WordPress Hosting

Automattic CEO Toni Schneider will be presenting at the Freemium Summit taking place in San Francisco at the Mission Bay Conference Center on March 26th 2010. The price for admission is $449.00 which is a reality check to anyone who is used to attending a WordCamp. However, there will be a number of speakers from companies that are in the middle of capitalizing on the hybrid business model of free mixed with premium. Speakers such as Tom Conrad of Pandora, Phil Libin of Evernote, Lincoln Murphy of Sixteen Ventures, and Ben Chestnut of Mailchimp will be on hand.

Although I won’t be in attendance for this summit, I plan on doing something similar on my own through WordPress Weekly for the month of April. Each week will be dedicated to a specific commercialization aspect of WordPress. We’ll cover themes, plugins, services, and at the end of the month, have a wrap-up show. Jake Goldman, one of the organizers for WordCamp Boston will be joining me on these shows as a co-host. I’m currently in the middle of getting the round table of speakers set for each week. Keep an eye out on the WordPress Weekly category as when I have things set in stone, I’ll announce them there.

No related posts.

Congratulations to Alex also known as Viper007Bond, creator of Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin and major contributor to the oEmbed feature introduced in WordPress 2.9. Alex has been working for Automattic through contract work for a few months and today, he has announced that he’s become a full-time employee. Another piece of solid talent picked up by the company. I imagine if I ever had the chance to attend an Automattic retreat, my head would explode from all the geekiness in such close proximity.

No related posts.

For those that follow Ian Stewart on Twitter, you know that he recently quit his job. He continuously hinted to something bigger happening in his life. Today, we learn what that something is. Ian Stewart has become the newest member of the Automattic team.

Today marks the first day of my employment as a Theme Wrangler with Automattic and it feels great. I’m more than excited to finally let you know what I’ve been up to for the last little bit.

According to Ian, ThemeShaper.com will be the new location for the theme team being put together at Automattic. Also, all of the child themes that contained a price tag are now free for all. Considering Ian’s work in the community with his tutorials, his Thematic Framework and his mark that will be left on anyone using the new Twenty Ten theme when it’s released with WordPress 3.0, Ian definitely deserves this position. It’s the dream job for anyone who loves WordPress with a passion. Also, Ian has recently announced on Twitter the arrival of a newborn in the near future so it has to be comforting to know that he’ll have a kick ass job to support his family.

In his announcement, I find it interesting that he mentions a theme team. Could this be a hint that more theme designers will be hired in the near future? Also, will their work be tied strictly to WordPress.com or is this more for WordPress.org? The other question I have is if the position Ian has taken has anything to do with the Theme Czar role that has been published on the Automattic Jobs page for some time. Ian certainly fulfills the requirements.

Again, congrats Ian.

Related posts:

1. Automattic Gets A New Systems Wrangler

In episode 80 of WordPress Weekly, I interviewed Raphael Mudge of AfterTheDeadline.com, the newest acquisition by Automattic. Raphael and I talked about how AtD works, his visions for the service, how it helps everyone who uses it become a better writer, the data he’s been able to collect thanks to WordPress.com and much more. If you are interested in learning some great details regarding the service, this episode is definitely for you.

Ad Copy:

This episode of WordPress Weekly is sponsored by WebDevStudios.com. Check out their newly released BuddyPress plugin that enables new member moderation.

WordPress Tavern Listener Poll:

Last weeks poll question was: Would You Like To Hear An Interview With Anil Dash?

Out of a total of 46 votes, 37 of you said Yes while 9 of you said No.

This Weeks Poll Question Is: Can A Theme Developer Put Himself Out Of Business?

Picks Of The Week:

Jeff – After The Deadline – After the Deadline helps you write better and spend less time editing. Click the proofread button in the visual or HTML editor toolbar to check spelling, style, and grammar.

Last Weeks WordPress Trivia Question:

What powers the WordPress.org website?

WordPress Trivia Answer:

Nothing. It’s a bunch of static HTML pages.

This Weeks Trivia Question

What is Raphaels favorite flavor of ice cream?

