Wordpress

Posted Sun, 09/06/2009 - 17:30 by johannes.langholz

Wordpress

Wordpress


Definition

Wordpress titles itself as „a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability“. As a matter of fact it is the largest self-hosting blogging tool in the world. The admin can easily log into the blog and create posts and pages, upload pictures and videos and can enhance the design by downloading themes. Wordpress is fully customizable because it is an open source project and admins have the opportunity to install plug-ins to the basic system which allow them to make their blog unique. Wordpress also allows readers to post comments to the posts published by the admin.

History and Inventors

Initially Wordpress was started in 2003 by Matthew Mullenweg to enhance the typography in everyday writing. In January 2003, a few months after the b2/cafelog blogging software, Mullenweg used to upload pictures, was discontinued, he, along with Mike Little, announced Wordpress on the basis of the b2/cafelog software. The major breakthrough for Wordpress came in May 2004, when the main competitor Movable Type changed its pricing drastically. Blogging users were looking for alternatives such as Wordpress. In December 2005, Mullenweg introduced Automattic, the company behind wordpress.com. In October 2007, not two years after Automattic was introduced, Mullenweg rejected a 200.000.000 dollar offer for his company. In 2007 he was named one of the 50 most important people in the Internet being the youngest of all.

Every release of Wordpress is named after famous Jazz musicians. Wordpress 1.5 "Strayhorn" was released in February 2005 and led to more than 900.000 downloads. Between version 1.5. and the current version 2.8 "Baker", named after Chet Baker, seven other major updates were released. The current version "Baker" was downloaded more than 5.000.000 times.

Features

Wordpress has multiple features that can be used. It covers everything from designing themes to protect the blog from spam messages. Here are some of the key features:

  • No rebuilding — Changes to templates or entries are reflected immediately on the site, with no need for regenerating static pages.
  • WordPress Pages — Pages allow to manage non-blog content easily. For example there can be a static "About" page managed through WordPress.
  • WordPress Themes — WordPress comes with a full theme system which makes designing the look of the page very easy. It is possible to switch between themes.
  • Comments — Visitors can leave comments on individual entries, and through Trackback or Pingback can comment on their own site.
  • Spam protection —WordPress comes with very robust tools such as an integrated blacklist and open proxy checker to manage and eliminate comment spam on the blog.
  • Widgets - Little Applications can be added to your navigation bar for example to connect to social bookmarking sites or to display your calendars.

What do I need for Wordpress?

Wordpress is an open source software. This means the code of the software can be used and developed by any user for any purpose including commercial purposes. So basically the software Wordpress is free while hosting it on own servers is not free. The two URL’s wordpress.org and wordpress.com sound like two links referring to one page. As a matter of fact there is a difference. Those two projects both offer Wordpress as a whole. While wordpress.org offers the plain software download for the user to install on the users server, wordpress.com offers the software as well, but on their own servers with their own URL and limitations in configuration and customizability. Taking the example that the user wants to install Wordpress on their own server there are a few requirements:

  • PHP starting from version 4.3 or greater
  • MySQL database starting from version 4.0 or greater
  • Server space of about 10 MB

Wordpress guides the user through an installation process after the files have been transferred onto the server. After the installation wordpress can be used instantaneously.

Talking Buisness

Wordpress can be a tool for private people to share their stories and pictures easily over the Internet and also to connect with friends all over the world. It is easy to use and fast to install. But Wordpress is not all about private stories. Wordpress is being used by numerous companies not only to share information about their products, but also to shape a community around them by giving them original insight beyond the usual webpage.

Taking the example of Ford, the automotive giant is also using WordPress to manage their blog. 
Not only does Ford provide the customer with new features of their cars, but also gives tutorials, tips and useful information related to their service or products. They even go beyond that by embedding numerous social platforms like de.li.cious, Flickr, Youtube, Twitter and RSS-Feeds to create a net effect.

Blogs of companies can be a great indicator for the general attitude towards their customers and the importance of communicating with them. The more frequent a company is posting new stories and giving new insights of their company, the more likely they are to provide a great communication towards their customers. This is what makes Wordpress not only a simple CMS (Content Management System) but a very powerful public relations tool.

Blogging even for big companies such as Ford can make a big impression on the customer by giving them names and faces to associate with the big company behind them. This brings the experience down to a personal level and this is what the customer appreciates. 

Problems and Criticism

Wordpress had to face various criticism primarily concerning the security of their software. Wordpress is known to be very vulnerable against hacker attacks. Numerous security flaws and bugs have been eliminated by special security updates. Users who want to prevent their site from being hacked are advised to update the software whenever a new version comes out. Not only the software itself, but also numerous plug-ins and themes from third parties should be updated in order to maintain a secure wordpress blog. In the past, Wordpress-developers have been accused to play down security issues or to keep them secret.

Impression

To get an impression or general feeling about Wordpress I embedded the promotional video of Version 2.8 which is called “Baker”.

 


Ressources

  • Bültge, F. (2007). WordPress Weblogs einrichten und administrieren. München: Open Source Press.
  • Douglass, R. T., Little, M., & Smith, J. W. (2006). Building online communities with Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress. Berkeley, Calif: Apress.
  • Alby, T. (2008). Professionell bloggen mit WordPress. München: Hanser.
  • Frütel, T. (2009). WordPress professionell einsetzen Das grosse Buch ; [Weblogs individuell entwickeln und verwalten]. Düsseldorf: Data-Becker.
  • Bonfranchi-Simovic, T., & Simovic, V. (2008). WordPress Das Praxisbuch ; [WordPress von A bis Z beherrschen ; Themes anwenden und bearbeiten ; inkl. CD-ROM mit WordPress 2.6, Plugins, Themes, Beispielmaterialien aus dem Buch und zusätzlichen Programmen]. Heidelberg: mitp.

Wordpress / blogging / Online diary / CMS