Posts tagged wordpress
Missing the Point of WordPress Entirely
Jan 11th
A post by Kevinjohn Gallagher on "no longer recommending WordPress" to his clients has gotten a bit of traction lately. While there’s legitimate criticism to be leveled at WordPress, Gallagher’s isn’t (for the most part) it. If you’re approaching WordPress with the expectation that it’s the be-all and end-all of content management systems (CMSes) you’re going to be sorely disappointed. And frankly, I hope WordPress never tries to fit the ridiculous list of requirements that Gallagher tries to saddle it with.
Sponsor
Apparently this has been brewing for a while, judging by Gallagher’s comments on WPTavern in December. While Gallagher has a few legitimate complaints (no doubt many users wish the admin UI would just settle down a bit), carping about lack of reporting and support for IE6 demonstrates criteria that are more than a bit out of whack.
What Is And What Should Never Be
Let’s look at some of Gallagher’s requirements, and ask ourselves was WordPress ever intended to do these things or were the expectations a little off?
You can approach any piece of software and walk away completely disappointed if your expectations are out of whack. Gallagher’s complaints are as much a reflection on his poor choice of software as any failings on the behalf of WordPress.
Gallagher says that WordPress has "no, or severely limited" document management, workflow management, single sign-on, digital asset management, publishing options, WYSIWYG editing, multi-lingual and many others. WordPress.org describes WordPress as "web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog."
As WordPress has grown, it’s cautiously taken on the CMS label, but it does not promise to be a full-blown content management system in the old school tradition of biggie CMS installations. And despite the fact that many folks pine for WordPress to become the Swiss Army knife of CMSes, it simply cannot while staying true to its core community.
Designing "beautiful" websites has very little to do with digital asset management features. Single sign-on is something that would be nice to have in WordPress, but is it really something that would benefit a large percentage of WordPress users for the effort required? Is true WYSIWYG editing really promised or required to build a Web site, or even necessary in any CMS?
Many of the features Gallagher wishes for are available via plug-ins, though perhaps not implemented exactly as Gallagher would wish. For example, you can get some document management with plugins. You can get workflow management with a plugin. Note that these may not suit your tastes, but then again – they might not suit your taste if they were implemented in core WordPress, either. The nice thing is that you can get different implementations that suit different use cases.
WP Document Revisions
It’s also worth noting that some of Gallagher’s complaints about WordPress are inaccurate, overly vague or exaggerated. I’m not even sure what n-to-n sharing is, and trying to find that on Google didn’t help. (Any CMS gurus care to enlighten me in the comments?) The claims that WordPress beta didn’t work in Windows at all is a gross exaggeration. And it’s a bleeping beta anyway. And was this in Internet Explorer, or all browsers? I suspect when Gallagher says "Windows" he really means "old versions of Internet Explorer."
Setting Expectations
You can approach any piece of software and walk away completely disappointed if your expectations are out of whack. Gallagher’s complaints are as much a reflection on his poor choice of software as any failings on the behalf of WordPress. As he even says in his post, "Our clients have consistently given us worse and worse feedback on the update process, and asked for more and more features that WordPress simply isn’t capable of. That is not a criticism of the software itself, though I know many will think that, it’s just that it’s not able to do what we constantly try to make it do."
Well, yeah. WordPress also doesn’t make me waffles and wash my socks. Then again, I never expected it to.
Long story short? Gallagher utterly failed himself and clients if he’s been banging away at WordPress for four years with increasing disappointment. While requirements do emerge over time in any project, it sounds a lot like the biggest failure here was in gathering requirements at the start of the project and ensuring that WordPress met them.
As I’ve said here and elsewhere a number of times, I’m a big fan of Vim. It matches my requirements for a text editor perfectly, but it’s simply not suitable for any users who are unwilling to put in the time/effort. It’s not suitable for those who need something radically different, like revision tracking features in Microsoft Word. Want an editor that runs on the iPad? Sorry. That’s not a failing on the part of Vim, it’s simply a mismatch.
