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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"WordPress Planet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"item";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"WPTavern: Why Is Explaining WordPress To Someone So Hard?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9626";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:108:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/NQ1ZguXmrIE/why-is-explaining-wordpress-to-someone-so-hard";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8388:"<p>At a recent local WordPress meetup I attended, I went through an experience that is becoming the norm. That is, trying to explain WordPress to those who have either never used it, or were just getting started. It used to be the most difficult thing for me to explain to people was the process of getting a domain, attaching it to a web host and then explaining how to FTP files to their web server to install WordPress. After WordPress was installed, it was easy to browse around and publish content, or it was a few years ago. Now, not so much. </p>
<p>After telling people how to install WordPress, I then explain that they need to sign up for WordPress.com even if they won&#8217;t use it because they&#8217;ll need an API key for Akismet as well as connect their account to Jetpack. I probably spent 20 minutes trying to explain this, all while thinking how unnecessarily complicated things were. Once their website was up and running, they wanted to know what post formats were. </p>
<p>Explaining them in plain English to new WordPress users is either hard, or I don&#8217;t have the communication skills to turn a hard subject into something easier to<br />
understand. I can do it, it just takes me awhile to get the point across. Here is why I think WordPress is becoming more difficult to explain. <span id="more-9626"></span></p>
<h2>Steeper Learning Curve</h2>
<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/LearningCurve2.png" rel="thumbnail"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9629" alt="Learning Curve Two" src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/LearningCurve2.png?resize=300%2C200" /></a></p>
<p>A <a title="http://www.wptavern.com/the-wordpress-learning-curve-how-steep-or-shallow-is-it" href="http://www.wptavern.com/the-wordpress-learning-curve-how-steep-or-shallow-is-it">few years ago</a>, I used the image above as a way to show the learning curves for each CMS I&#8217;ve used. This image represents my personal experience. Two years later, if I were to remake this graphic, I&#8217;d make the WordPress curve steeper. Things are not all bad though. Since 2011, WordPress has added <a title="http://codex.wordpress.org/Administration_Screens#Help" href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Administration_Screens#Help">contextual help</a> accessible via the Help tab that hangs under the toolbar, a Welcome Screen for new installs as well as each major version upgrade, and pointer tips. Most of these new user experience improvements were part of <a title="http://wordpress.org/news/2011/12/sonny/" href="http://wordpress.org/news/2011/12/sonny/">WordPress 3.3 &#8216;Sonny&#8217;</a> and while they have helped, there is still a long way to go.</p>
<h2>With WordPress, More Is Not Less</h2>
<p>Near the end of the meetup, I told attendees that WordPress was at an interesting crossroad. WordPress has its roots in blogging software <a title="http://ma.tt/2003/01/the-blogging-software-dilemma/" href="http://ma.tt/2003/01/the-blogging-software-dilemma/">thanks to b2</a>. The early days of WordPress focused on users who just wanted an easy way to publish content to the web. Over time, enhancements were added such as tags, category improvements, etc. Within the past 3-4 years, we&#8217;ve seen more improvements to WordPress that cover use cases far outside of blogging such as heavy content management, large social sites, taxonomies, custom post types, and dare I say post formats. As WordPress development continues, it&#8217;s slowly but surely losing that blogging identity it was built upon. WordPress is turning into something more. More complicated, more frustrating, more difficult to comprehend, and more difficult to explain.</p>
<h2>Removing Hurdles</h2>
<p>It&#8217;s great to see that WordPress 3.3 focused on the new user experience and I hope to see further iterations in that area of WordPress because as it stands, WordPress is <a title="http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/wordpress_powers_1_in_5_websites" href="http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/wordpress_powers_1_in_5_websites">powering 20% of the web</a>. While reading Scott Berkun&#8217;s book <a title="http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Without-Pants-WordPress-com/dp/1118660633" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Without-Pants-WordPress-com/dp/1118660633">The Year Without Pants</a> Scott described a series of processes that WordPress.com customers go through with this one being the ideal candidate; <em>Get Idea -&gt; Write it -&gt; Publish -&gt; Be Happy</em>. For a hosting service like WordPress.com, that is an incredibly simple process to go through, especially when all of the hard work of managing domains, hosting, etc., are taken care of. Scott determined the most likely experience users were encountering when trying to publish content. Listed from most common to less common.</p>
<ul>
<li>Get Blog -&gt; Abandon (<strong>This scenario and the one after are the most common</strong>)</li>
<li>Get Blog -&gt; Get Idea -&gt; Abandon</li>
<li>Get Idea -&gt; Draft A Post -&gt; Abandon.</li>
<li>Get Idea&nbsp;-&gt; Draft A Post&nbsp;-&gt; Edit/Revise&nbsp;-&gt; Abandon</li>
<li>Get Idea -&gt; Draft A Post -&gt; Edit/Revise -&gt; Publish -&gt; Get Love And Attention (<strong>Best case scenario</strong>)</li>
<li>Get Idea -&gt; Draft A Post -&gt; Edit/Revise -&gt; Publish -&gt; Get Silence (<strong>Most likely scenario from those that make it this far</strong>)</li>
</ul>
<p>This information is based on data from the 2010-2012 time frame but I found it fascinating. If that&#8217;s the kind of process WordPress.com users went through, I wonder how much worse it was for the self installed version of WordPress? I would have thought that most of the hurdles to publish content would be removed on WordPress.com but that wasn&#8217;t the case. If WordPress usage is to surpass 20 &#8211; 30% across the web, the new user experience will need to have a strong focus on removing any hurdles that prevent the common layman from publishing content. This is easier said than done.</p>
<h2>WordPress Is Evolving, But Into What?</h2>
<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/PlatformLegos.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-9631" alt="Platform Legos" src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/PlatformLegos.jpg?resize=150%2C150" /></a>WordPress 3.7 is supposed to be a release aimed at helping shape WordPress into more of a platform with a focus on stability and security. Matt Mullenweg specifically highlighted this topic during his <a title="http://wordpress.tv/2013/07/29/matt-mullenweg-state-of-the-word-2013/" href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/07/29/matt-mullenweg-state-of-the-word-2013/">State Of The Word presentation</a> this year at WordCamp San Francisco. We&#8217;ve gone through a cycle of discussing whether WordPress is for blogging, a CMS, or an application platform. Matt points out that we&#8217;ve been going about this all wrong. Instead, WordPress is all three at the same time, just at different levels. My fear, is that some levels are creeping into others, especially the CMS into blogging components. After speaking with a number of people close to the heart of WordPress development over the years, I now understand why it would have been better to use <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/interview-with-beau-lebens-talking-backpress" title="http://www.wptavern.com/interview-with-beau-lebens-talking-backpress">BackPress</a> and just build blogging as a component on top of it. Instead, WordPress has blogging built-in with CMS, and platform stuff built on top. For those that are wondering about BackPress, I&#8217;ll be publishing a more in-depth story in the future that explains why we&#8217;re using WordPress today instead of BackPress.</p>
<p>When someone asks, <em>What is WordPress?</em>, I tell them it&#8217;s free, open-source publishing software. I&#8217;ve found it to be the easiest explanation&nbsp; but then I have to explain open-source, and a number of other things. That&#8217;s what I think WordPress is now. After 3.8, 3.9, and finally 4.0, I have no idea what WordPress will be. I&#8217;m thinking sooner rather than later, I&#8217;ll be the one asking the question <em>What is WordPress?</em></p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/NQ1ZguXmrIE" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:13:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6:"Jeffro";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"WPTavern: Should Code Revisions Be Added to the WordPress Core?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9245";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:114:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/ht96LyfCvQQ/should-code-revisions-be-added-to-the-wordpress-core";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5020:"<p>What would you think about the possibility of WordPress being able to keep track of code changes made in the dashboard theme and plugin editors? Any mistakes you make could easily be reversed using the new revision viewer introduced in WordPress 3.6. Should this feature be added to the core? This discussion is currently on the table.  <span id="more-9245"></span></p>
<p>The idea was proposed by <a href="http://yrnxt.com/" target="_blank">Alexander Höreth</a> in one of the most controversial Google Summer of Code <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/code-revisions/" target="_blank">projects</a> to date. His completed <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/code-revisions/" target="_blank">Code Revisions</a> plugin adds native revisions for the dashboard theme and plugin editors.</p>
<div id="attachment_9609" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/code-revisions.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/code-revisions.png?resize=560%2C224" alt="Code Revisions plugin in action" class="size-full wp-image-9609" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Code Revisions plugin in action</p></div>
<p>I chatted with Alexander about his experience creating the plugin. He wasn&#8217;t surprised by how much controversy and discussion the proposal generated.</p>
<blockquote><p>I expected it to be very controversial. It wasn&#8217;t the only project I proposed, because I actually expected it to be hard from a community point of view. The initial idea for the project was from Andrew Nacin from GSoC 2011. Back then someone actually already worked on revisions for the theme code editor, but he had a very different, more dev-focused, approach. While I expected the criticism, it still was quite heavy when I dropped <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/06/14/summer-of-code-revisions/" target="_blank">my first post on make/core</a>. But quite a few people also supported me so I did not have to deal with the critics all by myself.</p></blockquote>
<p>Those opposed to the inclusion of code revision capabilities are concerned about possible security risks. Many developers who joined in the discussion are wary of giving users any access to the built-in code editors, given how easily an untrained person can break things when tinkering around.</p>
<p>Alex believes his plugin is a good introduction for new WordPress users who want to start experimenting with their code without having to worry about breaking something. &#8220;I think the code editors are an important launch pad for WordPress users (not developers) to get into touch with their site’s code base,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Using them is a first step on the way to submitting a patch to core in the future.&#8221;</p>
<p>The plugin has a built-in way for checking PHP files for fatal errors when updating them using the code editors. Alex said that this was one of the most challenging aspects of getting it all to work:</p>
<blockquote><p>WordPress by default checks for fatal errors in plugins when they are edited or activated. The plugin was intended to enhance this functionality and also bring it to themes. I expected this to be easier than it turned out to be. PHP once had a function which was capable of doing so, but it was removed some time ago. So I ended up adding functionality which is not available on all hosts.</p></blockquote>
<p>The decision to add Code Revisions to the core has not yet been made. Alex is hopeful that it will be included but he recognizes that there are many strong opinions on the subject:</p>
<blockquote><p>I expect it to be quite a discussion and it depends on how much complexity it adds to core. Core is moving into a more modular direction. Therefore many people maybe will want to leave it as a plugin and don&#8217;t include it. The code revisions plugin was coded with the idea of staying as close to core as possible without adding new complexity to the user interface &#8211; it won&#8217;t be a big deal to include it into core.</p></blockquote>
<p>Now that GSoC is concluding, Alex is working on working on a single page application, using a custom JSON REST API for his study in Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrück. He said that he is really looking forward to the <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/ryan-mccue-on-creating-the-json-rest-api-for-wordpress" target="_blank">JSON REST API project</a> being added to core.   </p>
<p>The fate of his <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/code-revisions/" target="_blank">Code Revisions</a> plugin has not yet been decided. The good news is that either way, none of this work will be lost. If you love the idea of code revisions and it never makes it into core, you can still use the plugin version. What do you think? Would you like to see Code Revisions added to the core? Do the benefits outweigh the risks?</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/ht96LyfCvQQ" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 30 Sep 2013 14:01:47 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:2;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WordPress.tv: Suzette Franck: You’re Live! Now What? Post Launch Setup Process and Procedures";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22924";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:107:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/30/suzette-franck-youre-live-now-what-post-launch-setup-process-and-procedures/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:735:"<div id="v-gu4C89jW-1" class="video-player">
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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"WordPress.tv: Sé Reed: DIYWP: Making WordPress Work for Your Small Business";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22917";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/29/se-reed-diywp-making-wordpress-work-for-your-small-business/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:700:"<div id="v-MnP05ZWv-1" class="video-player">
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<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22917/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22917/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22917&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/29/se-reed-diywp-making-wordpress-work-for-your-small-business/"><img alt="Sé Reed: DIYWP: Making WordPress Work for Your Small Business" src="http://videos.videopress.com/MnP05ZWv/video-99ebe61e0d_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:31:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"WordPress.tv: Marty Thornley: Developing For MultiSite";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22892";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/29/marty-thornley-developing-for-multisite/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:658:"<div id="v-mfRtJst0-1" class="video-player">
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<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22892/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22892/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22892&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/29/marty-thornley-developing-for-multisite/"><img alt="Marty Thornley: Developing For MultiSite" src="http://videos.videopress.com/mfRtJst0/video-4258ba5b83_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 29 Sep 2013 20:32:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"WordPress.tv: Dan Pastori: Using WordPress As An Application Platform";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22890";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/28/dan-pastori-using-wordpress-as-an-application-platform/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:688:"<div id="v-c4yjXS5Q-1" class="video-player">
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<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22890/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22890/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22890&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/28/dan-pastori-using-wordpress-as-an-application-platform/"><img alt="Dan Pastori: Using WordPress As An Application Platform" src="http://videos.videopress.com/c4yjXS5Q/video-fb3ad30127_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 28 Sep 2013 20:09:15 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:6;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"WordPress.tv: Steve Zehngut: Underscores – The Only Theme That Matters";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22882";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/28/steve-zehngut-underscores-the-only-theme-that-matters/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:690:"<div id="v-vNCISm9c-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22882/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22882/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22882&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/28/steve-zehngut-underscores-the-only-theme-that-matters/"><img alt="Steve Zehngut: Underscores – The Only Theme That Matters" src="http://videos.videopress.com/vNCISm9c/video-0024a13096_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 28 Sep 2013 19:14:01 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"Dev Blog: WordPress 3.7 Beta 1";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:33:"http://wordpress.org/news/?p=2688";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"http://wordpress.org/news/2013/09/wordpress-3-7-beta-1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3675:"<p>I&#8217;m pleased to announce the availability of WordPress 3.7 Beta 1.</p>
<p>For WordPress 3.7 we decided to shorten the development cycle and focus on a few key improvements. We plan to release the final product in October, and then follow it in December with a jam-packed WordPress 3.8 release, which is already in development. Some of the best stuff in WordPress 3.7 is subtle &#8212; by design! So let&#8217;s walk through what we&#8217;d love for you to test, just in time for the weekend.</p>
<p><strong>Automatic, background updates.</strong> 3.7 Beta 1 will keep itself updated. That&#8217;s right &#8212; you&#8217;ll be updated each night to the newest development build, and eventually to Beta 2. We&#8217;re working to provide as many installs as possible with fast updates to security releases of WordPress &#8212; and you can help us test by just installing Beta 1 on your server and seeing how it works!</p>
<p>When you go to <strong>Dashboard → Updates</strong>, you&#8217;ll see a note letting you know whether your install is working for automatic updates. There are a few situations where WordPress can&#8217;t reliably and securely update itself. But if it can, you&#8217;ll get an email (sent to the &#8216;Admin Email&#8217; on the General Settings page) after each update letting you know what worked and what didn&#8217;t. If it worked, great! If something failed, the email will suggest you make a post in the support forums or create a bug report.</p>
<p>Here are some other things you should test out:</p>
<ul>
<li>If you&#8217;re running <strong>WordPress in another language</strong>, we&#8217;ll automatically download any available translations for official WordPress importers and the default themes. (More to come here.)</li>
<li>Our <strong>password meter</strong> got a whole lot better, thanks to Dropbox&#8217;s <a href="https://tech.dropbox.com/2012/04/zxcvbn-realistic-password-strength-estimation/">zxcvbn</a> library. Again, subtle but effective. Strong passwords are very important!</li>
<li><strong>Search results</strong> are now <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/25632">ordered by relevance</a>, rather than just by date. When your keywords match post titles and not just content, they&#8217;ll be pushed to the top.</li>
<li>Developers should check out the new <strong>advanced date queries</strong> in <code>WP_Query</code>. (<a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18694">#18694</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>This software is still in development</strong>, so we don&#8217;t recommend you run it on a production site. I&#8217;d suggest setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 3.7, try the <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (you&#8217;ll want &#8220;bleeding edge nightlies&#8221;). Or you can <a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-3.7-beta1.zip">download the beta here</a> (zip).</p>
<p>As always, <strong>if you think you’ve found a bug</strong>, you can post to the <a href="http://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums. Or, if you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/">file one on the WordPress Trac</a>. There, you can also find <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/report/5">a list of known bugs</a> and <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&group=component&milestone=3.7">everything we’ve fixed</a> so far.</p>
<p>Happy testing!</p>
<p><em>WordPress three seven<br />
Saves your weary hand a click<br />
Updates while you sleep</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 28 Sep 2013 07:25:44 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Andrew Nacin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21:"Matt: Decade Frow Now";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21:"http://ma.tt/?p=43131";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:37:"http://ma.tt/2013/09/decade-frow-now/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:258:"<blockquote><p>I&#8217;m tired of hearing about who you&#8217;re checking for now<br />
Just give it time, we&#8217;ll see who&#8217;s still around a decade from now.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://rapgenius.com/2213878">Drake on Tuscan Leather</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 28 Sep 2013 02:22:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Matt Mullenweg";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:9;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"WPTavern: BuddyDev Releases Free Documentation Style Theme For BuddyPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9304";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:125:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/HzWzWrc1XtA/buddydev-releases-free-documentation-style-theme-for-buddypress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3678:"<p>BuddyPress-specific themes seem to be few and far-between these days. This is probably due to changes in the market ever since BuddyPress 1.7 was released with <a href="http://codex.buddypress.org/theme-compatibility/" target="_blank">built-in theme support</a> for all WordPress themes. Still, this doesn&#8217;t negate the need for themes that have built-in styling specific to BuddyPress components.<span id="more-9304"></span></p>