Announcements:

Next week December 8th, there will be no-show. Instead, On December 15th, I’ll be interviewing Jacob Goldman of CMurrayConsulting to talk about his companies work involving WordPress.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Tuesday, December 15th 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 1 Hour 12 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode80.mp3

Listen To Episode #80:

Related posts:

1. WPWeekly Episode 65 – Interview With Nikolay Of GlotPress
2. WPWeekly Episode 66 – Interview With Scott Reilly
3. WPWeekly Episode 63 – Interview With Randy Hoyt And Scott Clark

Update: Apparently we may be relying on old media a little too much as this transcript doesn’t seem to mention wp.com moving to Azure… still we can but wait to get clarification off someone from Automattic (who are being unusually quiet

Update 2: Yep, never rely on a journalist it would seem… or a Daily Finance one at least… evidently all of the below is baloney but I’ll leave it up just so you can laugh at me

Update 3: Here’s what actually happened… better late than never.

Breaking news from Inquisitr and backed up by Daily Finance has Automattic switching WordPress.com (and you would assume their other services) to the new Microsoft Azure hosting platform.

Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg took the stage with Ozzie to talk about why he chose to use Azure for distributed hosting for WordPress and the millions of blogs its customers have online. Automattic is known as a strong advocate of Open Source technology. Mullenweg has built WordPress to run primarily atop Open Source software such as the Linux operating system, the MySQL database and the Apache Web server. Yet there he was onstage with Ozzie plugging Microsoft. Huh? [Alex Salkaver – Daily Finance

Not entirely sure what to make of this personally, but it would seem somewhat hypocritical – especially for the company that decided to move to Ngix as Litespeed were deemed not Open Source enough)

However, speaking in a business sense it’s probably a good decision – I’m sure Automattic are either getting stacks of cash from M$ and/or a great deal… and I doubt that they would have done anything to jeopardise their current performance.

And, from a personal perspective, I’d almost certainly do the same if a large chunk of cash was being dangled in front of my nose!

However, I’m not sure how well this will go down with Matt’s fans and the community at large.

What do you reckon… good call or dodgy deal?

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OK, so I can take a hint and I can see where we’re not wanted, and I’d rather get it all out so I don’t have to mention it again – we can just focus on the good stuff we’re doing and planning on doing.

So, consider this my last ‘we’re getting picked on by Matt / Certain members of Automattic‘ post / flame / troll whatever you want to call it

But the fact of the matter is that just ‘not liking’ us has gone from disapproval to actively trying to damage us over the last few weeks, I mean the whole ‘getting rid of MU’ because of us was bad enough already, but just recently it’s started to get concrete… and I felt I just had to share it with you, to get it off my chest:

1. WPMUDEV.org (a free, GPL, plugins hosted site) is removed from the WordPress codex by Matt, without explanation.

2. Edublogs.org – the earliest surviving (and second largest by all accounts) WordPress MU site is removed from the mu.wordpress.org page (I asked Matt for comment, he just ignored me):

3. You now can’t leave a comment in the regular MU forums recommending one of our WPMU DEV Premium plugins (although other people get to spruce their paid downloads as much as they want!) without it getting deleted (unfortunately I can’t *prove* this, you’ll just have to take my word for it)

4. Despite the fact that we fulfill all the criteria and then some, we’re simply not allowed on the Commercial Themes directory. We don’t get any response from them, zero, zilch.

I even wrote one of those stoopid Haikus… sheesh I feel like such a Twatt!

5. We submitted a core security patch to BuddyPress the other day, privately, not making a big deal of it (like we could have) and forcing the latest release… we didn’t even get a mention :/

And, believe me, there’s  heap of other stuff, it’s just been building and building over time

So, all in all, we can take a hint, we’re not only not wanted, Matt actually wants to take the time to aggressively pursue us.

Despite the fact that he’s such an important person on the web, and is leading such a top company.

And despite the fact that we’re playing within the rules of the GPL, doing the ‘right thing’ wherever possible, providing valuable services to thousands and thousands of people (who seem to like what we provide for them!), promoting WordPress and ‘giving back’ left right and center.