All too Common
Unfortunately, Gallagher’s reaction to WordPress is typical. It sounds very much like Gallagher plunged into recommending WordPress without really scoping his client’s requirements under the assumption that it can do anything. WordPress does have its failings (so do the other CMSes) but it’s also chock full of awesome for a wide range of projects. Part of supporting WordPress is knowing what those projects are.
Gallagher, his firm and his clients should use whatever works for them, of course. It doesn’t sound like WordPress fits the bill for whatever requirements they have, and that’s fine. But don’t slag WordPress (or any other software) for failing to deliver something it never promised in the first place.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
WordPress Throws a Lifeline to Abandoned Splinder.com Bloggers
Jan 10th
What do you do when your blogging service is slated to go dark? If you’re a user of the popular Italian blogging service Splinder.com, you pack up and move over to WordPress.com. At least, that’s what Automattic is hoping while it throws a lifeline to the bloggers that are being thrown out into the cold.
Splinder.com announced the shutdown in November of last year. Today Daryl L. L. Houston announced an importer for Splinder.com on WordPress.com that’s available to users ahead of the closure, slated for January 31st.
Sponsor
Splinder.com is probably not well-known in North America, but it’s very popular according to Alexa.com. It has (as of right now) a global rank of 3,798 and is in the top 250 sites for Italy. It’s no WordPress.com (ranks 18th globally) but it still has quite a few users. How many? It hosts about half a million blogs, according to Archive.org and 55 million pages.
Houston provides a good overview of how to export data from Splinder.com and import into WordPress.com, as well as a pointer to the WordPress.com tutorial.
Self-Hosting?
As a side note, this is why I’ve always been a self-hosted user of WordPress. Even if the unthinkable happened and WordPress development just stopped, the site would be under my control. Splinder.com folks are learning the hard way that when the service is out of your control, you might be left in the lurch.
To be sure, I don’t expect this to happen to WordPress.com anytime soon. However, if you’d rather have full control over your site, you can always move your Splinder.com posts over to a self-hosted WordPress blog. It’s an extra step, but worth it. Import your Splinder.com blog to WordPress.com, then import that blog into a self-hosted version of WordPress with the WordPress importer.
Exporting from a WordPress.com blog.
Start with the steps on the WordPress.com post. Then head to the WordPress.com Dashboard for your new blog and export all content. Then upload the file into a self-hosted WordPress.com blog and you’re ready to blog away happily. You can set the WordPress.com blog to private (under Settings -> Privacy Settings) so that you won’t have duplicate content floating about on the Web.
The really important thing, if you have a Splinder.com blog, is to export that data straight away. The WordPress.com folks are looking for feedback about bugs in the importer, so it’d be best if users try importing right away and report any problems sooner rather than later.
Importing into a self-hosted WordPress blog.
Smart Move
This is a smart (and nice) move on the part of Automattic. It probably didn’t take a ton of development time to create an importer for the service. By creating the importer, they have an opportunity to sign up a fair number of users who will be grateful for the lifeline. It seems Automattic is making a habit of rescuing users when other sites shut their doors. That’s not a bad thing. Users need a place to go when sites with failed business plans, or no business plans, shut the doors.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Hosting a WordPress Blog on OpenShift
Dec 30th
If you’re using WordPress, the most likely options are to run your own stack, use a shared hosting provider that offers WordPress, or go with WordPress.com. With the rise of PaaS offerings like OpenShift, though, why not run WordPress there?
As it stands, most PaaS providers are largely targeted at custom code rather than packages like WordPress. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get WordPress up and running, as Amit Shah demonstrated by moving his WordPress blog to OpenShift.
Sponsor
Actually, he was moving from Blogger to WordPress, which makes it even more interesting. Shah gives a detailed explanation of how he moved his blog to OpenShift, including the commands to grab PHP, MySQL, add domains and set up the directory for WordPress.
