Today, the company has announced TypePad Developer Program, a resource that will give developers access to the TypePad API and back end while running their sites on their own web servers. Six Apart is simultaneously launching TypePad Motion, a microblogging service built from the Pownce code base. Six Apart acquired Pownce from founders Kevin Rose (also founder of Digg), Leah Culver, and Daniel Burka in December 2008.

As the inaugural open-source app built for the TypePad platform, Motion is written in Python using the Django framework and is intended to help site owners build their communities quickly and simply. You can see the app in action on actor Zachary Quinto's site.

The functions and form are reminiscent of Yahoo! Meme or Tumblr, and content can be cross-posted to Facebook and Twitter. Site owners will have to contact Six Apart directly to integrate Motion into their sites.

In a post on the Six Apart blog, CEO Chris Alden wrote, "Our platform enables developers to use structured objects, like blogs, posts, comments, people, activities, groups, and tags, to quickly and inexpensively build next generation social applications on a reliable, secure, and scalable platform.

"We hope to dramatically lower barriers for those trying to get started on a shoestring to build the next Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube."

A fast-growing number of sites around the web are now flying the real-time banner, no longer requiring that news reading software poll them for updates several times an hour. With two of the largest blogging software providers now real-time, blogging could steal a little thunder back from immediacy-rich social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Note that the Typepad announcement says that Google Reader is consuming Pubsubhubbub feeds - but we've confirmed with protocol developer Brad Fitzpatrick and then with SixApart that this was a misunderstanding. Google Reader still does not consume real time feeds. When it does, that will be a big deal for the real time web.

"The TypePad Connect team has now explicitly added support to sign in using your Vox, Google, Yahoo!, Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress.com, or AOL account in addition to your TypePad username and password."

The new credential options augment the existing OpenID log in option that existed when the product launched.

While the exponential increase in the number of users who now have access to TypePad Connect is interesting, what is most compelling about this announcement - in my opinion - is that it marks another positive step forward in leveraging existing identities - and reducing credential fatigue. As a user with more than enough logins spread around the Web, it's always nice to encounter services that allow me to log in with an existing identity from another service - instead of forcing me to create yet another login.

Here's hoping this is among the first of many such announcements, this year.

For users familiar with the Six Apart family of products, the profiles will be a welcome step forward from the original TypeKey implementation and the new commenting features offer functionality users have come to expect from commenting systems. But it's TypePad Connect - or more appropriately the vision for what TypePad Connect could be - that makes this announcement interesting.

According to Six Apart, TypePad Connect "makes community management easier for bloggers with the ability to track, moderate and respond to comments across multiple sites and blogs from one dashboard or via email." In other words, it's your lifestream and your blog conversations - be they on your blog or someone else's - all in one spot.

At first blush, TypePad Connect may appear to be a reactionary response to services like IntenseDebate, Disqus, and Backtype - possibly even FriendFeed. Services that have all but usurped the conversations that once were the domain of individual blogs.

And maybe in some ways, it is. But there's clearly something else happening here.

If it lives up to its promise, TypePad Connect has the potential to combine both popular lifestreaming features and comment-aggregation features under one user profile. And with an open approach, they could do it in a way that allows users to begin to experience the promise of the distributed social Web.

Vision

When it comes to understanding the social Web, SixApart definitely has vision. The company sprung from the early days of blogging, launching one of the first major blogging platforms. They were the birthplace of OpenID, a single digital identity that has continued to gain support throughout the online community. Members of the company remain deeply involved in a number of efforts driving the social Web today.

This move toward a distributed social presence falls right in line with their previous efforts. Like other services with "Connect" in their names - Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect - TypePad Connect has a grand vision of moving personally relevant content outside the proprietary constructs of specific blogs - or even of Six Apart, itself - and making it useful and accessible to other services.

In other words, the same way that Facebook Connect, for example, offers other sites access to your Facebook profile information - saving you the time of establishing yet another profile on yet another service that replicates the information you already have stored elsewhere - TypePad Connect offers other blogs easy access to your profile. And in return, you get the ability to manage all of the comments you make from one spot. Your profile is no longer beholden to a blog or service, it's available to be distributed.

