Ghost: The Future of Blogging (Node.js)

It looks rather good! But I do wonder if I'm the only person who was more than a little put out once I found it was the "hostage" model of open source - i.e. pay us enough money and we'll release this. Of course, there's nothing to say you can't do this, and I do applaud people finding ways to make OSS pay. But this way leaves a funny taste - it feels somehow counter to the spirit of the thing.<p>Possibly my ire was raised a bit further by the fact that I found that out in what seemed a slightly bait and switch-y way - "Try this!" <i>click</i> "Maybe later if you pay us!" Hmmmm.<p>Those gripes aside, it looks pretty.

<i>Err, about that...</i><p>Could anyone tell me what's written at the bottom of the dialog box that pops up when you click the <i>"Ready? Try Ghost"</i> button, please? My computer is a 10'' netbook, and the box is outside the visual range of my screen. Unfortunately, the scrollbar scrolls the grayed out background, not the box itself, so I have no chance of doing anything other than hitting the back button.<p>(To give them credit, what I <i>can</i> read is: "We've built a prototype, and it's working really well! But there's a lot to do.")<p>Is there a page I can access directly to try Ghost out, without having to go through that box?

<i>Right now the leading open source new media publishing projects are driven by PHP communities. It's easy to see why, with a well-established and vibrant ecosystem, the PHP community is strong. But, it comes with its limitations, and recently other technologies have taken the lead on innovation.</i>[1]<p>Which limitations are that? I'm curious as to who their user is here. My grandmother or my friend who is a developer? For my grandmother, Wordpress suits perfectly. For my developer, Jekyll.<p>I feel like this is solving a non-problem here. The UI looks great, but then why not just stick it on top of the Wordpress admin?<p>[1] - <a href="http://blog.tryghost.org/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.tryghost.org/</a>

I am not sure I like this trend of people kickstarting things that they actually dont need money for.<p>For example, these guys are web developers and designers, what could possibly stop them from building it and putting on the web? Hardly the 25K pounds they are asking for.<p>I think the product is awesome, but I dont understand what you need the money for especially if they are boasting Open Source and not for profit.

Title changed again for this post? It should clearly say this is a link to promote their fundraising. There is no actual way to try this service.

Seems like we have come full circle and now blogging is again the new "it" product. I would be interested to see this compete against Medium in the space (though they have different use cases). Would be interested to know why blogging has become a hot button product all over again.<p>in case you are forgetting all the awesome blogging related items that have cropped up in the last few months:<p>1. <a href="https://posthaven.com/" rel="nofollow">https://posthaven.com/</a> 2. <a href="https://medium.com/" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/</a> 3. <a href="http://draftin.com/" rel="nofollow">http://draftin.com/</a> 4. <a href="https://svbtle.com/" rel="nofollow">https://svbtle.com/</a><p>That's just off the top of my head.

TLDR;<p>This is a Kickstarter pitch, in which case I'm quoting myself:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5610715" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5610715</a>

Nice project, but I d think SQlite will not cut it. Not even in the short run.<p>Other than that, definitely an interesting project.

Why is Ghost the future of blogging, exactly? Nobody is going to take-on WordPress without a plugin architecture and a plan to host it.

Im a little confused by the choice to use Node.js, whats the purpose? The creator says that ghost is not a blogging platform for developers, but then builds a node.js blog?

Free. Open. Try it.<p>If you pay us. Oh...<p>Seems really nice though.

I love the markdown editor, especially the auto-scrolling feature.<p>The only problem is that it doesn't really scroll to the part you're editing - instead it assumes that if you've scrolled to 50% in the markdown code, the preview should also scroll to 50%. Add a couple of images and this assumption becomes false.<p>I know this is hard to do (involves hooking into the markdown parser) but it would truly be a killer feature.