Why would you want to do this? Scalability is one thing. I’m running a WordPress instance on Linode right now, and I can add resources if I want but it requires manual intervention and stopping/restarting the VPS to make changes. Hosting on a PaaS should mean you can scale up/down dynamically with no downtime.
It also means that the PaaS provider will take care of all the security updates, etc. That’s true, or should be, if you’re using shared hosting or WordPress.com. However, the trade-off for shared hosting means that you’re on a server with who knows how many other users. It also offers much less flexibility. WordPress.com offers plenty of scalability, but again has much less flexibility in terms of what you can do (like install custom plugins, etc.).
One of the trends I’m hoping to see in 2012 is for projects like WordPress to be easily deployed on PaaS services.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
I’m Jealous of WordPress for Android 2.0
Dec 21st
WordPress has released version 2.0 of its Android app for mobile blogging, and as a WordPress for iOS user, I am jealous. The new app launches with a screen that covers just about every first action a mobile blogger needs. It’s arranged in correct order of priority, and it uses a big, easily tappable grid of buttons with an “action bar” over the top to handle the rest.
Other additions are catching up with WordPress for iOS, but they’re welcome. The post editor now has a formatting toolbar above the keyboard, and the app now has a tablet view. The app also adds post uploading in the background and gets a few other fixes. This is an open-source app, and it’s the best mobile blogging interface I’ve seen yet. What’s up with everybody else?
Sponsor
The last update for WordPress for Android was a bit of a me-too, following suit with the social craze and turning the app into something more geared towards reading blogs rather than writing them. Version 2.0 brings blogging – you know, the thing one presumably downloads WordPress apps to do – back into the spotlight.
WordPress for iOS is fine. Our Marshall Kirkpatrick finds it to be a knock-out, but that may be Stockholm syndrome. I use it, too, and it works, but it’s awfully hard to use compared to this new Android version. The Action Bar and Dashboard should become the standard. I love that it’s the result of open-source collaboration.
So, what’s up, blogging platforms? The world is mobile now, and helping us blog while we’re out is a surefire way to keep users engaged. WordPress for Android has pivoted back toward the light, but most of the pivots in this area have been toward social networking and away from writing posts.
Do you blog from mobile devices? What service do you use?
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
WordPress Q&A With Andrew Norcross
Dec 20th
I am starting off a series of interviews with Andrew Norcross. I met him in 2010 at the Search and Social Conference in Tampa. He is a really nice person, extremely intelligent and very focused. He has always been welling to help out SEO’s and has recently become the Senior WordPress Developer at BlueGlass. I [...]
Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal
View full post on Search Engine Journal
WordPress 3.3 Update Is Slick: Tumblr Importer, iPad Optimization, Co-Editing Alerts
Dec 14th
Yesterday WordPress launched version 3.3, named “Sonny,” in honor of the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt. The release has two goals: To make the editing process easier for return users, and help introduce new bloggers to the platform.
The new toolbar is a combination of the admin bar and the old Dashboard header. There’s now support for drag-and-drop media uploads. The new dropdown menu has become a hover menu. WordPress has also added touch support for iPad. WordPress users who have felt frustrated over the co-editing experience will find this update especially satisfying. Now, the red bar that tells you if someone is editing the post will only pop up if another is actually in the post. The 3.3 version has also added a Tumblr importer so that users can quickly bring their Tumblr blog into the mix.
Sponsor
WordPress has been updating its platform a ton over the past six months. At the end of March, it announced WordAds, which helps hosted WordPress.com (not .org) blogs make money via ads. WordPress.com also added socially focused photo carousels, complete with notifications that looked a lot like Google+’s. WordPress added a follow button to its blogs, making it feel a bit more Tumblr-esque.
