Blogging:  Miss a day, miss a lot.  Miss 4 days, miss a lifetime.

I spent the week travelling either visiting with customers or attending our quarterly partner briefings this week.  I put several hundred miles on the ‘ole junker and managed to put a few more Marriot Rewards points in the account.  I also managed to miss the culmination of a small debate that’s been brewing over the future of .Text.  First, Thomas Freudenberg ponders taking the future of .Text into his own hands.  I appreciate that I was mentioned in the same company as Dave, Chrissy LeMaire and Dan Bartel.  Remember, I’m just a hack.  These folks are professionals.

29 minutes later, Lamont Harrington posts a very good review of Community Server Beta 3.  I agree, by the way, that my idea of “integration” of the three different products looks more like MSN Spaces than it does Beta 3 of Community Server.  There are some really great ideas in this post, by the way.  It’s worth a read.

Thomas chimes in again with some additional comments from Dan Bartels (check out that .Text skin, by the way…wonderful work!) and Dennis van der Stelt.  Thomas also asks Scott directly some of the questions that have been floating around for weeks.  Like, “Where’s .Text going?”.  Also, “Will .Text aka CS::Blogs be released only together with CS::Forums and CS::Gallery, or will there be a stand-alone verson?”  Don’t forget the one that everyone has been wondering, “Is Telligent going to publish the sources?”

Less than 24 hours after Thomas’s original post, Lamont posts a response he got back from Rob Howard.  And just over two hours after Lamont’s post, Scott answers the question, once and for all, “Is .Text Dead?”  His answer – Absolutely not. No way. Nie…Nao. Het.  Well, he says a lot of other stuff too, you’ll want to read the entire post.  ;-)

That’s “community”, IMO.  I’ll keep an open mind in regards to CS::Blogs even as I evaluate other options, but the fact that Scott and Rob are willing to discuss things openly like this makes me feel a little better about staying where I’m at.  Thanks, Thomas and Lamont, for asking the question that none of the rest of us got around to asking.  Thanks, Scott and Rob, for answering it.