As we have been for years, and years and years!

I mean, have we honestly done anything to deserve this kind of treatment?

But then again, what can you do?

Get over it I guess… hence I’m done with this whole bitching and complaining thing, and at least things are now 100% clear.

Now we just need to get on with doing what we do well, helping our customers out and building a great business regardless of the obstacles that get thrown is our way by the very people that you’d hope we could work well with, and stop playing these stupid games of personal politics.

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I’ll be 100% honest with you, most of my original attempts to monetise Edublogs were inspired by, and even copied off, Automattic’s WordPress.com.

So much so that we even developed (for Edublogs) and released an upgrades plugin, that essentially does exactly what their original upgrades functionality did – allow you to buy credits and exchange them for features.

But then we got a bit smarter, as did the WP.com guys, and decided to change that into subscriptions, and add in some other cool things – like being able to turn off ads

We called it the Supporter plugin.

And for this we developed our original Supporter plugin, which we gave a debut with this post about how we had developed it to improve Edublogs.

And, as of yesterday, gave it a complete makeover and added in a whole heap of extra features.

Which, naturally, we’ll shortly be using on Edublogs too.

But why should WordPress.com use the plugin?

Well, first up is the blinkin freakin obvious… themes!

Our new plugin allows you to offer your users premium themes, and what have WordPress users been willing to pay through the nose for, for as long as WordPress has been around… yep, that’s right… themes!

So, why doesn’t wp.com simply add in a premium themes menu and be done with it, I mean, we’ve even made it extra gorgeous for them!

Preview… but don't touch!

And then there are plugins. WordPress is synonymous with plugins, so why not let users pay to have access to them!

That’s another thing that we’ve put in that I thionk would go down a treat at WordPress.com

And last, but not by any means least, let’s not forget the fact that this plugin allows users to sign up for all your goodies right at the start.. or even give everyone a free trial of them, before cruelly removing them unless payment is forthcoming

So come along now Automattic, it’s no shame to admit that someone else might have ad some decent ideas, you’re welcome to sign up any time and off course you’ll also get access to all the other great plugins and themes at WPMU DEV Premium and as much help and support as you can eat!

Here’s all the documentation and download info for the plugin one last time.

Whaddya say?

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While we’re waiting for a response from Matt with either his WordPress.org (voice of the community) or Automattic (voice of the leader) hat on to fill us in on what’s going to be the future of WordPress MU and perhaps answer a few of my questions, I figured I’d jot down some possible answers to a topic that came up quite a bit in the discussions related to that post.

Namely, a fair few people asked – Well, Automattic doesn’t release their code (or themes) for plugins they use of WordPress.com, or VIP sites like GigaOm – and yet they kick up a stink about our themes and plugins being behind a paywall.

What’s up with that?

Well it’s simple really, whether by design or WordPress chose a really great GPL license, namely GPL2 rather than GPL3.

Now, IANAL, but I believe that the fundamental difference between GPL2 and GPL3 is that GPL2 allows you to develop and use integrated code (plugins, themes etc.) as a service with no obligation to share it publicly *unless you distribute it in some way* whereas GPL3 forces you to supply that code to anyone who asks for it.

So, were WordPress GPL3 I could rock up to Automattic’s VIP clients (and Automattic themselves) and demand they provide me with the source code, whereas with GPL2 I can’t because the code hasn’t been released yet.

I’d be more than happy to be proved wrong (and I’m sure there are more erudite readers of this blog than I am – especially in this area) – but I’m pretty sure that’s the answer to the question.

So do let me know if I’ve got it completely wrong!

However, whether that’s ‘ok’ or not is another thing entirely

Personally, I’m fine with it, as it seems to make sense that if a WP user develops their own theme they shouldn’t have to hand it over to anyone who wants it.

Also, I wouldn’t stress too much about things like BuddyPress membership site plugins not being released, as we’ll be making a great one for you down the line at WPMU DEV Premium (we’ll be doing this because the generous members of the site allow us to dedicate time, employ developers and generally make it).