Embracing the concept of community that has the ability to exist and live outside the walls of a given blog or proprietary product is definitely a step in the right direction. (For that matter, it doesn't take a huge intuitive leap to see the value of having a TypePad Connect profile as the endpoint for an OpenID URL.) TypePad Connect could be another step toward the realization of a truly distributed social Web.

Current Reality

Even in its current beta iteration, the offering has some definite benefits. Things like simplified avatar management, lifestreaming of multiple services under one profile, and comment management features from a central dashboard will be appealing to many existing Six Apart customers and will likely attract new users, as well.

But as with any beta offering, there are some downsides and issues.

Ironically, one of the current issues with TypePad Connect is comment management. Even though comments are not stuck on a specific blog, comments are still stuck within TypePad Connect. Allowing users to export comments is on the roadmap, but in the beta version, all comments are currently being held on the TypePad Connect servers. That's a concern.

There's also the opposite problem: there's currently no way to import comments into TypePad Connect. That means if you're starting a blog from scratch, you'll be fine, but if you're adding TypePad Connect to an existing blog, you're going to have an old comment database and a new one. So you'll be managing two sets of comments.

That said, it's a beta. It's expected to have flaws.

Verdict

TypePad Connect definitely has a vision for a far more grand offering than the current beta. No doubt, pressure - be that pressure from users asking for the functionality or pressure from competitors like Automattic (which has begun to amalgamate the ingredients for a similar offering with Gravatar and IntenseDebate) - necessitated Six Apart moving sooner rather than later.

But when it comes right down to it, it's the vision in which I believe. I think Six Apart has a chance to provide a compelling solution for a common problem, even if they're not quite there yet. And once they begin to get closer to that vision, it could change the way we think about managing our conversations online.

Vision aside, would I implement this solution today? To be honest, I'd be hesitant to adopt TypePad Connect on an existing blog until some of the beta kinks are worked out. But if I were starting a new blog today? TypePad Connect would definitely be in the running for my centralized commenting system - even though I wouldn't be starting that blog on one of Six Apart's platforms.

If you're interested in trying it, TypePad Connect offers native support for Blogger, Movable Type 3.x and 4.x, Tumblr, TypePad, WordPress.org 2.0 and higher. It can also support any other installation with a chunk of javascript. Support for additional platforms are planned once the offering comes out of beta.

The program launched over the weekend through via this lighthearted post over on TypePad.com which reminds you that "Tumblr...will not pay your bills." According to the company, they've already seen hundreds of journalists signing up to participate.

As detailed in the TypePad blog post, the bailout program includes the following, a dollar value of at least $150 per year (the price of the TypePad service alone), if not more :

A free TypePad Pro blog account, the same service that powers many big-name media blogs. It includes professional support so Six Apart will answer any questions you have.

The blog is enrolled in the Six Apart Media advertising program. These are display ads that pay a more than Google text ads, and bloggers get to keep the revenue.

Six Apart will promote the new site on Blogs.com, a directory of the best in blogs. Blogs.com will be a way for all of the bloggers peers in the Journalist Bailout Program to cross-promote and share traffic for their independent sites.

Lots more. Six Apart can also introduce you to their VIP program to help drive traffic to the site, help connect blogs to LinkedIn profiles, make it easy to manage your comments from an iPhone, and even show you how to automatically promote posts to your Facebook friends

There are no rules on how the blog must be used. Journalists can use the blog showcase their best work, launch something new, or hang onto the site, you know, "just in case."

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

We're in the midst of a great upheaval. The internet is impacting the business models of so many established ventures. Newspapers and magazines aren't the only industries affected by any means. The internet has left nothing untouched, whether music, video, news, sports, communication, marketing, advertsing and more, those wishing to stave off its force of change are simply trying to outswim a tidal wave.

What's better for those being impacted is to be prepared and thinking ahead for the future - what is Plan B? As we mentioned earlier this week, not everyone sees the death of the journalism ahead - media mogul Rupert Murdoch, for example, sees opportunity.