<h3>BuddyDocs: A Free Documentation Style Theme For BuddyPress</h3>
<p><a href="http://buddydev.com/themes/buddydocs/" target="_blank">BuddyDocs</a> is a free BuddyPress theme from Brajesh Singh of BuddyDev. I&#8217;ve always admired Brajesh&#8217;s work and dedication to customer support. Brajesh is a prolific BuddyPress plugin developer and has long been a contributor to the project. He has released <a href="http://buddydev.com/plugins/?type=free" target="_blank">52 free plugins</a> to date on BuddyDev, in addition to the commercial plugins that he offers. This is a large collection of work that you can only find on the BuddyDev site. </p>
<p>BuddyDocs is the first publicly released WordPress theme from BuddydDev. It&#8217;s designed with a front page FAQ display for building a knowledge base, help center or documentation website.</p>
<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/buddy-docs-home.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/buddy-docs-home.png?resize=560%2C372" alt="buddy-docs-home" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9588" /></a></p>
<p>BuddyDocs is a responsive theme with clean, semantic markup and HTML5 validated code. A few of the features include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Multiple Layout options</li>
<li>3 page templates included</li>
<li>Admin options for logo, favicon,  javascript/analytics code, import/export and more</li>
<li><a href="http://andreaslagerkvist.com/jquery/live-search/" target="_blank">Live Search</a> module</li>
<li>Taxonomy Posts List shortcode</li>
<li><a href="http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/" target="_blank">Font Awesome</a> Icons</li>
<li>Translation ready</li>
</ul>
<p>Check out a <a href="http://wp.buddydev.com/buddydocs/" target="_blank">live demo</a> of BuddyDocs in action.</p>
<p>The live search feature is of particular interest to sites that will be using the theme for documentation. Search results are updated live as the user types. This helps users to quickly and easily find what they are looking for, which is likely to save you a lot of extra time spent on support.</p>
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/livesearch.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/livesearch.png?resize=560%2C597" alt="livesearch" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9595" /></a></p>
<p>Best of all, the theme is GPL licensed and open source. <a href="https://github.com/sbrajesh/buddydocs" target="_blank">Fork it on github</a> if you like or <a href="http://buddydev.com/themes/buddydocs/" target="_blank">download BuddyDocs</a> from BuddyDev. Brajesh plans to use the theme in the upcoming documentation section of BuddyDev. </p>
<p>Themes that organize information get me excited about WordPress. It&#8217;s also encouraging to know that BuddyPress themes are not dead. In fact, I think we&#8217;re likely to see more highly customized themes, especially those that are heavily styled for specific components. Many thanks to Brajesh for making his documentation theme available for free to the community.</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/HzWzWrc1XtA" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 27 Sep 2013 21:04:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:10;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"WPTavern: WordCamp Speaker Blacklist Is A Bad Idea";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9571";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:102:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/_l4crmHqHIg/wordcamp-speaker-blacklist-is-a-bad-idea";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6626:"<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ChrisLemaLogo.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ChrisLemaLogo.jpg?resize=300%2C69" alt="Chris Lema Blog Logo" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-9575" /></a>Chris Lema has put together an <a href="http://chrislema.com/keeping-wordcamps-classy-call-speaker-reviews/" title="http://chrislema.com/keeping-wordcamps-classy-call-speaker-reviews/">interesting post</a> that details the reasons why WordCamp speakers should be reviewed. While Chris attended WordCamp Los Angeles 2013 organized by first timers, he listened to a presenter or two that shared more about themselves rather than their content. He then thought about ways in which WordCamps could better protect themselves from such speakers. If you take a look at the WordCamp guidelines, there are already a number of items in place when it comes to <a href="http://plan.wordcamp.org/planning-details/speakers/" title="http://plan.wordcamp.org/planning-details/speakers/">selecting speakers</a>. However, WordCamps can go beyond those guidelines and add a few of their own, such as the case with <a href="http://2013.orlando.wordcamp.org/speaker-submissions/" title="http://2013.orlando.wordcamp.org/speaker-submissions/">WordCamp Orlando 2013</a>. <span id="more-9571"></span></p>
<p>Chris&#8217; initial idea was to create a blacklist. However, after speaking with Andrea Middleton, the idea of a national blacklist was thrown out the window.</p>
<blockquote><p>I’ll admit that my first thought was that we should have a blacklist. If you get on it, you have to work hard to get off it. But more importantly, a central black list would protect all our events to make sure people who were pitching themselves would be ousted, once and for all.</p></blockquote>
<p>Personally, I think a blacklist would be a terrible idea because WordCamps are supposed to focus on the local community. These communities are made up of people most of us have never heard of. My fear is that they would speak at an event like WordCamp, screw up once and then be placed on the blacklist. It&#8217;s like taking someone who meant no harm, throwing them in a pit and wishing them good luck as they try to work themselves out of it. That&#8217;s the last thing the WordPress community needs. I think the WordPress community is excellent at policing itself, especially when it comes to things like this. If a speaker goes on stage and it becomes a session of Me, Me, Me, that information will immediately be known via blog posts and Twitter. </p>
<h2>WordCamp Speaker Ratings And Reviews</h2>
<p>Chris&#8217; follow up idea to solve this problem is speaker ratings and reviews. WordCamp Central would host a centralized area where the speaker ratings and reviews could be housed and on each individual WordCamp page, using an embed link or a standard form, attendees could rate and provide feedback for individual speakers. This would give them a speaker profile that would contain ratings, reviews, etc. As someone mentioned in the comments of the post, adding the speaker information to their WordPress.org user profile seems like a natural place to put it. </p>
<p>The comments in his post are definitely worthy of reading as they bring up some great points. For example, many have agreed that making the speaker reviews private would be better for the speaker vs. having them in public. I agree with that. Placing the reviews as private would give attendees the opportunity to really tell the speaker what they thought of their performance without the fear of being chastised or attacked for their critical words in public. In the WordPress community, we are typically too nice to each other at times where being critical would be more beneficial. By keeping reviews private, both attendees and speakers win, although I&#8217;d give a slight edge to the speaker, as they get a chance to receive constructive criticism that can help them improve their stage presence. </p>
<h2>SpeakerRate &#8211; A Service For Reviewing Talks And Speakers</h2>
<p>I remember seeing this service in use a few years ago on a couple of different WordCamp sites and at the time, I thought it was a neat idea. It&#8217;s called <a href="http://speakerrate.com/" title="http://speakerrate.com/">SpeakerRate</a> and enables users to add talks they have given while other registered members can rate those talks and provide testimonials of the speaker. </p>
<div id="attachment_9573" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SpeakerRate.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SpeakerRate.jpg?resize=500%2C193" alt="SpeakerRate Profile Page" class="size-large wp-image-9573" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">My User Profile For SpeakerRate</p></div>
<p>After signing up, I discovered that there is no way to make the testimonial section private. There is no easy alternative to provide private feedback which is definitely a black mark against using this across the board for WordCamps. However, the service itself is a great example for WordCamp Central if they wanted to create something similar for all WordCamp sites. </p>
<h2>Not Really A Problem For Now</h2>
<p>I have not attended a large amount of WordCamps but for each one that I have, I&#8217;ve yet to encounter a session with a presenter that made think about their motives for being at the event. I don&#8217;t think bad presenters are a problem for WordCamps right now. At the same time, if there was a bad presentation, I&#8217;d love to be able to submit my thoughts and recommendations to the speaker in private versus on Twitter or inside of blog comments. I&#8217;d like for WordCamp websites to offer me that option after attending the event. I&#8217;ve filled out surveys after attending WordCamps and they usually contain questions with ratings that tell the organizers whether I had a good time or not. I&#8217;m with Chris in as far as that some type of feedback system should be in place for every WordCamp so attendees can rate, review, and comment on the sessions they attended. I also think those reviews should be accessible to both WordCamp organizers and speakers. This way, both parties are kept in the loop and know what the audience thinks. </p>
<p>This is a great discussion and I&#8217;m curious to read feedback from all parties involved. Speakers, organizers, and attendees. </p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/_l4crmHqHIg" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 27 Sep 2013 18:21:58 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6:"Jeffro";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:11;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"WPTavern: What WordPress Can Learn From the Ghost Project";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9266";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/464uCLCN3K4/what-wordpress-can-learn-from-the-ghost-project";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11643:"<p>Last year John O&#8217;Nolan caused quite a stir when he <a href="http://john.onolan.org/ghost/" target="_blank">announced</a> that he intended to fork WordPress to create Ghost, a new open source blogging platform.</p>
<p>O&#8217;Nolan posted his proposed designs for Ghost on his website, originally intending for it to be a minimalist concept of WordPress with a blog-oriented dashboard, fewer options to configure, no native comments, and very limited backwards compatibility. <span id="more-9266"></span></p>
<div id="attachment_9546" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ghost-dash.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ghost-dash.jpg?resize=560%2C385" alt="Ghost Dashboard" class="size-full wp-image-9546" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Ghost Dashboard</p></div>
<p>The project was fully funded on <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnonolan/ghost-just-a-blogging-platform" target="_blank">Kickstarter</a> and many in the WordPress community contributed, recognizing the value of the project as an alternative to what they perceived to be an increasingly CMS-focused WordPress core. The project actually raised more than $100,000 in its first 48 hours of funding and was recently backed by Microsoft.</p>
<p>Over the past year <a href="http://ghost.org/" target="_blank">Ghost</a> has evolved and the team eventually chose to build the application on Node.js, powered by the <a href="http://expressjs.com/" target="_blank">Express</a> framework.</p>
<h3>Why O&#8217;Nolan Decided Not to Fork WordPress</h3>
<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/john.jpeg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/john.jpeg?resize=143%2C143" alt="john" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9548" /></a>I had the opportunity to chat with John O&#8217;Nolan about his journey with Ghost over the past year.  I asked him why he and his development lead, <a href="http://twitter.com/erisds" target="_blank">Hannah Wolfe</a>, decided to make Ghost a new application, instead of running with his original idea for a fork of WordPress. </p>
<p>O&#8217;Nolan explains why attempting to fork WordPress ended up being a dead end path for their team:</p>
<blockquote><p>When I first put up <a href="http://john.onolan.org/ghost" target="_blank">the idea</a> for Ghost, I suggested that it might be a WordPress fork. Ideas change a lot though, and after talking to a lot of very smart people about it (largely core+lead WordPress developers) it was clear that a fork would be the worst possible option. I followed up the original post with <a href="http://john.onolan.org/ghost-from-fiction-to-function/" target="_blank">my intentions</a> to build Ghost initially as a WordPress plugin proof-of-concept, and later as a standalone platform.</p>
<p>Initially we did start going down this road. Hannah and I started to build a WordPress plugin, but we hit so many roadblocks that it quickly became very clear this was going to be a dead-end path. A dead-end not necessarily because the technological challenges were insurmountable, but because we were realising the same frustrations that were the basis for Ghost in the first place: bumping up against, and working within, the limitations of both WordPress and PHP. Both from a technical standpoint as well as a philosophical one.</p></blockquote>
<p>Once they settled the fact that the Ghost project was philosophically different from WordPress in many distinct ways, it was only natural that they select a new technological approach for building the platform. O&#8217;Nolan outlined the determining factors:</p>
<blockquote><p>Once we&#8217;d decided to create something entirely new, the question of what language to go with was one of pragmatism. From that perspective the decision was clear. Today&#8217;s web is almost entirely JavaScript-driven. As well as being the backbone of every HTML5 API out there, it lends itself to high levels of scale, interactivity, responsiveness and robust user experiences for all of the same reasons. Extending our usage of JavaScript to both the back end with Node.js as well as the front end makes sense for all of these reasons. Our approach we feel is the best way to allow developers to create the next generation of engaging, cross-platform web experiences, whether that be touch, click, mobile or desktop.</p></blockquote>
<p>Ghost was just released to 6,000+ Kickstarter backers and will very soon be opened up to the public on github. After that they have much more planned, including a hosted version.</p>
<h3>How Ghost and WordPress Differ</h3>
<p>While both projects are dedicated to providing users with open source software for publishing, they get there through very different approaches. </p>
<p>For example, the theming structure for Ghost is vastly different from that of WordPress, where the average theme is split into a couple dozen template files: </p>
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/theme-structure.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/theme-structure.jpg?resize=560%2C488" alt="theme-structure" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9557" /></a></p>
<p>Ghost has prioritized its editor which uses markdown and &#8220;aims to allow you to type continuously, formatting on the fly, without clicking buttons or writing long HTML or switching tabs to preview your post.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/editor.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/editor.jpg?resize=560%2C385" alt="editor" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9559" /></a></p>
<p>I asked O&#8217;Nolan if he thought that using markdown would be a hindrance to Ghost catching on, but so far he has received overwhelmingly positive reports of user experiences.</p>
<blockquote><p>I actually think it&#8217;ll be a massive benefit to Ghost catching on. Markdown has, until now, been something that&#8217;s only really been exposed to the more technically minded users of the world and I firmly believe that it will become a standard for the future of writing on the web. There is a long way to go, of course, but we are now fortunate to have an incredible opportunity to be at the heart of the education process around Markdown. I&#8217;m really excited about how Ghost can influence and affect a new generation of writers on the web.</p></blockquote>
<p>Beyond the differences in code, structure and features, Ghost takes a major departure from WordPress when it comes to a commercial marketplace. O&#8217;Nolan has confirmed that the Ghost project website will also include an open <a href="http://marketplace.ghost.org/" target="_blank">marketplace</a> for both free and commercial plugins. </p>
<p>While the GPL might complicate an officially sponsored marketplace for WordPress, the Ghost project has adopted an MIT license that O&#8217;Nolan believes will offer more freedoms to their community.</p>
<blockquote><p>With the MIT license you have the same freedom to decide how you want to engage with Open Source software. You decide whether your plugin is MIT, GPL, or any license you like. We believe feel that publishing needs the same freedom in software licensing decisions that it already enjoys with the content which is published.</p></blockquote>
<h3>The Hosted Version of Ghost</h3>
<p>Realistically, you cannot expect everyone who wants to blog to have their own hosting and install the software for themselves. Many people have no time for managing hosting and software updates, hence the <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/wordpress-com-is-ranked-8-for-internet-traffic-in-the-us" target="_blank">success</a> of WordPress.com, which is currently ranked #8 for traffic in the US. Ghost intends to offer a hosted solution as well, with some notable differences. </p>
<p>While WordPress.com is one massive multisite installation, Ghost plans offer something more akin to a managed hosting solution. Ghost customers will enjoy their own hosted instances and will also be given full control of code and themes.  This is essentially all the flexibility of WordPress.org with the support and reliability you&#8217;d expect from WordPress.com. All of the profits made from the hosted version of Ghost will go directly back into their non-profit organization to fund the improvement of the software.</p>
<h3>How Ghost Might Affect and Influence the WordPress Ecosystem</h3>
<p>Some are heralding Ghost as the future of blogging, a bold statement to bestow upon a very new open source project. Since Ghost was born out of O&#8217;Nolan&#8217;s dissatisfaction with WordPress for blogging, the two platforms are bound to be compared from time to time. O&#8217;Nolan believes that these comparisons will be beneficial for both projects.</p>
<blockquote><p>Aaron Jorbin <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjorbin/status/381523797306007552" target="_blank">recently said</a>, &#8220;Open source isn&#8217;t a zero sum game. We all win when we advance open source.&#8221; I think he&#8217;s spot on. </p>
<p>A couple of weeks after my original post about Ghost last year it was fantastic to see new core initiatives being rolled out to drastically improve the WordPress admin UI as well as a new back-to-blogging approach for the front end. These ideas ultimately came to life this year as they evolved into the MP6 plugin and the Twenty Thirteen theme.</p></blockquote>
<p>O&#8217;Nolan believes that there is room for open source projects to learn from one another and push each other to provide users with the best possible publishing experience. </p>
<blockquote><p>It&#8217;s a big open source world out there, and I think different projects can all learn a great deal from each other. In a couple of months I&#8217;ll be speaking at a Drupal Conference in Vienna. The organisers invited me to speak as a part of Drupal&#8217;s current initiative for developers to &#8220;<a href="http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/off-the-island-2013" target="_blank">get off the island</a>,&#8221; which is very cool, and something I think the WordPress ecosystem could learn a lot from.</p>
<p>Ultimately when developers diversify and push each other to do better and try new things &#8211; the end user wins &#8211; and the entire open source ecosystem is strengthened further.</p></blockquote>
<p>There&#8217;s no doubt that the WordPress community has benefited from the realization of the Ghost project, especially through all the discourse surrounding how to provide bloggers with the best possible experience on the web. Ghost&#8217;s intuitive editor and simplified dashboard challenge WordPress by demonstrating the possibilities of a more simplified UI.</p>
<p>WordPress is well on its way towards what Matt Mullenweg calls a &#8220;<a href="http://ma.tt/2012/05/simpler/" target="_blank">radically simplified</a>&#8221; UI, but will that be enough for those who simply want to blog? Right now WordPress offers unparalleled flexibility for content managers. But these CMS capabilities can also make the WordPress dashboard an intimidating place for someone who only wants to blog.</p>
<p>The question remains &#8211; How can WordPress continue to move forward with more sophisticated support for CMS architecture without overwhelming the average blogger with too many options?</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/464uCLCN3K4" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 26 Sep 2013 22:15:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:12;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"WPTavern: Brad Touesnard Explains Why The WP App Store Failed";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9544";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:113:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/gOi9Gy8dvOo/brad-touesnard-explains-why-the-wp-app-store-failed";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3321:"<p>Brad Touesnard, founder of the WordPress App Store has <a title="http://bradt.ca/blog/why-wp-app-store-failed/" href="http://bradt.ca/blog/why-wp-app-store-failed/"> published a detailed post</a> that explains the reasoning for why the app store failed.  Hind sight is 20/20 so it&#8217;s great to get this kind of perspective from Brad. We find out what went right but more importantly, what went wrong. One of the major reasons for its failure was the inability to have the plugin listed on the WordPress.org plugin repository. According to the guidelines, marketplace type plugins are not allowed. This prevented the App Store from being placed in front of a large amount of eyeballs and thus, slowed adoption rates. The most interesting take away I had from his post is the fact that after WooThemes added WP App Store support to their themes, their customers started complaining and thought the menu link was spam, or that their sites had been hacked. <span id="more-9544"></span></p>
