I am probably the last weblogger on earth to have noticed that blogdex now has a great look complete with track backs. I am sorry that they haven't brought back search as I had hoped, but trackback is a very welcome addition.

Two of the key reasons I I migrated from blogger to movabletype are a) a better comment system and b) trackbacks. Every time I clicked on the comments on this page, I could feel YACCS groaning under the collective weight of all of us. I think the premise of a remotely administered comment system (specially free ones) is inherently faulty. Any Content management system that aspires to be a serious contender ought to have its own native comment system.

The other thing which really, really excited me was the idea of trackbacks (See Gallagher for a detailed treatment). I think trackbacks as an idea is going to find widespread adoption on the net and MT is the pioneer in this area.

I don't care much for the whole RSS brouhaha.

From a big picture perspective, I don't think weblog management systems will take off as independent large business entities. There will probably be significant enterprise interest in weblogs as a tool, but it will be a functionality in a CMS or a portal product, a market that the biggies like Microsoft are much better placed to serve. The really good weblog products will be bought out by the large CMS vendors.

But while I don't have much faith on the large scale enterprise adoption of weblogs as standalone entities, I do believe in the increasing popularity of weblogs as a net culture phenomenon. Weblogs have democratised web based content publication and can help realize a global conversational commons. From that context, Blogger is probably the most visible and highly trafficked product out there.

The less talked about thing about MT is that some of the best minds using weblogs have either migrated or are migrating to movable type. I quite think that at least in the foreseeable future, most innovation in the weblog space will happen in or around MT.