Hasn't Aaron Swartz's <a href="http://www.jottit.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.jottit.com</a> solved this problem for years now?<p>Go ahead - type in some markdown, then edit the page. You'll be presented with a two-pane view. Your markdown is rendered dynamically. When you're done, just choose the access level for the page (public/private) and you're good to go.

I'm willing to bet they will finish it anyway. I'm sure a lot of us know that feel when you get something to prototype, holy crap it works stage. Something that you would use in the future with the bonus that many others may too. That feeling when you <i>have</i> to finish the project at least to a point where it works properly.<p>They have that feel, but they also want some money for their troubles - to justify/legitimize it as worth their time.<p>It's a blogging platform after all. Their feature set could be done by one man in 2 to 5 weeks time with some experience and perseverance. I hate to belittle it below its merit, as I do think some features of Ghost make for something potentially useable. The project also could be nice because of the so-called committed team behind it maintaining it into the future, as Wordpres does.

I'd like to back this but, it looks great but there seems to be some conflicting info between their words and the kickstarter parameters. They say they want to deliver something, I'm guess it's alpha-ish code by summer, but the 120 pound pledge level says you get access 3 months before everyone else (meaning it would have to be right around the corner) but it's slated for a November 2013 estimated delivery?? Are they tying the Nov 2013 date to the release of the community site?<p>I'd just like some clarification of when I can get my grubby little hands on some code, especially if that date will change based on funding levels.

Probably as good a time as any to mention this, but I've pushed up a work in progress Obtvse 2[0] to my github. With a user account system, live filtering, easy themes via pull requests, and quite a lot of improvements. It will be undergoing many changes over the next few weeks but is worth taking a peek:<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/natew/obtvse2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/natew/obtvse2</a><p>Admin: <a href="http://cl.ly/image/0o450t3C3c3G" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/image/0o450t3C3c3G</a><p>Edit with Live Preview: <a href="http://cl.ly/image/0w052g1n1U40" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/image/0w052g1n1U40</a>

My first reaction to "Free. Open." is where's the github link? I know you're funding the development with KickStarter, but free and open projects should still having the planning and initial development in the open. That way you can get feedback more easily, solicit contributors, as well as get early adopters.<p>If you want me to give you money, I'd like to see progress (and provide feedback) along the way, not just wait for the v1.0 release.<p>So in this case, it seems like you're using "Free and Open" as a label to get interest, but you're not really that keen on actually being open.

It felt a bit "Try it, LOL JK!"<p>I understand why kickstarter exists, and I think it's a decent tool for some projects. That said, it's difficult for me to back something that's only screenshots and a brief "this is totally how it works" box on the main site. I want to be able to check out how the product works from the inside out. If I believe in it, I'll put money towards it. If I don't, I won't.<p>In this case, I can't demo it to a point where I'd say "this is a worthy product."

honestly, i think something like jekyll (with prose.io) is the best blogging platform there is.<p>if there was a decent node.js based jekyll replacement, I would be using that.

Interesting project, I don't really have anything to say beyond what the other comments here point out. Slightly off-topic, the /features.html page makes a really nice informative homepage. Their actual homepage is useless; it reminds me of the "Enter here" landing pages of the 90s. Is there some reason to structure the informational site this way that I'm missing?

The irony of when I tried to add their blog to my feed reader (<a href="http://www.rivered.io" rel="nofollow">http://www.rivered.io</a> by the way)...it said there was no feed...<p>Guess RSS doesn't belong in the future.

What happened to the original plan to base Ghost on Wordpress? I love Node as much as the next guy, but surely basing it on Wordpress and therefore PHP would make it much accessible.

"I see the future of WordPress as a web operating system" - Please no no no. Having worked with Wordpress for the past few weeks, I sincerely hope I never have to again.

pretty cool but I clicked the link because the title included node .. why is it included in the title ?

What about trilldy.com?

DUPE ARTICLE! DUPE ARTICLE! OMG GUYS IT'S A DUPE!<p>I just migrated here from Slashdot; am I doing it right? :p