But whether everyone thinks it’s A ok I’m not sure?

It does strike me that some of the more ’strident’ (ahem) open sourcers out there would much prefer a GPL3 license., and apparently there are good reasons to upgrade, but I for one ‘aint clamouring for it.

It used to be that if you needed to find a WordPress consultant, you would need to visit the consultants page hosted on Automattic.com. Today, that is no longer necessary. Instead, all of that information and more can be found on CodePoet.com which is running on P2. Thanks to an email I received from a tipster, here is what the site is going to be used for:

Over time we plan on adding new features like consultant profiles, better search, promo badges, etc to help direct the ever increasing demand for WP consulting services. For search, we’re considering ranking results by contributions made to WordPress.org (i.e. the more plugins/themes/core & forum credits a firm has to their name, the higher they rank).

Not too long ago, I reported on the fact that WordPress.org sitewide profiles were in public use. If you’ve created your sitewide profile, you’ll know that there is an option that enables you to have your account show up in the consultants list. Between that option, CodePoet, consultant profiles and such, things are starting to look as if they are coming together, one puzzle piece at a time.

Related posts:

1. First Signs Of WordPress Using BuddyPress With Project Wide Profiles
2. Could BuddyPress Be The Poster Child Of WordPress?

Monitoring the Twitter stream today, I discovered that Automattic has hired on a new Systems Wrangler in Stephane Daury. In his post, you can clearly read the excitement given off by this job opportunity. Hell, I’d be happy to. Stephane has a few WordPress plugins under his belt, WPhone being the one I recognize. While the job is a dream come true for Stephane, he realizes it won’t be easy.

Don’t get me wrong, although this assignment represents, to me, the professional chance of a lifetime, it will also be the most challenging by far, the scale of it all mind boggling. Nothing is won yet beyond the opportunity and everything is still left to be achieved. Needless to say, I will be doing my very best (and then some) to own the said challenge and prove Barry, Matt and others I am indeed the right guy for the job.

Good luck Stephane and congratulations.

No related posts.

In this episode, David Peralty and a few others join me to talk about the news of the week. Most of the news stories deal with Automattic owned services such as IntenseDebate and Polldaddy rather than WordPress. One of the discussion points focused on why Gravatar has not yet made it mainstream. While the audio quality is not so great in this episode, I hope you’ll be able to listen through it for this particular conversation.

Ad Copy:

This episode of WordPress Weekly is sponsored by WebDevStudios.com. WebDevStudios would like to announce the launch of their new project, WPClassroom.com! WPClassroom.com is dedicated to providing high quality professional WordPress training using the most powerful online training software powered by Cisco WebEx. Reserve your seat today at WPClassroom.com! By the way, use the coupon code wptavern when sigining up and that will take off $5.00 on the first class on September 9th.

Stories Discussed:

Gravatar.com Gets A Facelift
Why isn’t Gravatar Main Stream Yet?
Open Source CMS Awards
IntenseDebate Future Features
WP E Commerce Integration With IntenseDebate
PollDaddy Style Editor

WordPress Tavern Listener Poll:

Last weeks poll question was: Do you think the Codex is the future of documentation for WordPress?

Out of a total of 45 votes, 23 of you said Yes, 20 of you said No while 2 of you wanted to know what is a Codex.

This Weeks Poll Question Is: Have You Enjoyed Your Stay At The Tavern So Far?

Picks Of The Week:

Jeff – IRCLogs.wordpress.org – Enables you to see the log file for the bbPress, BuddyPress development, WordPress development, WordPress, and WPMU IRC channels. The log file page also provides a nifty bar of options at the top where you can easily switch channel logs, view log files from the past few months, or perform a search. So if you can’t catch those WordPress developer chats on Thursdays, this is the place to go to read the log file of the meeting.

David – Widget Context Plugin – Kaspars – http://konstruktors.com/blog/

Last Weeks WordPress Trivia Question:

What is the name of the new part time employee Automattic recently hired? (by the way, John is full time)

WordPress Trivia Answer:

John Godley

This Weeks Trivia Question

In a recent interview, Matt was asked if he were to start another project, along the same lines as WordPress but had nothing to do with blogging, what would it be?