<blockquote><p>The snippet that I developed worked great and <a href="http://www.woothemes.com/2012/09/every-line-of-code-audited/">WooThemes added it to all their themes</a>. Unfortunately, their customers started complaining as soon as it was rolled out. Many didn’t know where the menu item had come from. They were confused by it. Some thought their site had been hacked and that it was spyware.</p>
<p>Two months after adding it, <a href="http://www.woothemes.com/2012/11/wooframework-version-5-5-0-released/">WooThemes removed the installer from their themes</a>.</p>
<p>In those two months, we saw significant gains in registrations and sales, so this mistake was costly. Clearly the <em>WP App Store</em> menu item should have been tucked under the <em>WooThemes</em> menu item to make it clear that it was part of the theme.</p></blockquote>
<p>Brad goes on to explain that while there was quite a bit of interest from webhosting companies to integrate the app store into their control panels, many of them wanted to see traction first. Talk about being in a tough spot. You need webhosting companies to gain traction but they won&#8217;t jump on board until they see traction. At the end of the day, <a title="http://wpappstore.com/" href="http://wpappstore.com/">WP App Store</a> will still be around but in the form of a product newsletter, not a store. Once or twice a month, an email will be sent out containing exclusive coupon codes for products.</p>
<h2>If Not WP App Store, Who Else?</h2>
<p>I remember a few years ago when a number of discussions were happening throughout the WordPress community where there was apparent demand for something like the WordPress plugin repository, but for commercial themes and plugins. More so for plugins than themes since the repo already had a page dedicated to commercial theme companies who follow the GPL licensing. These discussions began around the same time WPPlugins was launched in 2009. They gave it a ride for a few years but eventually folded. WordPress plugin app stores have come and gone over the past few years, is it an idea that can still be capitalized on or has sites such as CodeCanyon and ThemeForest eroded any chance of being successful?</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/gOi9Gy8dvOo" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 26 Sep 2013 19:22:52 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6:"Jeffro";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:13;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"WordPress.tv: Brennen Byrne: Employing Best Security Practices For WordPress Sites";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22317";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:101:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/26/brennen-byrne-employing-best-security-practices-for-wordpress-sites-3/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:716:"<div id="v-iczc7JD4-1" class="video-player">
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<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22317/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22317/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22317&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/26/brennen-byrne-employing-best-security-practices-for-wordpress-sites-3/"><img alt="Brennen Byrne: Employing Best Security Practices For WordPress Sites" src="http://videos.videopress.com/iczc7JD4/video-d086649589_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:50:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:14;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"WordPress.tv: Brian Rotsztein: SEO and Content Marketing With WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22706";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:88:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/26/brian-rotsztein-seo-and-content-marketing-with-wordpress/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:692:"<div id="v-wyw1fodo-1" class="video-player">
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<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22706/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22706/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22706&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/26/brian-rotsztein-seo-and-content-marketing-with-wordpress/"><img alt="Brian Rotsztein: SEO and Content Marketing With WordPress" src="http://videos.videopress.com/wyw1fodo/video-cd6cc64bdc_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:43:41 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:15;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"WPTavern: New Plugins for Multiple Featured Images, Image Monetization and Photo Attribution";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9398";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:143:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/5mbdjjvpr50/new-plugins-for-multiple-featured-images-image-monetization-and-photo-attribution";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7955:"<p>Today we&#8217;re looking at several new plugins that can help you with images in both attribution and monetization. Additionally, we will examine image based plugins that help with featured images, post thumbnails and a plugin to turn any WordPress image gallery into a swipe-enabled gallery that looks great on any smartphone.</p>
<p>As always, if you&#8217;d like to try any of these plugins for yourself, please make sure that you use a staging site first. This will allow you to properly test each plugin to make sure that it can &#8220;get along&#8221; well with other plugins that you already have installed. Install these on a live site only when you have properly tested and analyzed each plugin. Remember that these are mere samplings of the newest and most recently updated plugins and not official endorsements or reviews. OK, let&#8217;s get plugged in!<br />
<span id="more-9398"></span><br />
<a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/credittracker.png" rel="thumbnail"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-9417" alt="Credit Tracker" src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/credittracker.png?resize=150%2C150" /></a><strong><a title="Credit Tracker" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/credit-tracker/" target="_blank">Credit Tracker</a></strong> is a new solution for providing attribution credits to photographers and image creators. The plugin adds new custom fields for Image Source, Image Owner/Author, Publisher and License information. Plugins like this are a welcome relief to many professional photographers out there. Let&#8217;s face reality here. Many of these photographers are frequently ripped off by both Google Image Search and the natural propensity to copy and paste without regard to the creator. Credit Tracker is turning the tables on this negative practice by allowing proper author attribution. The plugin&#8217;s shortcode allows you to display all of the photo credits for the post in a clean table format.</p>
<p><strong><a title="Default Post Thumbnail Image" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/default-post-thumbnail-image/" target="_blank">Default Post Thumbnail Image</a></strong> creates a default thumbnail image to use in posts. In development this is an invaluable plugin to help test theme layouts and post display configurations. Sometimes I want to make a ton of posts and not have to go through all the effort of adding post thumbnails to each one. There are other occasions in which I may forget to add a post image, resulting in an ugly looking home page that doesn&#8217;t have a proper image within the post snippet. This plugin helps to alleviate both of those issues by letting you add a default image. When there is no image used within a post, the default image appears. Example usage might be to use your brand logo or an &#8220;image coming soon&#8221; image type. For site developers this plugin could also be utilized to identify missing images within posts.</p>
<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/merchii.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-9413" alt="Merchii" src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/merchii.jpg?resize=108%2C180" /></a><strong><a title="Merchii" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/merchii/" target="_blank">Merchii</a></strong> is another image plugin worth checking out if you would like to monetize certain images on your site. It gives the function of tagging areas of an existing image to identify different products that can be purchased. The Beauty Gurus out there will love this one! From the latest Fall look book to selling affiliate based deals, Merchii provides a unique interface in which to feature products within the images on your site. The plugin currently works as part of the third-party Merchii service. The service has control over which affiliate programs and merchants are available, which is a major downfall. While this is a great solution for newbie affiliates and those who don&#8217;t want to bother with the affiliate networks, I found the lack of adding my own affiliate deals and offers to be a big hole in the system. This issue withstanding, Merchii is a great advancement in connecting our images to a viable revenue stream.</p>
<p><strong><a title="Dynamic Featured Image" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/dynamic-featured-image/" target="_blank">Dynamic Featured Image</a></strong> enables the option to have MULTIPLE featured images within a post or page. This is especially helpful when you use other plugins, post thumbnails or sliders that use featured images. Let&#8217;s suppose that you have a WordPress theme that uses post thumbnails on the front page, a full width slider that features post information with a high resolution image and a full size image within the post itself. Why limit yourself to one image that has to be scaled and sized according to the application? DFI allows you to add a number of featured images to each post that can be collected by the various theme functions. You can alter most plugins that propagate featured images with just a slight amount of code changes. Once you have configured your featured image plugins to pull from the correct source ID, you can easily take care of all your post image variations directly within the post editor.</p>
<p><strong><a title="WP PhotoSwipe" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-photoswipe/" target="_blank">WP Photoswipe</a></strong> turns any WordPress gallery into a smartphone swipe-ready gallery that can be transitioned to the next/previous images with the mere wave of a finger on the device. With a very small footprint, Photoswipe is a simple javascript that quickly takes on &#8220;set it and forget it&#8221; functionality. With no settings to monkey around with, this plugin simply works out of the box on even the most basic of WordPress galleries.</p>
<p><center></center><br />
The plugin works on just about every device on the market today, including iOS, Android, Blackberry, standard Desktops and nearly all other swipe capable touch browsers. Responsiveness is built-in for device orientation, scaling the image to fit in either portrait or landscape mode. The Photoswipe script has been on <a title="PhotoSwipe on Github" href="https://github.com/codecomputerlove/PhotoSwipe" target="_blank">Github</a> for a few years and it&#8217;s nice to see this converted to a lightweight WordPress plugin. With more people turning to their mobile devices to read blogs and sift through content, it makes sense to optimize every piece of content with the mobile viewer in mind. Plugins like WP Photoswipe make it easier to stay mobile-ready with little coding required.</p>
<h2><strong>Today&#8217;s Summary</strong></h2>
<p>There are many new advances in how WordPress interacts with images. We no longer live in a world where a simple solitary featured image within the content will cut it with the reader. They want slide shows, organized thumbnail teasers and a methods to buy what they see. Many of these plugins have this kind of capability and functionality. When used with careful planning and editorial sense, these plugins could be real game-changers for your site. Not only will they change the look and feel of your site, but they may generate revenue for you as well.</p>
<p>Be sure to leave your feedback and opinions about the plugins talked about today. Leave your comments here on <a title="The Daily Plugin for 09-23-2013" href="http://www.wptavern.com/the-daily-plugin-09-23-2013">WPTavern</a> or contact me on <a title="Marcus Couch on Twitter" href="https://twitter.com/marcuscouch" target="_blank">Twitter</a>. Whichever method you choose, I am very interested in hearing more from the community on how you personally use plugins to enhance the capabilities of your images.</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/5mbdjjvpr50" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 25 Sep 2013 23:59:37 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Marcus Couch";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:16;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"WPTavern: A Day in the Life of a WordPress Theme Reviewer";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9495";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/RHC5AoWaRNg/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-wordpress-theme-reviewer";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7322:"<p><div id="attachment_9500" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/emil-uzelac-2.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/emil-uzelac-2.png?resize=300%2C300" alt="Emil Uzelac" class="size-medium wp-image-9500" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Emil Uzelac, Theme Reviewer Extraordinaire</p></div><a href="http://index56.com/" target="_blank">Emil Uzelac</a> is a freelance WordPress designer and developer who has been reviewing WordPress themes for the past three years. He and other team members have been blazing through theme approvals and <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/updates/2013/09/23/theme-review-team-update-092313/" target="_blank">setting records</a> this month on wordpress.org. Recently, I had the chance to chat with him about what it&#8217;s like to be on the WordPress.org Theme Review Team. </p>
<p>In case you didn&#8217;t know, every theme submitted to WordPress.org is required to meet a rigorous set of <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review" target="_blank">standards and guidelines</a>. <span id="more-9495"></span>The theme must also gain the approval a highly skilled and dedicated team of experts, known as the <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/themes/" target="_blank">Theme Review Team</a>, who guard the doorway of the official <a href="http://wordpress.org/themes/" target="_blank">WordPress Theme Directory</a>. This is how WordPress.org ensures that the free themes offered are not full of malicious code.</p>
<p>You may recognize Emil Uzelac from his work on the <a href="http://wordpress.org/themes/responsive" target="_blank">Responsive theme</a>, which became the most popular free theme on WordPress.org in just three months after its release. After about a year of trying to manage a full time support load for his free theme, Responsive was <a href="http://mattreport.com/trent-lapinski-cyberchimps/" target="_blank">acquired by CyberChimps</a>, a commercial theme shop. An interesting bit of history here is that Emil&#8217;s site ThemeID and his Responsive theme were the first case of anyone ever having a theme so popular on WordPress.org that it was eventually purchased. </p>
<div id="attachment_9505" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/emil-uzelac-wpt.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/emil-uzelac-wpt.png?resize=560%2C283" alt="Just another day reviewing themes" class="size-full wp-image-9505" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Just another day reviewing themes</p></div>
<p>Every day Emil sits down at his desk with his mug and headphones and spends a few hours going through tickets for theme reviews. He&#8217;s currently a Theme Review Team (TRT) Admin, as well as full-time reviewer and the Team Rep for the next three months. </p>
<p>Given that the team must be fanatical about standards, I assumed that making it in would be quite a long and difficult road. Email says that it&#8217;s actually quite a simple process: &#8220;My initiation three years ago was pretty similar to what we have now. A trainee requests a ticket and after several reviews gets promoted to what we call &#8216;full reviewer.&#8217; Thereafter, that person can assign and review tickets on his own.&#8221;</p>
<p>Emil generally spends about 15 hours per week reviewing themes. To stay motivated while going through tickets, he likes to listen to electronica via Pandora. But his chief motivation are the users who will eventually be activating these themes.</p>
<blockquote><p>Users are my main motivation. It&#8217;s my goal for users to experience no or fewer issues once the ticket is approved and the theme is available for download in directory. At the same time I am also motivated to educate new theme authors.</p></blockquote>
<p>You may be curious about what kind of crazy code people try to stuff into free themes. I was surprised to learn that more often than not it&#8217;s simply standards that are ignored. I asked Emil what are some of the most common errors that he encounters when a theme is first submitted and he replied:</p>
<blockquote><p>You can learn a lot about the theme just by opening a couple of parts like header.php and footer.php. </p>
<p>That is where most common errors are. Some of them would be improper scripts and styles inclusion, plugin-territory items such as META tags and the unavoidable stuff such as &#8220;SPAM&#8221; within credit links.</p></blockquote>
<h3>An Incentive Program to Bring the Review Queue Under Control</h3>
<p>As you can imagine, reviewing all the themes that get submitted to WordPress.org is a colossal task. In July the TRT introduced an <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/themes/2013/07/16/review-incentive-trial-program/" target="_blank">incentive program</a> to help motivate reviewers to whittle down the queue. Emil believes that this has been a great benefit to the team:</p>
<blockquote><p>The program works well and it gives authors the opportunity to be selected in the WordPress.org featured theme section. In my opinion WordPress.org is the best absolutely free way of getting that instant promotion!</p></blockquote>
<p>The winners each month are allowed to select the featured themes and can even select their own themes if they wish. If you&#8217;re a WordPress theme developer and want to get your theme featured, consider volunteering your time with the Theme Review Team.</p>
<h3>Advice to WordPress.org Theme Authors</h3>
<p>After having a very successful free theme on WordPress.org and having served as a dedicated member of TRT for the past several years, Emil Uzelac has some sage words of advice for authors who decide to post a free theme on WordPress.org:</p>
<blockquote><p>
Support is not easy. However, to have a successful theme you must stay on top of it.</p>
<p>Subscribe to all related tags about you, your site and your theme, as well as the notification system by WPORG and Google Alerts for everything else. When this is established the rest will get easier. Have one thing in mind: WPORG users are simple but very fragile at the same time. Write good tutorials and docs to avoid answering the same questions all over again. </p>
<p>One last and very important thing:</p>
<p>Always ask for a rating and review after resolving each question and don&#8217;t forget to note that tickets need to be closed as well. </p></blockquote>
<p>If you&#8217;re looking for a place to get involved at wordpress.org, the Theme Review Team could use some more active members. On average it takes about 30-35 minutes to completely review a theme. There are 118 reviewers but only 5-10 that are currently active. The four active admins include Emil, Chip Bennett, Edward Caissie and Mel (esmi). It&#8217;s a huge task for these few to manage but very rewarding in the end. Hats off to all of these folks who volunteer their time to make WordPress.org themes safe and standards-compliant. If you&#8217;d like to join, visit <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/themes/about/how-to-join-wptrt/" target="_blank">make.wordpress.org/themes</a> and get signed up.</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/RHC5AoWaRNg" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 25 Sep 2013 21:52:52 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:26:"Matt: Automattic + Cloudup";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21:"http://ma.tt/?p=43128";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"http://ma.tt/2013/09/automattic-cloudup/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:888:"<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-43129" alt="cloudup-c" src="http://i0.wp.com/s.ma.tt/files/2013/09/cloudup-c.png?resize=150%2C150" />As just <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/25/automattic-acquires-file-sharing-service-cloudup-to-build-faster-media-library-and-enable-co-editing/">written about in TechCrunch</a>, <a href="http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/cloudup-joins-the-automattic-family/">the WordPress.com blog</a>, and <a href="https://cloudup.com/blog/cloudup-automattic">Cloudup&#8217;s blog</a>, Automattic has acquired <a href="https://cloudup.com/">Cloudup</a>, a really slick service that makes easy to share every type of media from a very talented team. The service isn&#8217;t open to the public, but if you <a href="https://cloudup.com/signup/manual?code=matt">use this link to signup</a> there are a couple hundred invites for ma.tt readers.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 25 Sep 2013 19:10:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"WPTavern: Is It Ethical For Companies To Influence WordPress.org Plugin Ratings and Reviews?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9466";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:143:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/RoQvnk9pMwQ/is-it-ethical-for-companies-to-influence-wordpress-org-plugin-ratings-and-reviews";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4248:"<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/PluginRatings.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7064" alt="Plugin Ratings" src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/PluginRatings.jpg?resize=300%2C213" /></a>A week ago, I was contacted by a WordPress user who asked an interesting question, <em>Is it ethical for a company to use its own staff to bump plugin ratings on wp.org?</em></p>
<p>At first, I didn&#8217;t give much thought to the question until I investigated the links they provided me. I researched the plugins they linked to and reviewed the user profile history of accounts leaving those reviews and I have mixed feelings on what I discovered:<span id="more-9466"></span></p>
<ul>
<li>At least two of the WordPress.org user accounts I researched had a forum title that made them officially attached to the company they represented.</li>
<li>All of their plugin reviews I saw were 5 star rated, short reviews for the plugins their company developed or sold through their site. The plugins in question could certainly be that awesome and those reviews are actual representations of their experience but putting 2 and 2 together, it doesn&#8217;t seem that way on paper.</li>