WordPress 3.2, which was released on July 4, has been downloaded 14 million times. The new version 3.3 is available for download now.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
New WordPress Plugin Creates Thousands Of Optimized Pages In Minutes – PR-CANADA.net (press release)
Dec 12th
|
New WordPress Plugin Creates Thousands Of Optimized Pages In Minutes
PR-CANADA.net (press release) Software developer and SEO Martin Walker states "We are so happy to finally get this software out, we have been working on it all year and are very excited to get it launched and very happy with all the positive responses we have had. … Taking An Onsite SEO Inventory Of Your Website |
View full post on SEO – Google News
WordPress Launches WordAds – Because ‘You Deserve Better Than AdSense’
Nov 30th
A partnership between WordPress and Federated Media Publishing gives bloggers another monetization option, with an opt-in ad program available exclusively to WordPress.com bloggers, designed to rival Google’s AdSense.
In a blog post, WordP…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
BitNami Bundles Plugins with WordPress and Drupal Stacks
Nov 29th
BitNami is going beyond the value-add of bundling popular open source “stacks” of software to start including popular plugins and modules for the software. BitNami is starting with WordPress and Drupal by adding popular plugins for each of the popular Content Management Systems (CMS).
We’ve covered BitNami before. The service started by offering pre-configured “stacks” of popular open source software to simplify deployment. Initially the offerings were binaries that would install self-contained stacks on Linux, Mac OS X and/or Windows. (Not all stacks run on all OSes.)
Sponsor
Over time the company has moved from offering just the binaries to also offering full virtual appliances, and finally to offering cloud images and Cloud Hosting to simplify cloud deployment.
Now BitNami is expanding scope once again to simplify deployment by adding popular modules to its stacks so users don’t have to.
With WordPress, BitNami is providing the All-in-one-SEO pack, JetPack, the Google Analytics plugin, Google sitemap generator, and the wptouch plugin. The only thing missing from my standard install here is the Bad Behavior plugin.
Drupal includes plugins for Apache Solr, Google Analytics, SMTP, an admin menu plugin, and several developer-oriented plugins.
BitNami, of course, is looking to get more users to adopt its stacks and sign up for its Cloud Hosting services. It will be interesting to see if adding in plugins makes a difference in adoption. This sort of packaging for the cloud is in its infancy, but I suspect we’re going to be seeing more of it from third-parties like BitNami and from PaaS providers.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
How WordPress Helps The Little Guy Make Money
Nov 29th
Yesterday, WordPress announced WordAds, a program for hosted WordPress.com blogs to make some money off their sites. The first ads will come from the WordPress partnership with Federated Media announced at Web 2.0 this October. Interested users must apply to join WordAds, and it requires a custom domain, a service for which WordPress charges.
In return, WordPress is offering independent publishers a chance to make money on the WordPress platform. WordPress already provides a healthy living for thousands of self-employed developers, and now publishers have a chance to earn money from their WordPress content, too.
Sponsor
Monetizing The Long Tail
Federated Media is known for representing high-traffic sites. We at ReadWriteWeb work with FM, for example. But Federated Media recently acquired Lijit Networks, which will help it improve its targeting of ads to long-tail content.
WordPress.com blogs, in total, receive almost 300 million monthly unique visitors, so the partnership between FM and Automattic, parent company of WordPress, is a great opportunity for its advertisers.
You Deserve Better Than AdSense
“We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful,” says the WordPress announcement. “It seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense.” WordPress wants to serve ads that reflect the individual nature of its bloggers, and the WordAds program, targeted with Lijit’s technology, can enable that.
WordPress Is A Job Creator
According to founder Matt Mullenweg in his 2011 State of the Word Address, there are thousands of self-employed developers making a living on the WordPress platform. His voluntary survey recorded 6,800 developers who have built 170,000 sites between them, making a median hourly rate of $50.
WordPress is building a community for independent workers, both developers and publishers, and it’s finding ways to make them money and keep them afloat. That’s admirable. It may have to resort to some traffic tricks to keep up with the likes of Tumblr, but it does so in order to keep its community going.
Disclosure: Federated Media is ReadWriteWeb’s advertising partner.
What content management system(s) do you use, and why?
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
