About a month ago I posted about how fast WordPress 3.0 was being downloaded and there was a terrific discussion about the sheer amount of data that was being grabbed to get at the 3.0 version of WordPress. We even had some comments as to why it was being downloaded at that scale.
Well as of today the download counter reads that it has been downloaded just over 10.3 million times since it was released last month and the counter keeps rolling along!
So what is it that makes the WordPress platform so popular? What is it that drives people to download it over 10 million times?
If you had the opportunity to talk to a non WordPress user what would you tell them about it to show that it is worth downloading and putting to use for a website?
What is your favorite thing about WordPress? What is your least favorite thing about […]
Original post by Richard Hay
Technorati Tags: blog
How to Write with a Knife: I have been a big fan of CopyBlogger for some time and I try to read their articles as often as I can, though not as often as I would like to. The above article, followed by another one in the series called “Do Long Blog Posts Scare Away Readers?“, have some really good advice for bloggers. I have implicitly tried to follow some of them because my past training and weakness for the English language, but having them spelled out succinctly is really helpful (I already caught myself making one of the mistakes mentioned in the article, can you tell which one?).
In addition to the above suggestions, I would like to add a few of my own. Please feel free to add others in the comments.
Make your titles short, sweet and eye catching. Long titles lose their punch.
Proof read. As Michelle says so […]
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog, blogger
Long story short, our Weblog Tools Videos has had some major spam issues recently and we have taken action to try and prevent this deluge of spam. Thanks to Otto for the heads up on that.
In this mess, we have also had a couple of content generators complain that their videos, hosted on sites such as DailyMotion and YouTube, were used on Weblog Tools Videos without their explicit consent. This got me thinking about the possible ramifications embedding videos on a blog or website. I could not find any permission or license information on the pages where the allegedly infringed videos were hosted and so I assumed that we should remove the videos, which we did.
If the video page allows embedding, does that constitute implicit permission to post it elsewhere?
Is there copyright and license information buried within the agreement that users electronically sign on uploading to YouTube? Do the video sites […]
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog
Display Thumbnails For Related Posts in Wordpress: I have been a huge fan of related posts in blogs for some time. They really help your readers by drawing them into the conversation and increase stickiness of your blog. WordPress.com has a similar feature with related posts from various other blog on the network. Variations of the related posts plugins include our very own “Where did they go from here?” plugin and more centralized version such as the Waypath service.
The tutorial linked above explains one way to add thumbnails to your related post links in order to draw your readers attention to the links. The method is not as automated as I would like it to be and does require a few bits of code that is provided but I believe it can really help keep readers on your blog longer. I remember when small pictures were added next to AdSense […]
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog
21 Great Plugins to Manage Multi-Author Blogs Efficiently: This is an interesting collection of plugins to manage multi-author blogs and add extra visibility to your co-authors. Weblog Tools Collection is a multi-author blog that is put together by highly dedicated and talented authors in various parts of the planet. We collect and put together news, information and articles throughout a 24 hour period and are probably watching over the blog and the comments in one way or another. We rarely ever meet face to face and tend to communicate via IM, email and a very rare phone call from time to time.
Some of the plugins mentioned in this list are popular such as Role Manager, which is very useful in and of itself. However, there are others that sparked immediate interest in my. The ability to add co-authors to a post would be quite cool, as would the ability to […]
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog, news
If you are a WordPress developer or designer or have been messing around in the world of WordPress for any period of time, you have by no doubt heard of WordPress hooks. Hooks are a set of custom written functions that can be added to existing functions in the WordPress core to increase, improve or remove functionality. WordPress plugins make extensive use of hooks to latch onto various portions of the WordPress themes or to the admin interface in order to provide the additional functionality or to perform certain actions in certain parts of the code. If you are looking to understand hooks, learn about all the action and filter hooks and all the deprecated hooks, find the latest changes and understand how hooks can be used in customizing WordPress, I suggest you look at Adam’s WordPress hooks database.
Smashing Magazine has listed 10 Useful WordPress Hook Hacks in which they do […]
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog
Jeff and I have been having some interesting discussions surrounding the WordPress Codex and WordPress documentation. In case you were not aware, there is some fantastic volunteering work going on in WordPress documentation. We would like to see more people involved in the use of and help with the Codex and have some ideas up our sleeves towards that end. However, I think we also need to know what we are dealing with and would like some input from our readers.
I see two different audiences of the Codex and thus the two separate polls. Comments are also appreciated. Let us know if you want to help with the Codex or if you would like to help with WordPress documentation.
You are a Blogger. How often do you use the WordPress Codex?(online surveys)
You are a Developer/Designer. How often do you use the WordPress Codex?(online surveys)
Post from: Weblog Tools CollectionDo you use the […]
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog, blogger
If you are a WordPress user, plugins should not be new to you. The WordPress Extend lists over 5800 plugins with over 40 million downloads. Plugins range from the obscure but ubiquitous Hello Dolly to the almost essential Akismet and All in One SEO pack. The most popular plugins are the ones that provide a necessary service and have become part of our daily lives.
As I blog, I want to do certain things with my blog. When I first started with WordPress, my Sortable Nicer Archives plugin (please do not use it, it has gone by the wayside) was a necessity for me because I wanted a cleaner form of archives. I scratched my itch and hacked together something that worked for me. I also needed a way to backup my WordPress database automatically and thus the WordPress DB Backup plugin was born. At one time there were plans of […]
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog
Publish Post Box
A couple of Twitter questions posted to @weblogtooltips (are you following us yet?) about publishing posts in the future with plugins make me think that some users of WordPress might not know about the cool features that are built right into the admin panel. (yes, WordPress does that)
As the screenshot to the left shows, the publish box in WordPress holds a couple of hidden gems that might not immiediately be apparent. You can do one of two things with the fantastic post you just wrote (beside just posting it outright):
You can make your post public and make it a sticky on the front page or you can choose to password protect it or make it completely invisible to people that are not logged in to your blog. This option is available on your “Add New Post” page under the Publish box. You have to click on “Edit” next […]
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog
WordPress Configuration Tricks .: If you have ever installed WordPress and wanted to know what else you could do with your wp-config.php file, this is the blog post to read. As Ozh points out in the comments, a couple of tricks were left out but nothing that could not be remedied with a simple Google search (e.g. WP_HTTP) as long as you know what you are looking for.
Tips from that page that got me thinking (things that make you go hmmmmm?) include moving your wp-content directory, increasing your memory limit, changing the autosave interval, turning on debugging and finally the ability to specify a log file for errors. All of this through the wondrous wp-config.php file.
While you are there, make sure you subscribe to the blog. Chris and Jeff are putting out some good stuff!
Post from: Weblog Tools Collection
WordPress Configuration Tricks
Technorati Tags: blog, blogger
Original post by Mark Ghosh
Technorati Tags: blog, blogger, google