And if you think successful journalism can only come on the platform of old media, you're wrong. Look around. So many journalists are now getting into blogging, but one of our newest favs that proves the potential success of the model is TechFlash, home to John Cook and Todd Bishop, both of whom left their respected papers and struck out on their own to deliver quality tech news in readable format without all the bias, backstabbing, and petty quarrels the tech "blogosphere" seems to get itself involved in from time to time.

Journalists may also want to keep in mind Arianna Huffington's recent, but vague, promise to begin funding investigative journalism through her incredibly successful The Huffington Post site, one of the most recognizable and read blogs out there.

So journalists, get your platforms ready...there's no better time than now and no better price than free.

Note: Six Apart's Movable Type weblogging platform is what powers our blog here at ReadWriteWeb.

The service could be more fully developed but it's certainly in the lead compared to other services aiming to do the same thing. A close look at the details leads us to believe that this could be a much bigger move than it might seem to be. Here's a few reasons why we believe it's so interesting.

SixApart is a leading company in the field of social graph experimentation and the most outspoken participating company willing to be critical of some of Google's efforts like OpenSocial. BlogIt is interesting beyond its basic functionality because it can tie together confirmed accounts on Facebook, outside blogs and Twitter - then place that information in the hands of a company dedicating significant time and resources to leveraging such information in the interests of users. BlogIt may be just a beachhead landed in the hostile territory not of Facebook, but of online identity chaos in general.

Continued below.

Blog Posts to the Newsfeed

Many people want to know when 3rd party RSS feeds will be able to be ported into the Facebook Newsfeed, something the company has been hesitant to allow but put its toe in this week (see Sarah Perez's dismissal and some commenters disagreeing at Facebook's Lifestream: Nothing to See Here).

Typepad's BlogIt won't post Twitter messages to your Newsfeed, but it will post blog post links there. It effectively automates sharing your blog posts off-site with your friends on Facebook. That's a big deal. The Facebook Newsfeed is the RSS reader of choice for millions of people - they just couldn't subscribe to RSS feeds in it! BlogIt is another crack in that wall.

The Salvation of Beacon

SixApart was an early participant in Facebook's highly controversial Beacon project. Beacon broadcasts user activity on 3rd party partner sites to their friends' Newsfeeds on Facebook. Almost all of the partners were e-commerce sites broadcasting purchasing activity and it was extremely unclear whether the program was opt-in or opt-out. SixApart negotiated with Facebook to make their implementation of Beacon entirely and clearly opt-in.

Now that almost any blog post, not just those on SixApart platforms, can appear in Newsfeeds - many savvy bloggers may do their composition inside BlogIt so that their posts can gain the additional promotion to their Facebook friends. This will increase the visibility of best-practices (opt-in) in broadcasting off-site information in the Newsfeed - that's just the kind of visibility that Beacon needs.

Make no mistake, Beacon is still very important to Facebook. Though the company made a very public move in apologizing for the opt-out nature of Beacon, CEO Mark Zuckerberg still considers user purchasing activity to be the best form of advertisement the social network can display and thus key to the company's monetization strategy. If Facebook can follow SixApart's lead in the way it handles permission to display off-site activity, and if BlogIt leads to a proliferation of off-site blog posts displayed in Newsfeeds then Beacon-type Newsfeed notifications could become much more palatable to Facebook users.

This week's inclusion of user activity from Flickr, Yelp, Picassa and Del.icio.us into the Newsfeed is a move in a similar direction - but blog posts written by your friends are likely to have a higher click-through rate than less frequently uploaded photos, reviews for random restaurants and URLs being saved primarily for later personal reference. Getting personal blog posts into the Newsfeed is more valuable for all parties involved than any of the first 3rd party feed steps Facebook has taken.

Conclusion

Maybe the thoughts above are crazy, but I don't think so.

The BlogIt interface is far less sophisticated than native blogging platforms, but many bloggers will appreciate the ability to post to their blogs, Facebook and Twitter at the same time. On one hand this could end up being just another Facebook app, the vast majority of which probably weren't worth the time they took to create. On the other hand, BlogIt could be a small wedge into a series of game changing moves in social media.