Announcements:

On Thursday August 27th at 2PM Eastern Daylight Time, we’ll be interviewing Adii of WooThemes. The special date and time is due to Adiis geographic location.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday August 28th, 2009 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 51 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode69.mp3

Listen To Episode #69:

Related posts:

1. WPWeekly Episode 68 – Hey, I Didn’t Change My Password!
2. WPWeekly Episode 64 – Big Huge Round Table
3. WPWeekly Episode 53 – Interview With Daniel Scocco

Thanks to Viper007bond on Twitter, I was notified of a new redesign for Gravatar.com. Seems as though most sites under the Automattic umbrella are getting a refresh these days. The new design definitely provides more information than its counterpart along with links to developer resources on the front page. Also, there is a large screencast video produced by Michael Pick which explains what the service is all about.

Gravatar gets a new look

Gravatar is not a complex site so this simple front page sums up the site quite well. What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Update On Automattics Services And Blogs

Joost DeValk aka Yoast in the community has produced his first episode of his WordPress podcast called Press This published through Webmastradio.FM. In his first episode, Joost interviews John Gridley who is an Automattic new hire. Also during the show, Joost answers questions from the chatroom on optimizing WordPress for Search, one of his specialties. After all, he’s the one responsible for the Joost Boost (SEO Optimization) for StudioPress themes. The show comes in at 33 minutes so it shouldn’t be too hard to consume.

Related posts:

1. Yoast To Host A WordPress Podcast
2. WPWeekly Episode 46 – Mini Open Mic

WordPress.com, the commercial service owned and operated by Automattic has undergone a redesign. Now, I can’t tell you what changed and what didn’t because I don’t visit the site often enough to notice the changes. However, if I had to take a guess, I’d say the footer is different, some things have been rearranged, but overall, the clean and simplistic look is still there.

However, upon looking for a screenshot of WordPress.com before these recent changes, I dove into some WordPress.com history based on the results of the Internet Archive. WordPress.com has been around for a long time, long before I even knew there was a WordPress. Upon browsing through the results that the internet archive has, it’s very interesting to see the progression of the site/service. At one point, it looks like Matt or Automattic lost control of the WordPress.com domain but eventually got it back. Also worthy of note are the links to OpenDomain.org which was a service that provided opensource project domains. I have no idea if WordPress was an open domain or not but it certainly appears as though Drupal.com was.

With all that said, lets take a visual tour down memory lane of the WordPress.com domain with special thanks to the Internet Archive.

July 2004 – Dec 2004
WordPress.com displays a parked domain page for the better part of the year and during the middle of December of 2004, WordPress.com turns into a free domain that is available for use as an open source project.

Feb 2005 – May 2005
WordPress.com goes through a few errors during the first part of the year but during May, WordPress.com ends up back in control of the WordPress team. Obviously, this implies that they lost control of the domain some how. Not sure what happened but this is the first time in the Internet Archive where I see the WordPress image logo for the first time. Also, it’s the first time I see a link to WordPress.org which just for giggles, I highly encourage you to check out what it looked like at the time the link was published. My goodness, that design reminds me of bbPress today! Good thing they are getting a redesign!

May 2005 – July 2005
The same WordPress logo and page text stuck around from May to mid July but around July 28th, the excitement level for WordPress.com should have been ramping up as the page offered up a form to sign where interested users could be notified once the site went live. The signup also reserved the person’s username.

July 2005 – August 2005
Soon after the form goes online, WordPress.com goes through a minor redesign on August 17th where users can enter their invite code or signup to receive an invite code. At this time, the credit link on the bottom of WordPress.com says that WP.com is powered by WordPress. At this point, we can say hello to the beginning of the branding nightmare that haunts us today.

