Smashing Magazine published an entry called "10 Weblog Engines Reviewed" and for some reason Habari was left out of the mix. I'm not one to complain about us not being included in the reviews, but it did get me thinking about possible reasons for Habari not even being mentioned.
Is it because not enough high profile sites run the software? Michael Heilemann recently migrated his binarybonsai site from Wordpress to Habari. Chris J. Davis also runs it, as well as Rich Bowen. Perhaps all we need to be considered a "serious" platform is a few more high profile sites? It might also just take review on a popular site, like Smashing Magazine, to push us up there with the more well known players. I would be very happy to see an impartial third party do a real review and compare Habari with "the others" and it would be really interesting to read the final review. I'm confident that Habari will stand up to the test very nicely.
Don't be afraid of the current 0.5 version, it might be a 0.5 release but it sure acts like it's a full blown 1.0 release. Have a look at our excellent admin interface and try it out. I assure you, you will not regret it. The unobtrusive post screens, the excellent media handling and general feel of the application will amaze you (screenshots).
Habari has a warm and very welcoming community that genuinely welcomes discussions and new ideas. New adopters are very welcome and everyone has a voice that gets heard. All in all, there is no reason why Habari shouldn't be on your shortlist when considering a blog publishing system. Come on, give it a try. We won't let you down.
6 Comments so far
shep, on August 29, 2008 at 9:25pm, said:
habari has been added as an honorable mention. I don't know if this was after the fact or not.
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Christian Mohn, on August 29, 2008 at 9:34pm, said:
I see the "Honorable Mentions" part now, but I don't think that was there when I originally read the post. Either way, I want someone to write us a good review. Not good as in a glowing positive review, but a balanced one by honest third party with no hidden agenda.
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Ryan Duff, on August 30, 2008 at 2:17am, said:
I used Habari the other week and it just didn't feel like it was "there." I was trying to get my blog going again and I seriously wanted to use Habari over Wordpress, but after trying it out for a day, it definitely felt like alpha software and it was lacking some serious features. It didn't feel like it had what it needed. On top of that, there was a lack of plugins and themes.
Maybe in a year or so when its more developed I'll use it. It's a shame, because I really like most of the guys that left Wordpress to work on Habari and I really dislike the leadership at Wordpress. Unfortunately, I needed something that was extensible and was robust enough to do what I needed it to do.
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Ali B., on August 30, 2008 at 3:42am, said:
The ?Honorable Mentions? part was added after several other comments, yes.
I think we should be pushing forward with the review idea. We need to get out there and start emailing people. We need to use the connections to get someone (well known in the blogsphere) to write about Habari.
Mind you, we still haven't finalized the RFI sitting in the mailing-list :) That's something guaranteed to be published.
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Michael C. Harris, on August 30, 2008 at 1:57pm, said:
Ryan, that's great feedback, thanks. Can you give specifics about what you think is missing ? There certainly aren't many themes, it's true. What plugins did you feel were missing ?
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khaled, on August 31, 2008 at 10:36am, said:
I think the fact that it's not included is probably more a question of the net landscape rather than anything to do with the software itself. To wit, I think I'll write something brief about this.
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