<li>I also discovered an account that provided the same short, 5 star rated reviews for plugins maintained by the same company but without the official forum title. Their reviews for all of the company&#8217;s plugins occurred on the same day.</li>
</ul>
<p>I reached out to the company in question, but received a hostile response via email that was not suitable for print.</p>
<p>On the one hand, company employees would know their own plugins best and would be able to give great reviews. At the same time, why would any plugin author or company need to do that? In order to not contaminate the data, wouldn&#8217;t it be best to view legitimate ratings and reviews from users that are unsolicited? What is there to be gained? The WordPress.org plugins page does have a <a title="http://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/top-rated/" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/top-rated/">Highest Rated</a> plugin section as well as <a title="http://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/popular/" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/popular/">Most Popular</a>, two lists that if a high-ranking could be acquired, would generate more downloads. If the company business model is to offer a pro version of those plugins and each free plugin in the WordPress plugin repository is used as an advertisement to push users to go that direction, then things start to make a little more sense when it comes to financial gain.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know if the company in question or any others with plugins in the repository are paying for 5 star ratings, reviews, telling their employees to give good reviews with 5 star ratings, or trying to do their best to game the systems in place but if you piece together the evidence, it would be easy to build a case that represents that perspective. Not all of the plugin ratings/reviews that I read were suspect. With established plugins, it would take quite a few employees or unique paid reviews to swing the data in a positive direction which has me wondering if it would be worth it?</p>
<p>While I&#8217;ve focused on 5 star ratings with positive reviews consider that just as easily, 1 star ratings with poor reviews can be dished out by a competitor. Another interesting point to consider is that all of the reviews and ratings are attached to user accounts and thus, everything is publicly viewable. It&#8217;s just a matter of piecing together reviews with accounts, and potential companies those people are working for. However, it&#8217;s dangerous to just assume that someone&#8217;s reviews or ratings are based on an agenda and not their personal experience. </p>
<p>When participating in this discussion, I ask that you please refrain from throwing names, companies, and others under the bus if you suspect they are participating in this behavior. Keep the discussion focused on the behavior and not the individuals or companies doing it.</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/RoQvnk9pMwQ" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 24 Sep 2013 23:00:56 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6:"Jeffro";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:45:"WPTavern: Add Favicon Animations to WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9426";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:97:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/rEp3CQ2kXg4/add-favicon-animations-to-wordpress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4037:"<p>Animated favicons are lighting up the web lately with real-time notices for activity. You&#8217;ve probably already seen this in action with websites like Gmail and Facebook open in your browser. It&#8217;s a cleverly devised way to keep you returning to those browser tabs, but favicon animations are not just for major web services anymore.</p>
<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/faviconjs.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/faviconjs.jpg?resize=140%2C140" alt="faviconjs" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9445" /></a><a href="http://lab.ejci.net/favico.js/" target="_blank">Favico.js</a> is an open source script that lets you animate your website&#8217;s favicon with badges, images or videos. As luck would have it, someone has already integrated this script into a plugin for WordPress. <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/favicon-notifications/" title="Favicon Notifications" target="_blank">Favicon Notifications</a> uses favico.js to show the number of unread posts since your viewer&#8217;s last visit. If you already have a favicon in place, all you have to do is activate the plugin and it will begin working immediately.<span id="more-9426"></span></p>
<p>Here&#8217;s an example of what it will look like in the browser when there are new unread posts available:</p>
<div id="attachment_9427" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/notifications.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/notifications.jpg?resize=478%2C26" alt="Example favicon notification" class="size-full wp-image-9427" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Example favicon notification</p></div>
<p>Favicon Notifications will show the number of new posts in the last 30 days since your last visit. It will also show if there is a new post while you are already surfing the website. The plugin requires that your favicon be in .ICO, .PNG or .GIF format and the file should be located on the same domain as your website. If you have any issues, check to make sure that your theme includes the <strong>link rel=&#8221;shortcut icon&#8221;</strong> tag in your site&#8217;s <strong>&#8220;head&#8221;</strong> tag.</p>
<h3>How to Customize Favicon Notifications</h3>
<p>If you want to make changes to the badges and animation style, the file you want to edit is: <em>js/favicon.js</em>. The <a href="http://lab.ejci.net/favico.js/" target="_blank">favico.js</a> documentation details how you can customize the notifications. For example, if you want to change the animation to &#8216;fade&#8217; and the color of the notification to green, you&#8217;d edit the the plugin&#8217;s js/favicon.js file like so:</p>
<pre>
  var favicon = new Favico({
      animation:'fade'
      bgColor : '#5CB85C',
      textColor : '#ff0',
    });
</pre>
<p>In the next version the developer plans to make it easier to customize the notifications by adding more built-in controls, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>4 types of animations</li>
<li>Color settings</li>
<li>Shape settings</li>
<li>Add a custom favicon</li>
<li>Select a time period for the new posts</li>
<li>Select a time period for the favicon update</li>
</ul>
<p>The minute I saw this, I wondered if it could be adapted to work with BuddyPress notifications for real-time updates. It seems like a natural fit. If any of you BuddyPress wizards experiment with that, let me know.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/favicon-notifications/" target="_blank">Favicon Notifications</a> plugin provides a creative way to add some action to your oft-overlooked favicon and is available for free from the WordPress plugin repository. An animated favicon is just a tiny detail but it helps visitors to be aware of fresh content on your site. When was the last time you even thought about your favicon?</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/rEp3CQ2kXg4" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 24 Sep 2013 20:07:46 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:46:"WPTavern: Flywheel Hosting Opens To The Public";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9434";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/5U6Il3jimHU/flywheel-hosting-opens-to-the-public";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3246:"<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/flywheellogo.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/flywheellogo.jpg?resize=179%2C56" alt="Flywheel Logo" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9435" /></a>Flywheel Hosting <a href="http://getflywheel.com/welcome-to-flywheel/" title="http://getflywheel.com/welcome-to-flywheel/">announced on Monday</a> that they have concluded their beta program and are now ready to do business with the public. During the last six months, Flywheel has been in an invitation only beta program giving only certain people with invite codes access to the site. I was one of the lucky individuals to get early access and the thing that struck me was how simple their site management interface was. At the same time, coming from a background of using cPanel to manage domains on a webhosting account, Flywheel&#8217;s simplicity was also its downfall since there was no way to use phpMyAdmin or mess around with MySQL databases. <span id="more-9434"></span></p>
<p>When I interviewed one of the founders of Flywheel Dusty Davidson on WordPress Weekly, as to why they don&#8217;t have tools similar to those provided by cPanel, his response was &#8220;<em>Flywheel takes care of that stuff for you but based on the feedback we received in the beta cycle, we&#8217;ve been able to see how useful database access is for people so we&#8217;ll be launching that feature in the next few weeks</em>&#8220;. </p>
<p>On September 13th, Flywheel launched <a href="http://getflywheel.com/introducing-database-management-video/" title="http://getflywheel.com/introducing-database-management-video/">their database management system</a> which was the most requested feature during the beta program. It&#8217;s not just the run of the mill phpMyAdmin installation. Instead, they have given the database manager the Flywheel treatment meaning it looks great and functions well, just like the rest of the site. I also like how they&#8217;ve added it to their advanced tab instead of placing it on the site manager front page.</p>
<div id="attachment_9437" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FlywheelDatabaseManager.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FlywheelDatabaseManager.jpg?resize=500%2C244" alt="Flywheel Database Manager" class="size-large wp-image-9437" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">A better user experience when managing Databases on Flywheel hosting</p></div>
<p>Congratulations to the Flywheel team for finally launching to the public. If you would like to hear more information about the company, I encourage you to listen to this 45 minute interview I did with Dusty Davidson on <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-118-hey-get-flywheel" title="http://www.wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-118-hey-get-flywheel">Episode 118</a> of WordPress Weekly where you really get a feel for what this company is trying to accomplish and what aspects of the company will differentiate them from the competition. </p>
<p></p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/5U6Il3jimHU" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 24 Sep 2013 18:08:48 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6:"Jeffro";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress.tv: Liesl Barrell: Facebook Promotion";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22713";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/24/liesl-barrell-facebook-promotion/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:644:"<div id="v-swcnKXLZ-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22713/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22713/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22713&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/24/liesl-barrell-facebook-promotion/"><img alt="Liesl Barrell: Facebook Promotion" src="http://videos.videopress.com/swcnKXLZ/video-0f496883d0_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 24 Sep 2013 13:30:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WordPress.tv: Richard Archambault: More Multisite For The Masses";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22690";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/23/richard-archambault-more-multisite-for-the-masses/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:678:"<div id="v-Q9ZrdgdY-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22690/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22690/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22690&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/23/richard-archambault-more-multisite-for-the-masses/"><img alt="Richard Archambault: More Multisite For The Masses" src="http://videos.videopress.com/Q9ZrdgdY/video-c1ab4638bf_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 23 Sep 2013 21:08:25 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"WPTavern: Coming Soon: A Redesigned WordPress Admin Screen Planned for 3.8";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=8988";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:125:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/J3Epbh8ABT8/coming-soon-a-redesigned-wordpress-admin-screen-planned-for-3-8";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7786:"<p>If you use WordPress every day, you may not take much notice of the wp-admin screen anymore. More than likely you&#8217;re quickly clicking through to where you need to go, expecting the same old screen you see on every site. Hold on to your hats, folks, things are about to get exciting in the WordPress admin.  </p>
<p>A talented group of WordPress designers and developers are redesigning the wp-admin screen. The project, led by <a href="https://twitter.com/lessbloat" target="_blank">Dave Martin</a>, goes by the name of &#8220;DASH&#8221; on <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/ui/tag/dash/" target="_blank">make.wordpress.org</a>. It&#8217;s part of the new &#8220;features as plugins&#8221; style of core development that allows teams more flexibility to experiment with new features. <span id="more-8988"></span></p>
<p>Joen Asmussen jumped in to help by submitting mockups based on the team&#8217;s ideas. After several iterations, the results are looking pretty tight:</p>
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/dash-mockup.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/dash-mockup.jpg?resize=560%2C315" alt="dash-mockup" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9367" /></a></p>
<p>Although everything is not yet set in stone, the mockup should give you a good idea of how things are shaping up. You&#8217;ll notice a few distinct changes from the current admin screen:</p>
<ul>
<li>Right Now -> changed to Site Content</li>
<li>QuickPress -> changed to Quick Draft</li>
<li>Quick Draft merged with Recent Drafts</li>
<li>Quick Draft will be a place for drafts, not complete posts</li>
<li>Activity section combines scheduled posts and comments</li>
<li>Header text will experiment with rotating through different languages/idioms</li>
</ul>
<h3>Q&#038;A with WordPress Designer Joen Asmussen</h3>
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/joen1.jpeg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/joen1.jpeg?resize=400%2C267" alt="joen" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9391" /></a>I had the chance to chat with <a href="http://noscope.com/" target="_blank">Joen Asmussen</a>, who provided a look behind the scenes at the process for creating the mockups. By day, Asmussen is a designer at Automattic for the Data team and also works in other areas of WordPress.com. In his spare time, he likes to jump in and help out with core improvements. You may already know him as the designer of <a href="http://noscope.com/2013/four-little-numbers/" target="_blank">Twenty Thirteen</a>, the default theme for WordPress 3.6</p>
<p><strong>Were the results of the <a href="http://wp-survey.polldaddy.com/s/wp-dashboard-questionnaire" target="_blank">wp-admin dashboard questionnaire</a> useful to you in creating the mockups?</strong></p>
<blockquote><p>Very! In order to redesign something, you must first thoroughly understand how people use it, so as such it was tremendously useful. Dave Martin — illustrious project lead for &#8220;Dash&#8221; — who ran the survey, initially sketched out all the ideas we&#8217;ve been working on in part based on that very feedback. This includes merging all the news widgets, rethinking QuickPress, making it all responsive.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Were you inspired by any other application dashboard designs you&#8217;ve seen recently?</strong> </p>
<blockquote><p>Yes and no. Since user interface design is one of my great passions, whenever I see a new UI I almost subconsciously note things I like and dislike. So absolutely it&#8217;s going to be inspired by things I see and like. </p>
<p>The thing about the WordPress dashboard, however, is that it serves a number of particular use cases and needs to be flexible in ways that are unique to the product. For example, it&#8217;s difficult to make all dashboard widgets the same height (like the widgets in the Fitbit dashboard) without making them less useful for sites with a lot of content. </p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Given that the survey found that <a href="http://f.cl.ly/items/1I192L1K1X3h190B0w01/how-often.jpg" target="_blank">92% of users never post with QuickPress</a> and only 8% use it sometimes, why is it still in included in the mockups? Will re-naming and redesigning this feature help to increase its use?</strong> </p>
<blockquote><p>I think it&#8217;s very important to keep in mind that surveys are glimpses into opinions. They can inform directions you want to explore but results can easily be misinterpreted. Does the fact that only 8% of 428 people use the widget &#8220;sometimes&#8221; mean that it should be removed? Does it mean it should be rethought?</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve never been a fan of the widget myself, but the idea of rebranding it &#8220;Quick Draft&#8221; and merging it with &#8220;Recent Drafts&#8221; immediately appealed to me. It&#8217;ll be your own self-hosted Evernote. It won&#8217;t a place for writing quick posts anymore, it&#8217;ll be where you jot down drafts to return to later.</p>
<p>The option to turn it off will of course remain in Screen Options.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Where do you envision plugin developers will be able to hook into the new wp-admin screen? Or is that not in the plans currently?</strong></p>
<blockquote><p>As you may have spotted in the mockups, one ambition for the project is to lay the foundations for an &#8220;activity stream&#8221;, a list of events that happen to your blog. I can think of nothing more appropriate to show in any dashboard than what&#8217;s been happening. Naturally, no WordPress activity stream would be complete without it being highly pluggable, so anyone can add events to the stream. That being said, it&#8217;s a really tricky UI and all efforts are on shipping something great for 3.8, so aspects of the activity stream may have to wait for a future iteration. </p>
<p>Plugins can still hook into the bottom of the &#8220;Right Now&#8221; widget (which is morphing into &#8220;Site Content&#8221;).</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>What is the plan for the dashboard for new WordPress installs that wouldn&#8217;t have any data to populate these various sections? </strong></p>
<blockquote><p>We&#8217;re still working out many details, and much of the UI is still in flux. This is just one area we&#8217;re giving attention at the moment. Obviously Quick Draft won&#8217;t show many previous drafts, &#8220;Site Content&#8221; will show mostly zeroes and there won&#8217;t be any recent comments. We can&#8217;t magically increment any of those sections, but maybe we can have some fun instead. Remember when Gmail would recommend you go to Google News when you&#8217;d emptied your inbox? I thought that was kind of fun. </p>
<p>There&#8217;s also still a welcome screen for fresh users.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Will custom post types be included in the &#8220;Publishing Soon&#8221; section?</strong></p>
<blockquote><p>This has been brought up several times in the chats, and the answer is &#8220;we really want to.&#8221; We want to include custom post types in &#8220;Site Content&#8221; as well. With our eyes fixed on 3.8, I doubt anyone can make promises, but obviously if a developer stepped up and said &#8220;I want to make this happen&#8221;, no-one would stop them. </p></blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/ui/tag/dash/" target="_blank">DASH</a> project team is working hard to have this ready for the WordPress 3.8 release. How long has it been since we&#8217;ve seen any major changes to the admin screen? Do you like where it&#8217;s headed? What would you change? </p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/J3Epbh8ABT8" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:24:50 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:44:"Lloyd: One Year and Ten Months Without Pants";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://foolswisdom.com/?p=84";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"http://foolswisdom.com/2013/09/23/1-and-10-without-pants/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8743:"<p>I finished reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118660633/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1118660633&linkCode=as2&tag=foolswisdomco-20">The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work by <strong>Scott Berkun</strong></a> Thursday night. It&#8217;s already one of my favorite books ever, but I&#8217;m obviously incredibly biased here!</p>
<p>It&#8217;s weird to read a book covering a big chunk of your own life. I was employee 10 at <a href="http://automattic.com/">Automattic</a> and worked there for five of the best years of my life. I was there for most of the time that Berkun was, though it felt like we were at opposites ends of the company. I left Automattic about six months before Berkun left. I wish I had this book to read while I was at Automattic. It would have <strong>shaped my thinking</strong>!</p>
<p>Of course, this is going to be my favorite Berkun book, but there is a huge awkwardness of it all &#8212; are there other business leadership books of this style? has anyone pulled off keeping themselves in it? Berkun comes off as machiavellian, when I don&#8217;t think he really is.</p>
<p>There is a real reason why all autobiographies are incomplete, and great biographies either burn relationships or are written about the finished and the dead.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m eager to hear and read <a href="http://automattic.com/about/">Automatticians,</a> &#8220;formermatticians&#8221;, and other insiders thoughts on the book, particularly expanding on or challenging the history and stories of Automattic that Berkun shares. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, the insights that can be applied regardless of how Scott&#8217;s experiences and perspective align. The book is fully of incredible project management and business leadership insights that will stand on their own through the tests of time.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s only been a week since the release, but I haven&#8217;t seen any reviews that really expand on the history of Automattic.</p>
<p>I do really enjoy how mdawaffe, aka Mike Adams, ends his post &#8220;<a href="http://mdawaffe.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/seven-years-without-pants/" rel="bookmark">Seven Years Without Pants</a>&#8221; with:</p>
<blockquote><p>I’m pretty sure the party was only the eighth time Scott and I had ever met in meatspace (a.k.a. “real life”). A good friend, my former boss, and a formative teacher of mine, Scott and I have only ever seen each other eight times. If you don’t understand how that’s possible, read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1118660633/foolswisdomco-20/">the book</a>.</p></blockquote>
