger than the 2.6 upgrade.

One question is does raise is their version system. In the past, major changes resulted in a change to the first number. Version 2.6 should have been version 3.0. If this is another big upgrade then it should be version 4.0. Smaller upgrades take the first decimal point. Version 2.6.1 should be 3.1 although it is such an insignificant update that perhaps 3.0.1 may have been better. It’s all semantics so let’s move on.

WordPress 2.7 is slated for release in November. It does appear to have some changes that may make it look nicer, perhaps feel easier to use, most likely a little slower again. Change for the sake of change is no good. WordPress needs to work on ways to speed everything up, particularly when in the the dashboard. WordPress also needs to learn two other lessons, first, don’t fix what isn’t broken and second, you cannot please everyone so stick to what you do best. Both are cliches, but when it comes to a blog software package like WordPress, they really do suit the situation.

While WordPress may be one of the most popular blog software platforms, Movable Type has beat it to the punch in becoming an extremely versatile blog software tool.

Movable type has long been a blogging and CMS tool and the latest release, 4.2, goes one step further and capable of turning any site into a full social publishing platform. The Movable Type blog claims :

…..combining all of Movable Type’s abilities as a blogging and CMS with social networking features like profiles, ratings, user registration, forums, following, and more.

The platform upgrade to Movable Type 4.2 fulfills the top three requests made by our community — it’s up to 100 times faster for common tasks, features much simpler templates for customizing your site, and includes 100% free and open source TypePad AntiSpam for keeping junk comments off your site.

Movable Type is available as a free download and self install. There is also a Pro edition which includes blogger support (around $99 for the free version). The Pro edition is quite pricey for just under $400.

If you do a product comparison, the free version, whilst lacking support, appears to have broader appeal than the paid version. The free version has unlimited authors and community profiles whilst the paid version is limited to 20 authors and 5000 community profiles. A careful read of the product comparison table seems to indicate the only real benefit to the paid version is the blogger support, and that can be purchased separately anyway.

There are a lot of Movable Type fans around and I am sure they will welcome the latest version. Whether we need any more social outlets is debatable, otherwise the screenshots and the sites I have seen that use it as their blog software look good.

You could sometimes be mistaken into thinking that WordPress was the only blog software worth using. The reality is there are many other blog software programs available. A quick search on Wikipedia revealed no less than 33 different blog software programs.

WordPress is one of the more popular choices. However Drupal, B2Evolution and Moveable Type have all been popular in the world of self hosted blog software packages.

Each package had its own group of keen followers. Most of these packages are open source and there is plenty of encouragement to either improve the basic program or to develop themes, plugins or modules that can add features.

Sometime it can be worth playing with some of these alternatives to just to get a feel for them. If you have a self hosted site with and interface like cPane, you can install blog software programs that come with the cPanel software. B2Eolution and Drupal are popular inclusion along with WordPress.

Blog software doesn’t stop at WordPress and for some niches; there may be better software packages available. Join related forums and check out what other find best suited to the niche.