I tried out SixApart's new blog service, Vox

SixApart, the company famous for MovableType and Typepad, has launched a new blogging service called 'Vox,' so I signed up and tried it out. It's like a combination of blogging and social media.

Vox
http://www.vox.com/ (Service ended at the end of September 2010)

Click 'Register Now' at the top to register. Enter your email address and click 'Register'

The screen will switch to a confirmation screen. You should have received an email by now, so check that. You should be able to register by entering the registration code written in the email. If an error occurs, you can register by clicking the link in the email.

The email you receive is this one.

Account creation screen. Enter your password, URL, etc. in order.

It's also convenient because help is displayed when you move to the input field. In the case of a URL, you can immediately see whether it can be used.

Once you've finished entering the information, you can move on to other settings.

It seems you can introduce blogs. Just enter the email address of the person you want to introduce. If not, go to the next step.

Registration is now complete. Click on the URL or My VOX Blog to go to your blog.

It will look something like this at first. The blog title will be the string you entered in the URL, but don't worry, you can change it later. For now, you'll be invited to 'change the design of your blog and create your own blog,' so let's try changing the design.

Design settings screen. You can also change the title and subtitle here. There are four layouts and many themes. 'New' is selected by default, so click 'All' to find the design you like.

Set up your profile. You can set things like member photos to be displayed on your blog. You can register multiple contacts and change the public settings for each.

Mobile settings. Post on the go.

Integration with other services. It seems to be possible to integrate with Flickr, Photobucket, and TypePad.

Notifications and Privacy. By default, all of the options are checked, but it's probably best to uncheck the option to search by real name.

Access restrictions. In addition to everyone and friends, there is also a family option. Does this mean that only family members can use Vox?

Account settings. By default, the time zone is set to America, so change it to 'Asia - Tokyo.'

So I quickly created this. It's the official version, but it's a little unstable.

GIGAZINE in VOX
http://gigazine.vox.com/ (*Access is no longer possible due to service termination)