<p>I&#8217;ll update this article with online discussions from insiders as I find them.</p>
<p><strong>Interesting</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://evansolomon.me/">Evan Solomon</a> in &#8220;<a href="https://medium.com/lessons-learned/8076216a30b9">A Two Year Old Conversation Shows Up In a Boo</a>k&#8221;<br />
<blockquote><p>I think [letting someone be employee and reporter at the same time is a] mistake. It puts employees in a difficult and ultimately lose-lose situation to be unsure whether conversations are private or public. It doesn’t bother me much that Scott was frustrated by my communication style, but I don’t think it’s his place to share that frustration with the world any more than it would be my place to talk about my current colleague’s personal habits at work without their permission. I would consider doing that a clear violation of trust.</p></blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Stored<br />
</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>none so far</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Soft</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://raanan.com/2013/09/17/a-book-wordpress-com-the-year-without-pants/">Raanan Bar-Cohen</a><br />
<blockquote><p>&#8220;A bit surreal to read about your own work, and I’ve found over the years that all my colleagues have a great work ethic.</p>
<p>What I like is that Scott hits on a point that I find very true — which is that companies that have big audacious goals such as ours, and give employees freedom to define the methods of achieving them – tend to attract people who are passionate and love what they do. And that combo tends to result in amazing outcomes and companies that have a culture that attracts fantastic talent.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="http://dentedreality.com.au/2013/09/17/the-year-without-pants/">Beau Lebens</a></li>
<li><a href="http://apeatling.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/the-year-without-pants/">Andy Peatling</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/scott-berkun-interview/">WordPress.com Interview</a> by Krista Stevens<br />
<blockquote><p><strong>Berkun</strong>: I was most surprised to rediscover that it’s the fundamentals. If you can build trust, provide clarity, and hire well, every other obstacle can be conquered. My story in The Year Without Pants follows how I tried to achieve those things despite a decade age gap, 100% remote workers, radically different culture, and more, any of which would be terrifying to most managers on their own, including myself.</p></blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="http://alexking.org/blog/2013/09/17/the-year-without-pants">Alex King</a><br />
<blockquote><p>I found Scott’s story to be interesting and self-aware; an introspective and honest account of how his team operated. I am fortunate to be friends (or at least friendly) with many of the people mentioned in the book. Scott’s characterizations of them, their personalities and humor struck me due to their accuracy with my own experiences. This made it easy for me to fully embrace what I was reading.</p></blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="http://paulmaiorana.com/notes/2013/09/the-year-without-pants/">Paul Maiorana</a></li>
<li><a href="http://justhugo.com/2013/09/17/the-year-without-pants/">Hugo Baeta</a></li>
</ol>
<p>Matt mentioned &#8220;This news comes in a fun week generally: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1118660633/foolswisdomco-20/">Scott Berkun’s book about Automattic is out today</a> and getting rave reviews&#8221; in <a href="http://ma.tt/2013/09/more-tiger-secondary/">More Tiger Secondary</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Hoping</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://tonyconrad.wordpress.com/">Tony Conrad</a></li>
<li><a href="http://toni.org/">Toni Schneider</a></li>
<li><a href="http://terrychay.com/">Terry Chay</a></li>
<li><a href="http://boren.nu/">Ryan Boren</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/MrVelvet">Phil Black</a></li>
<li><a href="https://medium.com/@pdavies">Pete Davies</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blog.numenity.org/">Paul Kim</a></li>
<li><a href="http://om.co/">Om Malik</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/nonotate">Noriyko Tate </a></li>
<li><a href="http://noeljackson.com/">Noël Jackson</a></li>
<li><a href="http://nickmomrik.com/">Nick Momrik</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.niallkennedy.com/">Niall Kennedy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://vcmike.wordpress.com/">Mike Hirshland</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/madebypick">Michael Pick</a></li>
<li><a href="http://mayadesai.wordpress.com/">Maya Desai</a></li>
<li><a href="http://mattnt.com/">Matt Thomas</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ma.tt/">Matt Mullenweg</a></li>
<li><a href="http://romanticrobot.net/">Mark Riley</a></li>
<li><a href="http://markjaquith.com/">Mark Jaquith</a></li>
<li><a href="http://weblogtoolscollection.com/">Mark Ghosh</a></li>
<li><a href="http://loriloo.com/">Lori McLeese </a></li>
<li><a href="http://lorelle.wordpress.com/">Lorelle VanFossen</a></li>
<li><a href="http://zxcode.com/">Lenny Lenehan</a></li>
<li><a href="https://josephscott.org/">Joseph Scott</a></li>
<li><a href="http://jaco.by/">John James Jacoby</a></li>
<li><a href="http://jenmylo.com/">Jen Mylo (Jane Wells)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ocaoimh.ie/">Donncha O Caoimh</a></li>
<li><a href="http://foolswisdom.com/tag/wordpress/feed/www.apokalyptik.com/‎">Demitrious Kelly</a></li>
<li><a href="http://darylkoop.com/">Daryl Koopersmith</a></li>
<li><a href="http://chexee.me/">Chelsea Otakan</a></li>
<li><a href="http://barry.wordpress.com/">Barry Abrahamson</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dorman.com/">Anne Dorman</a></li>
<li><a href="http://andy.wordpress.com/">Andy Skelton</a></li>
</ul>
<p>What topics around Automattic and the WordPress.com business are you most interested in learning more about?</p>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/foolswisdom.wordpress.com/84/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/foolswisdom.wordpress.com/84/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=foolswisdom.com&blog=173&post=84&subd=foolswisdom&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:17:17 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Lloyd Dewolf";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:27:"Matt: On the new Simplenote";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21:"http://ma.tt/?p=43125";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"http://ma.tt/2013/09/on-the-new-simplenote/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6096:"<p>Last week we relaunched <a href="http://simplenote.com/">Simplenote</a>, an app <a href="http://ma.tt/2013/01/simplenote-and-simperium/">Automattic acquired</a> along with <a href="http://simperium.com/">Simperium</a> earlier this year. The coverage so far has been really overwhelming with great articles:</p>
<blockquote><p>But, even after my foray into Simplenote alternatives and doing research and trying out other note-taking apps, I’ve stuck with Simplenote as my iOS note-taking app of choice. [...] However, I could consolidate them all into just one app if I had to. And that app would be Simplenote. The reason I’d choose Simplenote is because it’s a quick, easy-to-use app with great search and it has fast, reliable sync.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://shawnblanc.net/2013/09/the-new-simplenote-apps/">Shawn Blanc: The New Simplenote Apps</a></p>
<blockquote><p>Go check it out. For me it was easy – even though I dropped Simplenote, I had kept NVAlt syncing with it in anticipation of an update as good as this one. I launched it, logged in and a few moments later I was back up and running. Best of all, Simplenote is back on my first home screen.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/246231/like-rocky-simplenote-is-back-in-front-after-years-of-neglect/">Charlie Sorrel: Like Rocky, Simplenote Is Back In Front After Years Of Neglect</a></p>
<blockquote><p>Simplenote has always kept the focus on content &#8212; <em>your content</em>. With a bare minimum chrome in its apps, Simplenote has stayed away from flashy gradients, big UI elements and detailed icons and instead, has offered a minimal, mostly white user interface to its users. I liked everything about Simplenote, so paying for its Premium subscription and supporting the service was a no brainer for me.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="https://beautifulpixels.com/macintosh/simplenote-the-perfect-notes-app-suite/">Preshit Deorukhkar: Simplenote — The Perfect Notes App Suite</a></p>
<p>Also the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simplenote/id692867256?ls=1&mt=12">Simplenote for Mac app</a> rising in the app store listing. I am excited about all of this above and beyond what any rational measure would support.</p>
<p>Probably the most comprehensive was by <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/18/4741908/simplenote-reborn-first-great-notes-app-ios-android-mac-web">Ellis Hamburger in the Verge, Simplenote reborn: the first great notes app is back</a>. I&#8217;d recommend reading the entire thing. Ellis asked me a number of questions via email and I&#8217;d like to share the entirety with you here:</p>
<p><strong>What is so compelling about Simplenote, and why exactly was it worth “reviving?”</strong></p>
<p>From the day I first used Simplenote it felt like a breath of fresh air in a crowded sea of cluttered apps. I use and rely on the service every day. We do many things at Automattic, but our core passion is creating great products. When we see something we feel isn&#8217;t our best work it bugs us until we&#8217;re able to loop back and iterate on it &#8212; it&#8217;s a blessing and a curse. This latest iteration of Simplenote on Android, OS X, and iOS is something we&#8217;re all very excited about sharing with the world.</p>
<p><strong>How big a role did Simplenote play in Automattic acquiring Simperium?</strong></p>
<p>It depends on how you look at it: I probably would have never heard of Simperium if it wasn&#8217;t for Simplenote, and the app really demonstrates the power of the Simperium API and the tastefulness of the people who created it. But the bigger interest was in what we could build alongside Fred and Mike on top of Simperium across all our products.</p>
<p><strong>Where do Simplenote and Simperium fit with Automattic? Will any of each service’s features make their way into your other products, like WordPress, or do you intend to operate them separately?</strong></p>
<p>Simplenote and WordPress share one key characteristic: they&#8217;re about writing. They both aspire to become invisible and be a canvas for your creativity. WordPress has succeeded above its competitors year after year because we&#8217;re ruthlessly focused on the experience of the author, and I saw the same spirit in Simplenote. It fits in Automattic like a glove.</p>
<p>One of the keys of Simplenote is, well, its simplicity. I think as we integrate it more with the broader <a href="http://automattic.com/">Automattic ecosystem</a> it&#8217;ll look more like Simplenote inside of WordPress rather than vice versa. It&#8217;s all backed by an easy-to-integrate API so if people want something more complex someone will build a client for that.</p>
<p>Simperium is at the core of several new things we&#8217;re either building or hope to build in the near future. We&#8217;re investing quite a bit to make the service robust and flexible for our needs as a <a href="https://www.quantcast.com/top-sites/US/1">top-ten internet site</a>, and that development will benefit everyone who uses the service much the same way our investment in anti-spam benefits the internet at large through Akismet. You will start to see the Simperium engine make its way into almost everything we do.</p>
<p><strong>Will Simplenote someday be a fruitful business? If so, how?</strong></p>
<p>The beauty of Simplenote being under Automattic&#8217;s wing is that we are already blessed with incredibly fruitful businesses in <a href="http://wordpress.com/">WordPress.com</a>, <a href="http://akismet.com/">Akismet</a>, and <a href="http://vaultpress.com/">VaultPress</a>. The biggest thing I didn&#8217;t like about the old app was the ads, and as you&#8217;ve noticed those are gone in this new version. Our main goal is to pour our heart into something and make it great, then it with the world. I find Simplenote indispensable, delightful, and use it every day, and I hope you will too.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s that, I hope that you <a href="http://simplenote.com/">check out Simplenote and give it a try</a>. It&#8217;s now available for Android, iOS 7, and Mac.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 23 Sep 2013 15:24:32 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Matt Mullenweg";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"WordPress.tv: Brian P. Hoke: jQuery and WordPress: Enhancing Sites with Client-Side Scripting";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22664";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:108:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/23/brian-p-hoke-jquery-and-wordpress-enhancing-sites-with-client-side-scripting/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:734:"<div id="v-HG6rKaM9-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22664/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22664/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22664&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/23/brian-p-hoke-jquery-and-wordpress-enhancing-sites-with-client-side-scripting/"><img alt="Brian P. Hoke: jQuery and WordPress: Enhancing Sites with Client-Side Scripting" src="http://videos.videopress.com/HG6rKaM9/video-10e3a2a955_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 23 Sep 2013 12:30:39 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"WordPress.tv: Shannon Smith: Microsocial: How Tiny Bits of Data Can Make or Break Your Website";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22661";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:110:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/23/shannon-smith-microsocial-how-tiny-bits-of-data-can-make-or-break-your-website/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:737:"<div id="v-md0M1GAh-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22661/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22661/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22661&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/23/shannon-smith-microsocial-how-tiny-bits-of-data-can-make-or-break-your-website/"><img alt="Shannon Smith: Microsocial: How Tiny Bits of Data Can Make or Break Your Website" src="http://videos.videopress.com/md0M1GAh/video-07830eb522_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 23 Sep 2013 11:46:55 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"WP iPhone: WordPress Featured in 90+ App Stores Worldwide";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"http://ios.wordpress.org/?p=1487";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"http://ios.wordpress.org/2013/09/20/wordpress-featured/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3010:"<p><a href="http://wpiphone.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/wordpress-ios-social-networking-featured-screenshot-large.png"><img src="http://wpiphone.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/wordpress-ios-social-networking-featured-screenshot-take3.png?w=594&h=323" alt="WordPress for iOS featured in the US App Store on September 20, 2013" width="594" height="323" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1488" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s been an exciting few days for us working on the WordPress app for iOS. With the launch of iOS 7, the app ended up in the spotlight of a flurry of similar announcements and was listed among the best iOS 7 apps in several publications &#8212; one example: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-7-app-design-2013-9?op=1"><br />
&#8220;Here&#8217;s How iOS 7 Has Already Changed The Look Of Your Apps&#8221; (Business Insider)</a>.</p>
<p>Today we&#8217;re excited to share another reason to celebrate. We just found out that the app is featured as one of the top apps in the Social Networking category in the U.S. App Store! This, along with the app being highlighted in the &#8220;Apps Designed for iOS 7&#8243; section in 92 stores worldwide to date. Of course we&#8217;re extremely proud of this achievement. Major kudos once again to <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/hugobaeta">Hugo Baeta</a> and <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/sendhil">Sendhil Panchadsaram</a> who worked together making this release happen.</p>
<h3>The Beauty and the Beast</h3>
<p>While we&#8217;re super excited to see the app getting recognized in both App Stores and all around the web, the iOS 7 release still had some <a href="https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/issues?milestone=5&state=open">lingering issues</a> &#8212; some more severe than others. We&#8217;re working hard on fixing these and have already issued a quick bug fix update (<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordpress/id335703880?mt=8">3.8.1</a>) that, among other things, takes care of the annoying categories bug for those of you still running iOS 6.</p>
<p>To see a full list of open issues and follow our progress crunching through them, <a href="https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/issues?milestone=5&state=open">check out the GitHub project</a>. If you have any more details on any of the bugs or &#8212; heaven forbid &#8212; you find a new one, please let us know <a href="http://ios.forums.wordpress.org">in the forums</a> or directly on <a href="https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/issues?milestone=5&state=open">GitHub</a> as soon as you see it. The more details we know the sooner we can get to work.</p>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wpiphone.wordpress.com/1487/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wpiphone.wordpress.com/1487/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ios.wordpress.org&blog=3882653&post=1487&subd=wpiphone&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 20 Sep 2013 21:08:54 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Isaac Keyet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"WPTavern: Introducing WordPress Post Forking: Version Control For Writers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9336";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:124:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/7wQSVIW3OJE/introducing-wordpress-post-forking-version-control-for-writers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:9583:"<p>The WordPress platform has been helping writers publish their thoughts to the web for years. Though it now powers many large newsrooms and other organizations, the posting process still caters entirely to the individual writer working by himself on a post. Collaboration for multiple content creators is non-existent within the core right now.</p>
<p>The WordPress Editorial workflow is one dimensional  in that only one person can be editing at a time. Although WordPress has a fancy new way of showing you who&#8217;s working on the post, you actually have to kick that person out to take over editing. The new Post Locking feature in WordPress 3.6, though useful to prevent overwriting, is actually the antithesis of collaboration:<span id="more-9336"></span></p>
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/post-locking.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/post-locking.png?resize=560%2C181" alt="post-locking" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9350" /></a></p>
<p>There is also a limitation in the current WordPress publishing process that you may not have noticed. Once a post is published, the only way to make edits is to push changes immediately, which precludes scheduling updates to the content and/or further collaboration. </p>
<p>These limitations are what drove <a href="http://aaron.jorb.in" target="_blank">Aaron Jorbin</a> and a small group of developers to create the <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/post-forking/">Post Forking</a> plugin.</p>
<h3>What is Post Forking?</h3>
<p>Post Forking is the solution to one-dimensional content creation. It opens the door for collaboration between multiple writers in WordPress. Essentially, the idea is that you can create a &#8220;fork&#8221; of the current post and make your own changes which can be submitted as a proposed revision and merged back into the final version.</p>
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/jorbin.jpeg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/jorbin.jpeg?resize=150%2C150" alt="jorbin" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-9346" /></a>I had the chance to chat with Aaron Jorbin and asked him what inspired the creation of a plugin that would offer git-style version control for words. He replied, &#8220;The first person I heard talk about this concept was Greg Linch, who spoke about <a href="http://www.greglinch.com/2010/07/quick-thoughts-on-journalism-and-version-control.html" target="_blank">Journalism and Version Control</a> at Bar Camp News Innovation Philadelphia. Fast Forward to my friend and former Google Summer of Code mentee, Ben Balter, mentioning that he had started coding something up and asking if I wanted to take a look. It was a working prototype of what became version 0.1.&#8221;</p>
<p>The <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/post-forking/" target="_blank">Post Forking</a> plugin&#8217;s current features enable some new and interesting ways for online publishers to collaborate:</p>
<ul>
<li>Allowing users without edit or publish post capabilities to edit and submit changes to content (similar to GitHub’s pull request system)</li>
<li>Collaborative editing (by resolving two users’ conflicted saves – Wired’s example)</li>
<li>Saving draft changes of already-published content</li>
<li>Scheduling pending changes to already-published content</li>
</ul>
<p>This is a basic set of features. Sure, it&#8217;s better than nothing but Jorbin recognizes the current usability defects in the plugin and has a vision for much more.</p>
<h3>Taking Post Forking to the Next Level</h3>
<p>The Post Forking plugin has been downloaded more than 1,000 times and the community is starting to become more interested in the potential of this new way to collaborate. But Jorbin wants to take the plugin to the next level.  He recently listed the project on <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wordpress-post-forking" target="_blank">Indiegogo</a> and has chosen to adopt the <a href="http://teleogistic.net/2012/05/the-patronage-model-for-free-software-freelancers/" target="_blank">patronage model</a> to help fund improvements to the plugin. His reasoning is, &#8220;Creating software costs money.  I want to do user testing, which costs money and also want to be able to focus on it for a little while without needing to worry about how to pay my  rent.  When people contribute, in code, documentation, support or with cash, it makes them a part of the team.&#8221; </p>
