I have had access to Vox, Six Apart’s new blogging tool for a little while now, and have been slowly gathering my thoughts on it. At the moment it is invite only, but it is fully launching on the 26th October. For those of you who haven’t yet heard of Vox, it is a blogging tool with very robust social networking features built around it, including ‘friends’, picture sharing and post permissions. The target audience is clearly the mass market; those who don’t know much about technology or care about it.

The screenshot on the right shows the posting interface. It is a good example of the excellent UI design seen throughout Vox; both highly usable and aesthetically pleasing. AJAX is used in just the right amounts, creating a user experience which will appeal to the target market. The ‘insert’ options across the top offer the option to add photos, audio, video, books (a picture of the cover and a link to the book on Amazon) and ‘collections’, which are essentially albums of related content from all the other types. For example you might have a holiday collection which included the travel books you have read and your photos you have taken.

There are many appealing templates, like the one I chose for my Vox blog (opposite), which are easy to customise in terms of layout and colour scheme, and they automatically display the latest pictures and other content uploaded. There is an ad on the blog, above the start of any content. I did not find it intrusive, and it is certainly less irritating than those found on Myspace.

Vox is a new approach to blogging and social networking, and I think it could potentially bring the two phenomena to a whole new audience. I can see myself using Vox as a largely private blog, with only friends and family able to view the vast majority of posts, taking advantage of the permissions features and photo uploading.

I would expect Vox to transcend the traditional boundaries between demographics; twenty-somethings communicating with their parents about plans for Christmas with some posts and about last Saturday night with their friends in other posts. Meanwhile the mother could be discussing flower arrangement with her friends in some posts. Obviously I’m being stereotypical, but you get the idea. By making blogging central to what is essentially a social networking product, and using a tasteful, highly usable design, Six Apart have made Vox interesting as a way to keep in touch, rather than meet new people as with Myspace, Bebo etc. This is likely to appeal to far more people as a concept. Coupled with attempts to create a great community through This is Good posts promoted across the service, and suggested questions to answer in blog posts, I can see Vox creating a real buzz.

The bad points: I do not have unreserved praise for Vox. I would like to see compatibility with one of the many blog APIs around (such as XML-RPC). As far as I am aware this is not available yet. I would also like to be able to insert HTML in my posts. Myspace has shown that people are increasingly aware of HTML, and whilst it is unlikely to appeal to the mother in my example, it may well appeal to the twenty-something, even if it is just to include, for example, an odeo widget of a podcast they liked. It is also important to appeal to the early adopter crowd, who will then start bringing users into the service.

In conclusion, though, expect Vox to do very well across the board, from ’silver surfers’ to ten year olds.

Just a small update, Anil Dash of Vox has commented below, noting that HTML in posts and blog APIs are supported. Registration is also now open to the public!