Copyblogger has a list of seven items that will help you become a better WordPress based publisher. ∞
The Last 10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress
On what has been a longstanding tradition, Aaron Brazell of Technosailor.com has published his list of 10 things you’ll need to know regarding WordPress 3.5. Unfortunately, he also announced that it would be his last one.
For 7 years, I’ve been publishing these articles every time a new version of WordPress comes out. Since version 2.0. It’s been a long run. It began as a need to fill people in about new features in WordPress (and there were a lot in 2.0). There wasn’t anybody doing these at the time, and certainly WordPress wasn’t nearly as popular as it is now (22% of the internet is powered by WordPress).
But many more people have stepped up in recent releases and have started updating readers with new features and expectations. My job here is done. I’m passing the baton but really the baton has already been passed and I’m happy about that. This will be my final 10 things article. Thank you for sticking around and following along all these years.
I want to personally thank Aaron for putting together those 10 things posts as they were always a highlight to read as well as signaling that the next major release of WordPress was very imminent.
Docs Team Needs Your Help For WordPress 3.5
As we near the release of WordPress 3.5, the docs team is looking for your help to insure that the Codex has all of the necessary information pertaining to the new release. So far, there is a hefty list of items that need to be added or amended in the Codex, especially as it pertains to media. You are encouraged to add to the list or if you’re a member of the Codex, to begin adding the necessary information.
Toni Schneider Interviewed On TechCrunch TV
Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic was recently interviewed on TechCrunch TV. In the interview, they discussed the new vertical launched on WordPress.com for restaurants. There were a couple of things within this interview that I found fascinating.
The first is that across the Automattic network which includes sites such as PollDaddy, Gravatar, VaultPress and WordPress.com, Quantcast reports 660,000,000 monthly unique visitors making it the largest network on Quantcast.
The second is that, WordPress.com operates on the principle of small, incremental changes to the service. Because of this, WordPress.com has gone through about 50,000 versions of WordPress, if every change was a bump in the version number. Even at their current size and scale, they still release multiple batches of code every day.
Thirdly, I thought it was interesting that Toni Schneider basically said that WordPress.com is following the lead of the overall WordPress community when it comes to features and or verticals on WordPress.com.
Last but not least, WordPress powers 17.2% of the web, Joomla powers 3% and Drupal has 2%. Everyone else encompasses the rest of the 100%. So while it seems like everyone and their mother as well as their grandpa has a site on WordPress, there is still a huge segment of the market that’s been untapped by WordPress.
After watching the interview, is there anything that surprises you or is this all par for the course?
What Developers Should Know About WordPress 3.5
Oneextrapixel.com has a list of things that WordPress developers will need to know about concerning WordPress 3.5. However, end users are able to pick up a few things as well, especially the part about settings changes. According to the site, the admin page dedicated to Privacy settings has disappeared. The options on that page have been moved to the Reading Settings area. Also for new installs, the ability to change the Character set has been hidden and will use UTF-8 by default. I think this makes total sense and would like to see similar option UI be removed in the future. Even though the UI will be hidden, you can still access the option via options.php. Going this route seems similar to how FireFox works. While there are things to configure, those who want access to everything can go into About:config.
Over the years, the saying has been, “Decisions, not options“. I wonder when options.php will be renamed to decisions.php.
New Site Dedicated To Reviewing WordPress Plugins
For those of you looking for in-depth reviews of both paid and free WordPress plugins, you may want to add WPNuggets.com to your feedreader or bookmarks. The site is brand new and so far, features three different plugin reviews. From what I’ve read thus far, Adela does a good job of describing how the plugin works as well as outlining the good and the bad. Considering the large breadth of plugins available for WordPress, Adela shouldn’t be running out of plugins to review anytime soon.
My Apologies To The WordPress Foundation
First off, I want to offer my sincere apologies to the WordPress Foundation. In a previous article, I incorrectly labeled the foundation as harming WordCamps. My main gripe was with the fact that some WordCamp organizers were being denied the ability to have high sponsorship caps and thus, it sometimes adversely affected the event either in terms of it’s size or type of venue they could hold the event in. As time has gone by, I’ve learned that the biggest mistake I made was contributing the organizing and running of WordCamps to the WordPress Foundation which is incorrect. WordCamp Central is the group responsible for all things WordCamp related while the WordPress Foundation oversees the use of the WordPress and WordCamp trademarks. Unfortunately in the original discussion, WordCamp Central and the WordPress Foundation were used interchangeably which muddied the conversation.
Perhaps I should have known better, but even though I’ve been apart of the WordPress community for two years, the project has grown far beyond just being publishing software. There is the foundation, WordCamp Central, Automattic, WordPress.com, various Automattic owned services, Audrey.co, etc. It’s hard to place blame or hold anyone accountable when you have no idea who that person is or what project or group they belong to. It’s frustrating for me but I wonder if many people simply don’t care, just as long as WordPress remains awesome, easy to use publishing software? I’ve often felt that there should be some sort of WordPress White Pages so that the public can know who is responsible for what within the WordPress project. But since so many individuals mingle with various parts, that project would soon be a waste of time.
The Biggest Challenge For WordPress?
WordPress’ biggest challenge over the next two years, and where we’re focusing core development, will be around evolving our dashboard to be faster and more accessible, especially on touch devices. Many of our founding assumptions about how, where, and why people publish are shifting, but the flexibility of WordPress as a platform and the tens of thousands of plugins and themes available are hard to match. We might not always be the platform people start with, but we want to be what the best graduate to.
What Dev4Press Thinks WordPress Needs
Everyone has an opinion as to what WordPress needs and Dev4Press recently shared theirs on what they believe WordPress needs with regards to features. Any time I read a post like this, it’s as if I can hear the core team in my head yelling out “patches welcome“. But you know, just because you dedicate time to produce a patch that includes the functionality you would like to see in core that works flawlessly with WordPress does not guarantee that the functionality will end up within the core of WordPress. So in that sense, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Of course, there is always the plugin route.
I agree with Dev4Press when they mention that the built-in search functionality in WordPress sucks and needs a major overhaul. It’s something that many users have requested for over two years. Unfortunately, due to complexity or lack of resources, we have yet to see any overhaul on this part of WordPress. There are plugins that enhance this ability but nothing within the core that makes it better. The other issue I wanted to address with the post on Dev4Press concerns their request that Akismet be removed from the default WordPress package as they think it’s a commercial plugin and thus, unfair to commercial plugin authors. In my opinion, as long as Akismet has the free option, it’s not a commercial plugin. However, I’d still like to see it and all other plugins removed from the default installation package just to tidy things up.
All The Stats You Need To Know Regarding WordPress
Lorelle VanFossen has published a detailed article that covers a wide gamut of statistics related to WordPress. Most of the numbers are impressive. Amongst the stats, the one that surprises me the most is the fact that WordPress is being used in Indonesian at almost triple the rate of English, and nearly the sum total of English, Swedish, Dutch, and Romanian. I find that to be incredible and reminds me that the software not only has a big following here in the U.S. but has a much bigger following outside of the English language. ∞