<p>Getting funding this way is a smart approach.  Rather than sit around being frustrated by a lack of time to work on the project, he is allowing the WordPress community to demonstrate its interest and become part of something larger. Collaboration is the whole idea, after all, and Jorbin said that he has been inspired by the response: &#8220;Seeing how the community has responded has felt amazing.  I know my goal isn&#8217;t low and getting 20% of the way there after one day validated the idea that the community can fund open source plugins and a commercial model isn&#8217;t the only way to develop great plugins.&#8221;   </p>
<p>What new features will be added to the plugin with this round of funding? Jorbin&#8217;s first priority is usability, followed by better support for meta and taxonomies:</p>
<blockquote><p>The first goal is to make it more usable and easily understandable by writers and contents creators.  Unless you are a developer or have spent a lot of time around developers, the concept of forking and merging might be foreign. Features such as scheduling merges can be hard to find and the manual merging page is hard to use.  Once the usability concerns are addressed, the highest priorities are integration with revisions and forking/merging meta, taxonomies and everything else connected to posts and pages. </p></blockquote>
<h3>Practical Uses For Post Forking</h3>
<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/fork.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/fork.png?resize=300%2C290" alt="fork" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-9360" /></a>Wired Magazine once conducted an experiment wherein they put a <a href="https://github.com/WiredEnterprise/Lord-of-the-Files" target="_blank">story in process</a> on github for anyone to contribute to and improve, resulting in their collaboration article: <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/github/all/1" target="_blank">Lord of the Files: How GitHub Tamed Free Software (And More)</a>. Although the experiment was considered a success, the entry level geek knowledge of git required for contribution poses a definite hurdle in the daily application of story versioning. Post Forking is the answer to this.</p>
<p>If the idea of post forking is new to you, perhaps you&#8217;re wondering how the average Joe might make use of it. The benefits of forking posts do not just apply to major news rooms. Jorbin envisions benefits for a wide range of WordPress users:</p>
<blockquote><p>On my personal site, I can imagine scheduling a fork to merge on my speaking page the day after I speak to move something from the future to the past.  A company could have their API documentation in WordPress and prepare forks that they merge upon releasing an update.  A team could write a book with all edits suggested by authors being cleared by the editor. It also could be used in many of the ways Wired has used it, to fix grammar and spelling mistakes and also for people to translate your writing for you. </p></blockquote>
<p>If the idea of post forking catches on and becomes a more seamless part of the WordPress editorial workflow, Jorbin believes it could someday be a useful addition to the core. </p>
<blockquote><p>If it&#8217;s highly usable and people are actually using it, it seems to me to be a natural fit for WordPress core.  WordPress is about democratizing publishing.  What is more democratic than participation and collaboration?</p></blockquote>
<p>The first step towards making this a reality for users of the plugin is to get funding. This will allow Jorbin to devote time to making this more polished and usable for a larger section of publishers who may not be familiar with git terminology.</p>
<h3>Help Fund Post Forking Improvements</h3>
<p>You can help this plugin become an awesome tool for the WordPress community. Can you imagine the days of writing code before git collaboration was a possibility? That&#8217;s where we are right now as writers, locked out of posts and waiting turns while the work is going on.  A fully featured and usable Post Forking plugin has the potential to radically change the editorial workflow for thousands of WordPress publishers around the world. </p>
<p>If you&#8217;re inspired by the possibilities of more collaboration in WordPress, please <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wordpress-post-forking" target="_blank">contribute to the Post Forking project</a> on Indiegogo. There is also a <a href="https://github.com/post-forking/post-forking/issues" target="_blank">bug tracker for feature requests and bug reports</a> where you can contribute. Join the <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/post-forking" target="_blank">mailing list</a> jump in at the #wp-postforking chatroom on IRC. Jorbin will be starting weekly chats to organize contributors. </p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/7wQSVIW3OJE" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 20 Sep 2013 20:35:12 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"Dougal Campbell: Make Your WordPress Site Talk Like a Pirate";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"http://dougal.gunters.org/?p=73162";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2013/09/19/make-wordpress-site-talk-like-pirate/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1968:"<div class="featured-image align-right"><img width="200" height="240" src="http://dougal.gunters.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/pirates-ye-be-warned-200x240.gif" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="pirates-ye-be-warned" /></div><p>It&#8217;s been 9 years since I first released my <a href="http://dougal.gunters.org/plugins/text-filter-suite/">Text Filter Suite</a> plugin. The TFS is actually a collection of a &#8220;TFS Core&#8221; plugin, plus several sub-plugins, including the infamous &#8220;TFS Pirate&#8221;, which will turn your posts and comments into pirate-speak for<a href="http://www.talklikeapirate.com/"> International Talk Like a Pirate Day</a>.</p>
<p>Over the years, I have been meaning to refactor the code. It really should be one single plugin, with an options screen to enable individual components, choose which things to filter (titles, content, comments, sidebar text, pages/posts, etc). Also, I&#8217;ve been wanting to add shortcodes to allow you to apply filters (or exclusions) to specific portions of your text. But, the code has continued to work fine, only needing minor adjustments here and there over almost a decade of use. Huzzah for the stability of the WordPress Plugin API!</p>
<p>Anyways, even though TLAPD is well past the half-way mark in most places, it&#8217;s still not too late to get in on the fun. Install the plugin, and enable TFS-Core and TFS-Pirate. Boom.</p>
<p>BTW, my plugin has been ported to Drupal and Joomla, if you happen to swing that way.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Original Article: <a href="http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2013/09/19/make-wordpress-site-talk-like-pirate/">Make Your WordPress Site Talk Like a Pirate</a>
<a href="http://dougal.gunters.org">Dougal Campbell&#039;s geek ramblings - WordPress, web development, and world domination.</a></p><div class="yarpp-related-rss yarpp-related-none">
<img src="http://yarpp.org/pixels/5db43ee24c4f1e1d0e45d08cc91b0130" />
</div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 19 Sep 2013 21:06:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"Dougal Campbell";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: Automatically Add Google Authorship To WordPress Posts With Jetpack 2.5";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9305";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:133:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/vmrcAGAZpbw/automatically-add-google-authorship-to-wordpress-posts-with-jetpack-2-5";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5384:"<p><a href="http://jetpack.me/2013/09/19/jetpack-2-5/" target="_blank">Jetpack 2.5</a> was released today with a staggering array of new integration features for Google products and services. On top of all that the team has added VideoPress integration and the handy ability to embed Facebook posts directly within WordPress posts/pages. The exciting additions for all the Google junkies out there include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Post comments via your Google+ account</li>
<li>Connect Google+ Profiles to authors</li>
<li>A new Share to Google+ Button</li>
<li>Embed Google content in posts/pages, including  Google Calendars, Google Documents, and Google Maps</li>
</ul>
<p>I can understand not caring a bit about these features if you&#8217;re not big on Google products or Facebook posts. However, one feature in particular stands out as being very valuable for online publishers. Even if you&#8217;re not active on Google+ and could care less about embedding Google products, I&#8217;d like to highlight the benefits of turning on authorship.<br />
<span id="more-9305"></span></p>
<h3>Jetpack Makes It Easy to Add Google Authorship to Your Posts</h3>
<p>Jetpack now provides one of the easiest and most convenient ways to add the <a href="http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/authorship/" target="_blank">Google authorship feature</a> to your WordPress posts. The 2.5 release makes it simple to connect your profile. If you&#8217;re not familiar with authorship, it&#8217;s the way by which Google determines the author of a post and then shows all the fancy extras in the search results: </p>
<div id="attachment_9315" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/cutts.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/cutts.jpg?resize=472%2C280" alt="Google authorship in action" class="size-full wp-image-9315" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Google authorship in action</p></div>
<p>This extra information is very valuable for getting people to click on your posts in their search results. The best part is that Jetpack creates this official connection between your posts and your profile, without you having to add another plugin. When you activate the Google+ Profile connection in Jetpack, the plugin will do the following, according to the docs:</p>
<ul>
<li>The display name that appears on your posts and comments will display your Google+ Real Name (the name you have on your Google+ Profile).</li>
<li>A link to your site is added on your Google+ Profile under the &#8216;Contributor To&#8217; section.</li>
<li>On single Post/Page views only, a Google+ section is added to the Sharing/Like details on your posts that includes a link to your Google+ Profile, a button so people can Follow you on Google+, and your Google avatar (the picture you set on your Google+ Profile).</li>
<li>Verification code will be added to your posts to confirm to Google that you are the author of those posts.</li>
</ul>
<p>All of the above actions are done automatically for you, which is a huge improvement over other ways plugins have attempted to add authorship in the past.</p>
<h4>SEO Benefits for Linking Your Google+ Profile to WordPress Posts</h4>
<p>When you link up your Google+ profile to your website, you&#8217;ll receive a number of benefits that make your content appear more official when found in search engines:</p>
<ul>
<li>See analytics for your content in search.</li>
<li>Distinguish and validate your content in search results.</li>
<li>Get more followers on Google+.</li>
<li>Help readers discover your other content on the web.</li>
</ul>
<p>Google Authorship can actually improve your rankings. It&#8217;s something you want to have in place, especially if you have a frequent problem with other sites on the internet reprinting your content as their own.</p>
<h4>Support For Multi-Author WordPress Blogs</h4>
<p>Jetpack&#8217;s new feature also works smoothly with multi-author blogs. Each author can link up his own Google+ profile, without having to go through the email verification process. When you navigate to the <em>Settings -> Sharing </em>page, it may appear that you can only link up one Google+ profile. That is not the case. Jetpack actually recognizes who is logged in and will offer the option for each author on the site. </p>
<p>Turning this feature on also adds your profile to the sharing buttons, as shown here where we&#8217;ve turned it on:</p>
<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/sharing-buttons.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/sharing-buttons.jpg?resize=536%2C75" alt="sharing-buttons" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9324" /></a></p>
<p>As an avid Android user, Google products practically run my life and I am thrilled to see that <a href="http://jetpack.me/2013/09/19/jetpack-2-5/" target="_blank">Jetpack 2.5</a> is more tightly integrated with Google services. I realize that may not be the case for everyone. While you may not be crazy about embedding Google calendars or letting people comment via Google+, you can still take advantage of the solid SEO boost that you will get from adding authorship to your WordPress posts. </p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/vmrcAGAZpbw" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 19 Sep 2013 20:01:50 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WordPress.tv: Erik Wolf: Grow Your Business Now: Maximize Marketing Efficiencies With WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22569";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:113:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/18/erik-wolf-grow-your-business-now-maximize-marketing-efficiencies-with-wordpress-2/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:741:"<div id="v-9Ci0qCht-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22569/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22569/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22569&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/18/erik-wolf-grow-your-business-now-maximize-marketing-efficiencies-with-wordpress-2/"><img alt="Erik Wolf: Grow Your Business Now: Maximize Marketing Efficiencies With WordPress" src="http://videos.videopress.com/9Ci0qCht/video-1dad2e0b06_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 19 Sep 2013 03:07:11 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"WPTavern: The Daily Plugin – HashTag Aggregators, Featured Images for Categories and New Display Plugins";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9247";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:153:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/96Jfcq3hRic/the-daily-plugin-hashtag-aggregators-featured-images-for-categories-and-new-display-plugins";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5909:"<p>It&#8217;s the mid-week rush, and the plugins have been flowing fast and furious from the WordPress Plugin Repository. We&#8217;ve got a number of really good new plugins to talk about today, but first, please remember that every plugin acts differently. It&#8217;s important to test and re-test any new plugin that you plan to use regularly, especially if it is on a client site. That being said, let&#8217;s get plugged in!</p>
<p><a title="Tagregator" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/tagregator/" target="_blank">Tagregator</a> is a multi-functional content aggregator that automatically creates new posts based on #hashtags from a compilation of different sources. Though right now it only functions with Twitter, there are future plans to develop with inclusion for Instagram and Flickr. What this would allow you to do is create an &#8220;as it happens&#8221; set of posts based around an event, a specific cause, or any other ideas that come to mind.<span id="more-9247"></span></p>
<p><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/pageshowcaserboxes.png" rel="thumbnail"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-9252" alt="Page Showcaser Boxes" src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/pageshowcaserboxes.png?resize=150%2C150" /></a><a title="Page Showcaser Boxes" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/page-showcaser-boxes/" target="_blank">Page Showcaser Boxes</a> finally give the PAGE their proper respect when being shown in context of other pages or posts. Sure, there are a million &#8220;related post&#8221; plugins out there, but the page gets no love in the plugin world. That may have changed with the induction of Page Showcaser Boxes. This plugin uses shortcodes to display a clean, tidy preview of a specific page or groups of pages. You can use Page Showcaser Boxes to highlight service pages within a blog post of the same subject, or simply use it to highlight the latest job openings at a company. The possibilities are limitless.</p>
<p><a title="Featured Images for Categories" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/featured-images-for-categories/" target="_blank">Featured Images for Categories</a> by Peter Schilling allows you the ability to add featured images for not only categories, but tags as well. This is a really powerful way to take your content archives to the next level. From creating subject matter images to city images that you may be tagging in the context of your post, this is a plugin that I will be using to experiment with a lot of different types of sites and theme options. When combined with category and tag meta data plugins, this transforms your WordPress install into a contextually relevant graphic presentation which integrates beautifully with the content you write. Though it is limited to tags and categories in the free version, I&#8217;d love to see this work with Author archive pages as well. There is a PRO version of this plugin as well that includes a bit more functionality, like custom taxonomies, a new widget to feature specific terms as the conduit for pulling images in a widget area and full support for all registered image sizes that are set up in your WordPress theme. Despite the existence of the pro version, the repository edition is a good plugin out of the box with enough functionality to deliver a very good result.</p>
<p><a title="Unique Cursor" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/unique-cursor/" target="_blank">Unique Cursor</a> gives you the chance to relive the glory days of the internet right on your own WordPress installation. Intrigue your site viewers with popular cursor designs such as the Zelda Sword, Skull and Crossbones, The Starship Enterprise, or any of hundreds of cursors freely available online in .cur file format. Though you already have your option of nearly 50 cursors already contained within this plugin.</p>
<p><a title="Skype Status Ajax Refresh" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/skype-status-ajax-refresh/" target="_blank">Skype Status AJAX refresh</a> helps to let site visitors reach you on Skype with a status message that refreshes itself via Ajax so that a full page refresh is not required to maintain your true online status. While I&#8217;m not one to personally advertise my Skype status for anyone to interrupt me at will, I can see the practical purpose for a business or service provider to add Skype as a means of contact on their &#8220;contact us&#8221; page. The plugin allows you to use your own custom online status images that best match your theme. I would have liked to have seen a shortcode enabled version that allowed for multiple Skype ID statuses to be used in a company directory format that could be added to each person&#8217;s contact information on the company directory page. It&#8217;s certainly something for custom theme developers to consider as well.</p>
<p><a title="Pricing Table Extended" href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/pricing-table-extended" target="_blank">Pricing Table Extended</a> brings several uniquely styled pricing table formats into a compact WordPress plugin. If you have a product, service, or bundle that you want to present in multi-priced tiers, this may be worth investigating. Pricing Table Extended gives you several options when constructing your price tables. From comparisons to X and check mark graphics, I was able to incorporate several different pricing models and plan packages in a short amount of time without touching a speck of code or CSS.</p>
<p>Please leave your comments and questions right here on WPTavern, or give me a shout on Twitter <a title="Marcus Couch on Twitter" href="https://twitter.com/marcuscouch">@marcuscouch</a>. I&#8217;m curious to see the most inventive use of the plugins I&#8217;ve described today. Let me know how you use them!</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/96Jfcq3hRic" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 19 Sep 2013 00:06:17 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Marcus Couch";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"WPTavern: New Book About WordPress.com: “The Year Without Pants” Is On Sale Today";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9269";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:130:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/DPbNrl1Px5U/new-book-about-wordpress-com-the-year-without-pants-is-on-sale-today";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2945:"<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ywp.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ywp.jpg?resize=300%2C300" alt="ywp" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-9270" /></a>Scott Berkun&#8217;s eagerly awaited book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Without-Pants-WordPress-com-ebook/dp/B00DVJXI4M/" target="_blank">The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work</a></em> is on sale today on Amazon. This is a behind-the-scenes look at how the team at WordPress.com is successfully using a new way of working that doesn&#8217;t involve emails, offices, boring meetings or any of the other things that make work a drag. If you&#8217;ve never worked remotely or hope to work remotely someday, this book will give you an idea of how <a href="http://automattic.com/" target="_blank">Automattic</a> employees do it while maintaining a high level of productivity.<span id="more-9269"></span></p>
<p>Do people read books anymore? You bet your sweet bippy they do! In fact, Berkun&#8217;s book has already received <a href="http://scottberkun.com/2013/list-of-year-without-pants-reviews-mentions/" target="_blank">50+ positive reviews</a>, just one day after launching into the market. It&#8217;s also currently the<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/355561011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_3_3" target="_blank"> #1 book on organizational behavior</a> on Amazon. <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11227681/YearWithoutPants-Sample.pdf" target="_blank">Read the first chapter for free</a> to get a taste of this fast-paced, exciting story. </p>
<p>Both Jeff and I will be reading <em>The Year Without Pants</em> and giving you a review, so stay tuned and make sure you&#8217;re subscribed to the Tavern feed. We&#8217;re also hoping to have Scott Berkun on our WordPress Weekly podcast in the coming days to discuss the book. </p>
<p>You can follow conversations about <em>The Year Without Pants</em> on Twitter using the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nopants&src=hash" target="_blank">#nopants</a>. Incidentally, that hashtag will land you in a lot of interesting tangents as well. ;)</p>
<p><em>The Year Without Pants</em> book release comes just a day after <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/wordpress-com-is-ranked-8-for-internet-traffic-in-the-us" target="_blank">WordPress.com was ranked #8 for monthly traffic in the US</a>, passing Yahoo, Pinterest, Tumbler.com and others to make the top 10. Huge congrats to <a href="https://twitter.com/berkun" target="_blank">Scott</a> for getting this book launched and for putting WordPress.com&#8217;s story out there to inspire others to work differently.  Automattic&#8217;s unique approach to work is a story worth telling and we think you&#8217;re going to enjoy it. </p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/DPbNrl1Px5U" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Sep 2013 22:27:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"WP iPhone: WordPress is Now Ready for iOS 7";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"http://ios.wordpress.org/?p=1467";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:58:"http://ios.wordpress.org/2013/09/18/wordpress-ios-7-ready/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3053:"<p>Apple is releasing iOS 7 today, and for the past few months we&#8217;ve worked on an update that goes great with it.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-1468" alt="announcement-ios7-02" src="http://wpiphone.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/announcement-ios7-02.png?w=512&h=475" width="512" height="475" /></p>
<p>Quoting <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/hugobaeta/">Hugo Baeta</a>, who has been leading the design aspects of this release:</p>
<blockquote><p>The app now uses the Open Sans typeface, the open-source font that works so well on WordPress.com. We also updated all the colors, bringing a brighter, fresher feel to the app experience. (And while we were at it, we fixed a few pesky bugs.) We think you’ll find the new app experience cheerful, consistent, and intuitive.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordpress/id335703880?mt=8">Grab the new version on the App Store</a>!<br />
<small>Compatible with iOS 6+</small></p>
<h3>What&#8217;s next?</h3>
<p>We wanted to focus this release on iOS 7 only, but we have a few other improvements coming up: a new theme selector, better media management, and visual editor, as well as other improvements to existing features, including a refresh of the iPad version.</p>
<div id="attachment_1476" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://wpiphone.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/announcement-ios7-01.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1476" alt="WordPress for iOS App Icon Fall 2013" src="http://wpiphone.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/announcement-ios7-01.png?w=594&h=255" width="594" height="255" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">The new app icon</p></div>
<p>A huge thanks to the eight contributors who worked on this release: <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/hugobaeta" target="_blank">@hugobaeta</a>, <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/sendhil" target="_blank">@sendhil</a>, <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/koke" target="_blank">@koke</a>, <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/astralbodies" target="_blank">@astralbodies</a>, <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/irbrad" target="_blank">@irbrad</a>, <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/h4xnoodle" target="_blank">@h4xnoodle</a>, <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/daniloercoli" target="_blank">@daniloercoli</a>, and <a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/isaackeyet" target="_blank">@isaackeyet</a>.</p>
<p>If you would like to get involved with WordPress for iOS development, drop us a line at <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/mobile">make.wordpress.org/mobile</a> and grab a copy of the code at <a href="https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS">github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS</a>.</p>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wpiphone.wordpress.com/1467/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wpiphone.wordpress.com/1467/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ios.wordpress.org&blog=3882653&post=1467&subd=wpiphone&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:41:52 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Koke";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WordPress.tv: Ross Johnson: The Overlap Of Emotion And Usability";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22534";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/17/ross-johnson-the-overlap-of-emotion-and-usability/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:684:"<div id="v-O8yhXVAs-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22534/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22534/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22534&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/17/ross-johnson-the-overlap-of-emotion-and-usability/"><img alt="Ross Johnson: The Overlap Of Emotion And Usability" src="http://videos.videopress.com/O8yhXVAs/video-3ec2cf57e0_scruberthumbnail_0.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Sep 2013 03:01:35 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:104:"WordPress.tv: Becky Davis: From Pixel to User – Creating Themes That Satisfy The Design And Are Usable";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22531";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:117:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/17/becky-davis-from-pixel-to-user-creating-themes-that-satisfy-the-design-and-are-usable/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:754:"<div id="v-xuCohrMV-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22531/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22531/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22531&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/17/becky-davis-from-pixel-to-user-creating-themes-that-satisfy-the-design-and-are-usable/"><img alt="Becky Davis: From Pixel to User – Creating Themes That Satisfy The Design And Are Usable" src="http://videos.videopress.com/xuCohrMV/video-37424005c7_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Sep 2013 01:51:44 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:45:"Joseph: WordCamp Salt Lake City 2013 Schedule";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"https://josephscott.org/?p=9080";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"https://josephscott.org/archives/2013/09/wordcamp-salt-lake-city-2013-schedule/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:451:"<p>If you have been waiting until the last minute to register for <a href="http://2013.slc.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp SLC 2013</a> because the schedule hadn&#8217;t been posted yet, now is your time :-)</p>
<p>The <a href="http://2013.slc.wordcamp.org/schedule/">schedule for WordCamp SLC 2013</a> is now live on the site.  You can still <a href="http://2013.slc.wordcamp.org/registration/">register</a>, the whole day is only $20 and includes lunch.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 Sep 2013 22:35:07 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Joseph Scott";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"WPTavern: WordPress.com Is Ranked #8 For Internet Traffic in the US";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9232";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:118:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/vGJJxIwe2Fc/wordpress-com-is-ranked-8-for-internet-traffic-in-the-us";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3784:"<p>WordPress.com has just passed Yahoo for the #8 spot on Quantcast&#8217;s assessment of US internet traffic with 72,868,680 monthly visits. In these most <a href="https://www.quantcast.com/top-sites" target="_blank">recent rankings</a> posted, WordPress.com edges out Yahoo, Microsoft, Yelp, Pinterest, and Tumblr.com in traffic to claim its spot among the top ten. </p>
<div id="attachment_9233" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/wordpress8.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/wordpress8.jpg?resize=449%2C363" alt="Source: Quantcast 9.17.2013" class="size-full wp-image-9233" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Source: Quantcast 9.17.2013</p></div>
<p>Shortly following his announcement on Twitter, Matt Mullenweg replied to inquiries about the stats, noting that these figures don&#8217;t even account for mapped domains. Quantcast only takes sub-domains of wordpress.com into account.<br />
<span id="more-9232"></span></p>
<h3>WordPress.com Monthly Visits Have Increased by 45% in the Past Year</h3>
<p>Looking back at internet archives of Quantcasts&#8217; data, you can see that WordPress.com was ranked #21 in September of 2011. In 2012, it climbed to <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120918130831/http://www.quantcast.com/top-sites" target="_blank">#20 with 50,146,992 monthly visitors</a>. <strong>In the span of just one year, WordPress.com has jumped 12 places in rank and has increased its monthly visitors in the US by 45%.</strong> It&#8217;s no wonder that investment firms Tiger Global and Iconiq are <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/09/17/tiger-global-ups-investment-in-creator-of-wordpress/" target="_blank">increasing their stakes</a> in Automattic.</p>
<p>This is an exciting day for the team at Automattic and the WordPress community in general. The news comes alongside new data showing that <a href="http://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_management/all/q" target="_blank">19.9% of websites are powered by WordPress</a> and very soon these numbers will surpass 20%, if they haven&#8217;t already. That means that 1 in 5 people or companies are making their home on the web using freely available, GPL-licensed software.</p>
<h3>What Do These Numbers Mean For the WordPress Community in General?</h3>
<p>If you&#8217;re a developer or designer who is building your business around WordPress software, the recent data about WordPress usage around the world should encourage you. WordPress expertise is in high demand. More than likely people are already banging on your door asking for WordPress help and will continue to do so in the future.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re a student, wondering where to apply your talents and wanting to jump into an open source project, WordPress is looking pretty promising right now. While contributing to open source you can improve the software for millions of people and acquire some marketable skills while you&#8217;re at it. </p>
<p>Bottom line is that the WordPress mission to democratize publishing is working. Every year more people are choosing WordPress software to help them publish their own thoughts to the web. If you&#8217;re a contributor submitting patches to the core, creating new features, helping with documentation, volunteering in the forums or in some other capacity, you are making a real difference for all those sites that depend on this software. Here at the Tavern we love to shine the spotlight on these folks who are contributors. Everything you do to improve the WordPress experience helps to give a voice to millions of people around the world.</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/vGJJxIwe2Fc" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 Sep 2013 22:05:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:26:"Matt: More Tiger Secondary";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21:"http://ma.tt/?p=43120";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42:"http://ma.tt/2013/09/more-tiger-secondary/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3525:"<p>It&#8217;s only been a few months <a href="http://ma.tt/2013/05/automattic-secondary/">since May when Tiger Global led a round purchasing about $50M of Automattic stock from existing shareholders</a>,  but they are back and have led a $75M purchase of Automattic stock, this time entirely from our early investor <a href="http://polaris.vc/">Polaris</a>. (There were a few individuals in the first round, and ICONIQ joined investing in this round.)</p>
<p>Read also: <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/09/17/tiger-global-ups-investment-in-creator-of-wordpress/">Evelyn Rusli in the Wall Street Journal &#8220;Tiger Global Ups Investment in Creator of WordPress.com&#8221;</a>.</p>
<p>Until now Polaris had been Automattic&#8217;s largest investor, and second largest shareholder. <a href="http://vcmike.wordpress.com/">Mike Hirshland</a> wrote the biggest checks in our 2006 and 2008 rounds (the only primary capital Automattic has raised) and served on our board until 2011 when he left the firm and we were lucky to be joined by <a href="http://www.polarispartners.com/team/member/dave-barrett/">Dave Barrett</a>. Over the years I&#8217;ve had the pleasure of spending time and getting great feedback from a number of people associated with the firm including <a href="http://ryanspoon.com/">Ryan Spoon</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Metcalfe">Bob Metcalfe</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Arnold_(venture_capitalist)">Steve Arnold</a>, and <a href="http://www.polarispartners.com/team/member/alan-spoon/">Alan Spoon</a>. Although they&#8217;ll no longer be on the board Polaris will continue to be a major shareholder, retaining about a third of their stake. Now that Automattic has been locked in as a win for their portfolio I hope they&#8217;ll continue to be involved for many years to come.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m glad to be even more fully aligned with Tiger. I think it says a lot to their excitement in the company that just a few months after joining the family and learning more about the company they significantly increased their stake, and at a significant bump in valuation. Their deep resources, market experience, and long-term outlook make them an ideal partner for the next phase of Automattic and the continued growth of the WordPress ecosystem. What we&#8217;re building will take time and it won&#8217;t be easy, but things worth doing seldom are.</p>
<p>This news comes in a fun week generally: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1118660633/">Scott Berkun&#8217;s book about Automattic is out today</a> and getting rave reviews, <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/379938670016741376">WordPress.com just passed Yahoo in the US Quantcast rankings</a> (and that doesn&#8217;t include custom mapped domains), we&#8217;re <a href="http://simplenote.com/">relaunching Simplenote for iOS 7 and Mac</a> after the Android update last week, WordPress is on the cusp of <a href="http://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_management/all/q">cracking 20% of websites</a>, we just <a href="http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/eventbrite-themes-widgets/">announced a partnership with Eventbrite</a>, and <a href="http://event.gigaom.com/structureeurope/">this Wednesday I&#8217;ll be on stage at GigaOM&#8217;s Structure Europe conference</a>.</p>
<p>Hopefully I&#8217;ll see some of you there, and if you&#8217;d like to join in on the mission of democratizing publishing <a href="http://automattic.com/work-with-us/">Automattic is hiring</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 Sep 2013 16:36:07 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Matt Mullenweg";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"WPTavern: How Do You Manage WordPress.com Account Use On Multiple Sites?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9198";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:123:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/bKXMkh5Y1Ws/how-do-you-manage-wordpress-com-account-use-on-multiple-sites";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7139:"<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/jetpack.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/jetpack.png?resize=262%2C300" alt="jetpack" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-9209" /></a>Here&#8217;s a fairly common scenario for WordPress users and developers. When setting up a self-hosted site for someone else, you&#8217;re usually working alone, without your client by your side. Perhaps you&#8217;re building a site for your mother or a non-profit or someone who is not technically inclined. You quickly install WordPress, apply your chosen theme and then start adding plugins.</p>
<p>Some of the most commonly used plugins require API keys and/or account credentials in order to use them. For example, many WordPress developers find Akismet and Jetpack to be indispensable when creating new sites. In order to activate Akismet, you need to input your API keys. When you set up Jetpack you are required to connect via your WordPress.com account.<span id="more-9198"></span> What do you do as a developer in this scenario if your client doesn&#8217;t have an account and barely knows how to use the internet? More than likely you end up using your own API key for convenience.</p>
<p>I searched the documentation on both Akismet and Jetpack but was unable to find the preferred way setting up these services on multiple websites. Certainly, an individual may have multiple blogs and sites of his own, so multiple use of your Akismet API key is acceptable. This is mentioned in the Akismet docs:</p>
<blockquote><p>C<strong>an I use the same API key for multiple sites?</strong></p>
<p>Yep! If you have multiple sites that you want to protect with Akismet, you can use the same API key for each site.</p></blockquote>
<p>However, using that key on websites you don&#8217;t own is essentially like sharing your password, since the API key is clearly displayed in the settings for any admin user to see. Misuse is unlikely but the potential still exists.</p>
<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/akismet.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/akismet.jpg?resize=560%2C196" alt="akismet" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9200" /></a></p>
<p>Since you must sign up for these services with your real identity, it&#8217;s not right to use a throwaway email address to sign someone else up. So you&#8217;re really left with two options:</p>
<p><strong>1.</strong> Require the site owner to sign up for Akismet or WordPress.com and send you their credentials when you&#8217;re building the site.</p>
<p><strong>2.</strong> Use your own Akismet API key and/or authenticate with your own WordPress.com account.</p>
<p>With the first option, you keep separate all of the sites that don&#8217;t belong to you. However, it may not be easy to get your client to set up a new account with WordPress.com. You cannot simply put his email address in there because he needs to agree to the terms of service himself. Waiting for your client to set up an account can also hold you back if you&#8217;re in a hurry. </p>
<p>The second option is more convenient but may not be the proper way to go about adding these services to websites that you do not own. </p>
<h2>Concerns When Using API Keys on Multiple Websites</h2>
<p>When you sign up for Akismet, the email with your API key says:</p>
<p><strong>&#8220;Please keep this private, treat it like a password.&#8221;</strong></p>
<p>Because we&#8217;re used to copying and pasting API keys for everything, it may seem like a casual affair. But an API key really is just like a key to a building. Let&#8217;s say you work at a retail store. If you&#8217;re in possession of a key to that building and you let any of your friends use your key to go in and take whatever they want, you will be responsible for what was done with your key. Misuse falls on the holder of the key.</p>
<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/key.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/key.jpg?resize=560%2C420" alt="key" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9212" /></a></p>
<p>Akismet outlines this clearly in the <a href="https://akismet.com/tos/" target="_blank">terms of use</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>If you obtain or purchase an API Key, you are responsible for maintaining the security of your API Key, and you are fully responsible for all activities that occur under the account and any other actions taken in connection with your API Key. </p></blockquote>
<p>So while they do not expressly forbid you to use it on multiple websites, you are the one responsible for that key. If your key is in use on a site that you built for a client, and then they never update it and their site gets hacked or turned into a spam factory, the misuse of that API key is on you. This is especially a concern if you use your key to activate Akismet network-wide on a large multisite network. Does that mean your entire account could be banned?  If that API key gets turned off, then all of your other non-offending sites won&#8217;t have access to it either.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s also the concern with Jetpack. Authenticating with WordPress.com for any site you&#8217;re working on can start to pile up. You might be viewing your &#8220;<a href="http://wordpress.com/my-blogs/" target="_blank">My Blogs</a>&#8221; page and suddenly realize: <strong>Yikes, my WordPress.com account is everywhere!</strong></p>
<h2>Are There Best Practices for Using API Keys With Multiple Websites?</h2>
<p>Looking into this gives way to some questions of best practice. Is it acceptable to use your API key and WordPress.com account all over the internet if you&#8217;re not concerned? As long as you don&#8217;t mix commercial and non-commercial use with Akismet, is it acceptable to use the same key on your own blog, your grandmother&#8217;s memorial site, your mother&#8217;s recipe blog, and wherever else?</p>
<p>From what I can tell, there are no clear guidelines for multiple use, but you should be very careful about what websites you allow to use your API key. It all comes down to how much risk you are willing to assume. Use of Akismet and WordPress.com services seems to be tied to the individual as far as terms of use go and you could be held responsible for the misuse of any of these accounts.</p>
<h3>How Do You Handle These Multiple Use Scenarios?</h3>
<p>Do you load up your WordPress.com account by authenticating for tons of blogs or do you force your user to register for WordPress.com and give you the credentials? Strictly separate API keys and accounts is probably much safer, however less convenient. Anyone have some suggestions on the best way to go about this?</p>
<p>photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/arkiss/519669129/">kissro</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a></p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/bKXMkh5Y1Ws" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 Sep 2013 16:19:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:49:"WPTavern: Is Anyone Interested In a bbPress Camp?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9167";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:100:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/Fuo2M16F1g4/is-anyone-interested-in-a-bbpress-camp";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4747:"<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/bbpress-photo.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/bbpress-photo.png?resize=150%2C150" alt="bbpress-photo" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-9191" /></a>This past weekend we spoke with John James Jacoby on our <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-121-all-about-the-bbs-with-john-james-jacoby" target="_blank">WordPress Weekly podcast</a>. John is the lead developer for both the bbPress and BuddyPress plugins. We had the pleasure of chatting with him about his new job at 10up as well as everything that&#8217;s going on with <a href="http://bbpress.org/" target="_blank">bbPress</a> and <a href="http://buddypress.org/" title="BuddyPress" target="_blank">BuddyPress</a> these days.</p>
<p>During our interview we asked John if he knew of any bbPress or BuddyCamp events in the works. He said that he didn&#8217;t know of any coming up but would love to see a bbPress camp organized, perhaps in a more central midwest location. The question is: <strong>Is there enough interest to warrant a bbPress event or perhaps combine it with a BuddyPress event? </strong><span id="more-9167"></span></p>
<p>If extensions are any indication, both of these plugins have large, active communities surrounding them. bbPress currently has 132 plugins that extend the basic forum software and BuddyPress lists 483 extensions. It&#8217;s safe to say that they go far beyond your average wordpress.org plugin. They each have their own dedicated websites housing support forums and documentation. Both projects have attracted a number of elite developers and talented contributors. </p>
<h2>bbPress and BuddyPress are on the rise:</h2>
<p>Downloads have steadily increased for both plugins. I checked <a href="http://archive.org/web/web.php" target="_blank">archive.org</a> to get the download counts for the past few months. From May to September this year bbPress downloads went from 669,199 to 802,236. <strong>In the span of just five short months, the total number of bbPress downloads has increased nearly 20%. </strong> bbPress extensions have nearly doubled in the past year. In September of 2012 there were only 78 bbPress plugins listed but those numbers have shot up to 132 over the past year.</p>
<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/bbpress-downloads.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i2.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/bbpress-downloads.jpg?resize=488%2C566" alt="bbpress-downloads" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9176" /></a></p>
<p>Similarly, BuddyPress downloads are also on the rise. <strong>In the past five months, total downloads have climbed from 1.5 to 1.7 million, demonstrating an 11% increase.</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/buddypress-downloads.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/buddypress-downloads.jpg?resize=488%2C566" alt="buddypress-downloads" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9178" /></a></p>
<p>With all the <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/7-surprising-results-from-the-2013-buddypress-codex-survey" target="_blank">updates that are coming to the BuddyPress codex</a>, we can only expect those numbers to increase, both for extensions and downloads. </p>
<h3>Is it time for a bbPress camp?</h3>
<p>I attended the first <a href="http://2012.vancouver.buddypress.org/" title="BuddyCamp Vancouver" target="_blank">BuddyPress camp</a> that was held in Vancouver. What a fantastic event! One easy way to add an experimental camp like this is to tack it on to an existing WordCamp as an extra day. This setup was quite successful with WordCamp Vancouver / BuddyCamp in 2012. Participants who traveled to the area were able to attend both events and meet up with BuddyPress fans and developers from around the world.</p>
<p>I wanted to put this question to our readers: With the success of past BuddyPress camps, do you think it&#8217;s time for a bbPress camp? Or perhaps a multi-plugin camp with more plugin communities included?  If you&#8217;d be interested to attend, which one would be the most beneficial to you? Please take a moment to vote in our poll:</p>
<div class="aligncenter">Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.</div>
<p>So what do you think? Does the WordPress community need a bbPress camp? Do we need more BuddyPress camps? If there was a multi-plugin camp, which plugin communities would you like to see included?</p>
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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"WordPress.tv: Panel Discussion: Commercial Themes &amp; Plugins Q&amp;A";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22414";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/15/panel-discussion-commercial-themes-plugins-qa/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:673:"<div id="v-BJO7vH4B-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22414/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22414/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22414&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/15/panel-discussion-commercial-themes-plugins-qa/"><img alt="Panel Discussion: Commercial Themes & Plugins Q&A" src="http://videos.videopress.com/BJO7vH4B/video-04a8bf88e4_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 15 Sep 2013 08:52:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"WPTavern: WPWeekly Episode 121 – All About The bb’s With John James Jacoby";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9163";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:123:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/tEXfczzBl9M/wpweekly-episode-121-all-about-the-bbs-with-john-james-jacoby";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2714:"<p><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/WordPressWeekly_albumart2.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/WordPressWeekly_albumart2.jpg?resize=150%2C150" alt="WordPress Weekly Cover Art" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-8715" /></a>There were no spooky ghosts or constant howling noises in this episode but we did manage to go in-depth with John James Jacoby to discuss bbPress and BuddyPress. During the show, we find out why he left Automattic for 10UP, what is was like to jump into the project lead position for bbPress after so many people had accepted the project as being abandoned, and finally, where he sees BuddyPress 2 years from now. We could have talked to JJJ all night about forums and social activity but unfortunately, we only had 68 minutes with him. That&#8217;s ok because he&#8217;ll definitely be on the show again to cover some ground we didn&#8217;t get to in this episode.  <span id="more-9163"></span></p>
<h2>Stories Discussed:</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.wptavern.com/wordpress-3-6-1-now-available" title="http://www.wptavern.com/wordpress-3-6-1-now-available">WordPress 3.6.1 Available</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wptavern.com/ryan-mccue-on-creating-the-json-rest-api-for-wordpress" title="http://www.wptavern.com/ryan-mccue-on-creating-the-json-rest-api-for-wordpress">Ryan McCue On Creating The JSON REST API For WordPress</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wptavern.com/open-source-alternatives-to-pressgram" title="http://www.wptavern.com/open-source-alternatives-to-pressgram">Open Source Alternatives to Pressgram</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wptavern.com/wordpress-3-7-to-remove-post-by-email-feature-in-favor-of-official-plugin" title="http://www.wptavern.com/wordpress-3-7-to-remove-post-by-email-feature-in-favor-of-official-plugin">WordPress 3.7 to Remove Post By Email Feature in Favor of Official Plugin<br />
</a></p>
<h2>WPWeekly Meta:</h2>
<p><strong>Next Episode:</strong> Friday, September 27th 9P.M. Eastern</p>
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<p><strong>Listen To Episode #121:</strong><br />
</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/tEXfczzBl9M" height="1" width="1" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 15 Sep 2013 01:04:45 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6:"Jeffro";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:49:"WordPress.tv: Matt Mullenweg: WordPress Town Hall";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22419";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:66:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/14/matt-mullenweg-wordpress-town-hall/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:654:"<div id="v-irlIV35c-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22419/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22419/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22419&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/14/matt-mullenweg-wordpress-town-hall/"><img alt="Matt Mullenweg: WordPress Town Hall" src="http://videos.videopress.com/irlIV35c/video-43b0d90f5c_scruberthumbnail_0.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 14 Sep 2013 09:50:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"WordPress.tv: Stephanie Leary: Content Strategy for WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22416";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/14/stephanie-leary-content-strategy-for-wordpress/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:672:"<div id="v-PBnKz3PE-1" class="video-player">
</div>
<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22416/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22416/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22416&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/14/stephanie-leary-content-strategy-for-wordpress/"><img alt="Stephanie Leary: Content Strategy for WordPress" src="http://videos.videopress.com/PBnKz3PE/video-804cb81a1e_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 14 Sep 2013 08:06:23 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"WPTavern: Justin Tadlock Publishes The Results Of His ThemeForest Experiment";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9149";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:128:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/-ZosTIhoJXY/justin-tadlock-publishes-the-results-of-his-themeforest-experiment";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6380:"<p><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/themeforestlogo.png" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/themeforestlogo.png?resize=295%2C150" alt="theme forest logo" class="alignright size-full wp-image-4550" /></a>Last year at this time, Justin Tadlock announced that he would be <a href="http://justintadlock.com/archives/2012/09/17/themeforest-an-experiment" title="http://justintadlock.com/archives/2012/09/17/themeforest-an-experiment">conducting an experiment</a> on ThemeForest. The goal of the experiment was to see if it was possible to get other theme authors to write better code and enable better compatibility with the thousands of other themes and plugins for WordPress. Justin has now <a href="http://justintadlock.com/archives/2013/09/11/the-themeforest-experiment-one-year-later" title="http://justintadlock.com/archives/2013/09/11/the-themeforest-experiment-one-year-later">published the results</a> of that experiment. </p>
<p>Instead of preaching from the outside, Justin created a theme that passed the <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review" title="http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review">Theme Review team guidelines</a> which not many ThemeForest themes can claim. It was everything a seasoned developer would want. Without any marketing other than his announcement post, he generated $2,017.50 from 99 sales. There are a number of other things Justin mentions in the post that I highly encourage you to read, especially if you&#8217;re thinking about selling themes on ThemeForest.<span id="more-9149"></span></p>
<p>From a consumer standpoint, Justin&#8217;s experiment proves how important it is to pick the right theme that won&#8217;t lock you in. I can’t imagine the common user knowing about shortcodes, post types, etc and factoring those into their decision on which theme to buy. As has been the case for a long time, choosing themes is like walking down the street looking at each storefront window to see which one looks best. Between all these dependencies with shortcodes, etc. someone could really screw themselves by investing time and money into a theme that does everything wrong.</p>
<p>I think Justin should be commended for trying to change the attitude and culture from within but unless the culture is changed at the top of ThemeForest both on staff and the top theme sellers, this is just a problem that will be compounded in the future. It’s also disappointing to see sellers skirting the rules by recreating the same problem using a different method. Two major changes that have taken place during the experiment include the <a href="http://notes.envato.com/general/100-gpl-option-now-available-plus-woothemes-arrives" title="http://notes.envato.com/general/100-gpl-option-now-available-plus-woothemes-arrives">ability to select a 100% GPL license</a> and revamped <a href="http://notes.envato.com/news/update-wordpress-theme-submission-requirements" title="http://notes.envato.com/news/update-wordpress-theme-submission-requirements">theme submission requirements</a>. While Justin can&#8217;t be solely attributed to these changes, his influence and involvement within the conversations helped get these two items to become a reality. </p>
<h2>A Video And A Question For You</h2>
<p>Justin linked to a video within his post that I found very interesting. It&#8217;s a presentation by Brandon Ryan Jones: The Anarchist And The Patriot from WordCamp Los Angeles 2011. Despite being two years old, much of what Brandon talks about is still relevant. If you haven&#8217;t watched it yet, the actual presentation is about 20 minutes in length with the second half dedicated to questions.</p>
<div class="aligncenter"></div>
<p>After watching the presentation video including the questions segment, I thought the most interesting question asked from the audience with respect to the overall theme of the presentation was “<em>How do I differentiate myself from the next guy on ThemeForest?</em>” if not having one more cool slider, or 1 more extra color is not the answer. I posed this question to Justin Tadlock in which he replied:</p>
<blockquote><p>That’s actually the toughest of all questions in business, right? It’s not just on ThemeForest or with WordPress theme companies in general.</p>
<p>How do I differentiate myself from the other guys?</p>
<p>If I had the answer to that, I’d probably be wealthy enough to pay a gardener to cut my grass, a maid to clean my house, and a farmer to clean out my chicken coop. But, I don’t. I suppose it just comes down to working hard, continuing to educate yourself in your field, and trying new things. <a href="http://justintadlock.com/archives/2013/09/11/the-themeforest-experiment-one-year-later#comment-2276683" title="http://justintadlock.com/archives/2013/09/11/the-themeforest-experiment-one-year-later#comment-2276683">Comment From Justin Tadlock &#8211; The ThemeForest Experiment One Year Later</a> </p></blockquote>
<div id="attachment_9150" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/themeforestdifferentiation.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/themeforestdifferentiation.jpg?resize=451%2C318" alt="ThemeForest Differentiation" class="size-full wp-image-9150" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Slide From The Anarchist and the Patriot</p></div>
<p>Looking at that slide, I will ask you the same question I asked Justin. <em>How do I differentiate myself from the next guy on ThemeForest?</em> If adding a slider other themes don&#8217;t have or 10 more color schemes is not the answer, what is? I think Justin&#8217;s follow-up experiment with separating plugin and theme functionality is a partial answer to the question. If we could get to a place where there are a set of standard or canonical plugins for ThemeForest authors to use for Portfolios, forms, grids, tabs, accordions, etc. and they could just concentrate on creating beautiful presentations around those components, I think we&#8217;d be in a better position. The biggest challenge Justin faces is getting ThemeForest authors to adopt these plugins instead of doing things on their own. </p>
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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"WordPress.tv: Sean McGinnis: Link Building Techniques That Work";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://wordpress.tv/?p=22255";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/12/sean-mcginnis-link-building-techniques-that-work/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:676:"<div id="v-PMGTBZCI-1" class="video-player">
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<br />  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wptv.wordpress.com/22255/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wptv.wordpress.com/22255/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wordpress.tv&blog=5089392&post=22255&subd=wptv&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><div><a href="http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/12/sean-mcginnis-link-building-techniques-that-work/"><img alt="Sean McGinnis: Link Building Techniques That Work" src="http://videos.videopress.com/PMGTBZCI/video-cd208b0c8f_std.original.jpg" width="160" height="120" /></a></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 13 Sep 2013 04:30:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"WordPress.tv";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WPTavern: Ryan McCue on Creating The JSON REST API for WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"http://www.wptavern.com/?p=9124";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:116:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/BXtFdghE2VM/ryan-mccue-on-creating-the-json-rest-api-for-wordpress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6903:"<p>In the not too distant future, the WordPress core is going to incorporate a powerful new API that will open new doors for the platform to be part of the interactive web. Long time WordPress hacker, Ryan McCue is busily creating a <a href="http://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/06/17/json-rest-api/" target="_blank">JSON REST API</a> that will pave the way for outside applications to be able to communicate more easily with WordPress. <span id="more-9124"></span></p>
<h3>A Quick Introduction to Ryan and JSON</h3>
<p>Ryan first got involved contributing to the WordPress core about 6 years ago. Back in the day you could find him helping out in the #wordpress IRC channel and answering questions. This eventually led him to start making patches to core for issues. He&#8217;s now creating a JSON REST API for WordPress as part of his Google Summer of Code project. </p>
<div id="attachment_9132" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ryan.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ryan.jpg?resize=560%2C372" alt="Ryan the WordPress hackstar" class="size-full wp-image-9132" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Ryan the WordPress hackstar</p></div>
<p>You might be wondering, as I was, <strong>what in the world is a JSON REST API?</strong> As I&#8217;m not an engineer, I did not have the foggiest grasp of what this API can used for before chatting with Ryan over email. I asked him to school us in the basics and he obliged:</p>
<blockquote><p>JSON is a data format based on Javascript&#8217;s representation of objects,<br />
but it&#8217;s widely used because it can be easily represented in almost<br />
every programming language.</p>
<p>The project uses JSON as a format since basically every language can<br />
understand it, and it&#8217;s extremely easy to work with. The project<br />
additionally uses REST semantics, which is a way of building<br />
applications that make full use of the web and existing tools. The<br />
benefit of both of these is that any program which can access the web<br />
can use the API, leaving developers only the WordPress-specific code to<br />
write.</p>
<p>For comparison: the current mobile apps use the XML-RPC API, and up to<br />
40% of their code is just to understand the XML properly, whereas JSON<br />
support is built-in to iOS and Android natively.</p></blockquote>
<h3>The JSON REST API Will Affect Everyone Who Works With WordPress</h3>
<p>I asked Ryan how the JSON REST API will affect WordPress users and developers. It seems that while the API is not readily visible to users, they will experience the benefits of more interactive WordPress websites. Developers will also have an easier time creating this experience. He believes that it will impact everyone:</p>
<blockquote><p>The JSON REST API is a simple but powerful way to interact with<br />
WordPress. Mobile, desktop and web applications can get data from<br />
WordPress and do anything you can do via the admin panel. It&#8217;s like the<br />
admin panel, minus the UI.</p>
<p>This project will affect everyone who works with WordPress. Mobile and<br />
desktop applications can move past restrictions on WordPress&#8217; existing<br />
APIs and start working with WordPress in much deeper ways, while themes<br />
and plugins can become much more interactive. The availability of this<br />
as a core feature also means less time spent by developers creating<br />
something similar, and more time spent creating actual features.</p></blockquote>
<p>In simple terms, for developers, this is going to be like upgrading all the old tools in your garage to be power tools, so you can focus on building. McCue calls it a whole new generation of tools:</p>
<blockquote><p>As Matt noted in the recent State of the Word, WordPress is beginning to transition to a point where we&#8217;re building not just sites, but applications. Themes have taken us this far, but we&#8217;re moving to a web with much more user interactivity and we need a new generation of tools in WordPress to support these uses.</p></blockquote>
<h3>Practically speaking, what will the JSON REST API be used for?</h3>
<p>I asked Ryan how he anticipates that developers will use the new API. He related a few practical use cases:</p>
<blockquote><p>
* The upcoming O2 theme by Automattic (intended as a replacement for<br />
    P2) includes a similar API to power the live reloading, commenting,<br />
    infinite scroll, frontend posting and other features. Once this<br />
    plugin is in core, the O2 developers will be able to replace their<br />
    custom code with this API (which I hear is a significant portion of<br />
    their codebase)</p>
<p> * Mobile apps will be able to replace the clumsy XML-RPC-powered APIs<br />
    with a much smaller set of tools for dealing with this API, enabling<br />
    them to spend more time working on cool features and less time<br />
    fixing issues</p>
<p>My eventual hope is that a lot of the customised admin-related<br />
Javascript and backend code can be replaced with API-powered code, but<br />
that&#8217;s a pretty long-term goal.</p></blockquote>
<p>Overall this is going to be a giant step forward for developers who are having to try to create a similar API from scratch in an attempt to build interactive features.</p>
<h3>JSON REST API Proposed for WordPress 3.8</h3>
<p>McCue has proposed the API for 3.8, but the GSoC restrictions require that 100% of the code has to be written by him. These restrictions do not lend the project much collaboration at this point. Very soon the Summer of Code will conclude and McCue plans to form a team to work on the plugin and get it ready for<br />
integration. </p>
<p>Although it may not be ready for WordPress 3.8 due to time constraints, McCue hopes to see it in the core in some form in one of the next few major releases. He&#8217;s very eager to get new contributors involved and would appreciate any feedback on the project.</p>
<p>Before talking with Ryan I was clueless about the importance of the project he&#8217;s working on but now I&#8217;m excited about the possibilities that the JSON REST API will open up for WordPress developers. Ryan&#8217;s work is currently housed within a plugin. If you&#8217;d like to test it and check it out, you can download it from <a href="https://github.com/rmccue/WP-API/tags" target="_blank">github</a> or <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/json-rest-api/" target="_blank">wordpress.org</a>. If you need help getting started, check out the <a href="https://github.com/rmccue/WP-API/tree/master/docs" target="_blank">docs</a> Ryan has created or get in touch with him on <a href="https://twitter.com/rmccue" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p>
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