September 2005
During the month of September, WordPress.com introduces Hot Blogs Today alongside the invitation form which till this day, still exists on the front page of WordPress.com. Among some of the hot blogs at the time were Matt On WordPress, Lorelle On WordPress, Ryan On WordPress, and Ubuntu Blog. Also on this page, there is text where the Open Domain link used to be which says Domain Donated By Ric Johnson. Just as a WordPress.org tidbit, version 1.5.2 was making it’s way around the web.

October 2005
Around October 23rd of 2005, WordPress.com sports their support of the Flock browser. They consider it to be like FireFox but with goodies.

November 2005
On November 24th, 2005 the archive of WordPress.com showcases the full design instead of a CSS less page. We get to see the blue colors, the WordPress.com logo and the W. On November 30th for the first time, WordPress.com displays an image logo of Automattic in the bottom right hand corner. The image linked to a landing page for Automattic.com which also linked to WordPress.com and Akismet. What I find fascinating is that the Akismet site design has been the same since 2005 but it has always looked refreshing to me and it still does.

December 2005
On December 10th, 2005 the WordPress.com homepage changes to show a Username And Password box. Above the login form, there is text that explains WordPress.com has over 37,000 other bloggers on the service. Below the login form is a block that features WordPress.com news. Also on December 10th, the WordPress.com header design features snow flakes which has become a tradition. Just two days later on December 14th, the number jumps up to 39,000 bloggers. By the time December 31st arrives, WordPress.com has over 51,000 users.

February 2006
WordPress.com adds a section to the homepage that enables users to submit their email address to retrieve their activation key. At this time, WP.com has over 92,000 users. Also introduced is a change to the WordPress.org promotion link at the bottom of the page. Instead of a link to WordPress.org, it took you to WordPress.org/hosting as a list of recommended webhosts with affiliate links to those webhosts. This page exists today and amazingly, is not that much different.

March 2006
WordPress.com introduced a new navigation link called Topics which was in fact, tag functionality in WordPress in beta form. On the WordPress.org side of things, WordPress was at version 2.0.2. Also, WP.com now had over 119,000 users.

April 2006
A few new links added to the WordPress.com home page. About Us, Terms Of Service, and Privacy Policy.

June 2005
In June, WordPress.com added the Blogs Of The Day to their front page.

July 2006
In addition to hot blogs of the day, hot posts of the day were also linked to from the WP.com homepage. Also in July, a new link was added to the footer (Contact Support) where users could contact support through a contact form.

August 2006
The footer of WordPress.com become a little bigger since it was filled with links to other languages of the site. A link to notable users on WordPress.com was also added to the frontpage. Apparently, these were the cool kids. Just for giggles, the text on the contact page was changed to highlight the fact that only blogs with urls that contain WordPress.com would be supported with a link to the WordPress.org forums for other users.

September 2006
After realizing that all of those language links broke the design of the footer, it was changed in September so that only a few other languages were displayed with a link to more.

October 2006
WordPress.com realizes it has hundreds of great features to offer new bloggers. At this point, the service hosts over 399,000 blogs. A FAQ link is added to the footer.

November 2006
A small avatar shows up alongside links to the hot posts of the day. Instead of the login text asking if you already have an account, it now asks whether you’re already hip? Matt’s personalty is sinking into more of the service. Two new links are added to the footer. Features and Advanced. This is around the time when VIP hosting was introduced to the Automattic Mix.

February 2007 – July 2007
WordPress.com looks like a mess in the Internet Archive in this time span so it’s tough to gauge what’s new or what’s been taken away. If you’re really curious about these months, check out the archive for the domain yourself and click on them.

August 2007 – February 2008
WordPress.com receives a huge redesign which completely reshapes the display of the frontpage. It doesn’t look as great as what the actual design looked like because of some archive issues but basically, everything on the page received some attention. By this time, Automattic was getting ready to acquire Gravatar which they did on October 18th. One thing that was introduced with the brand new design is Stats. After the major redesign, it was basically business as normal as according to the archived pages from the Wayback Machine, nothing really changed. The last page that is accessible on the Internet Archive of WordPress.com is February 15th, 2008.

Wayback Machine Is Awesome:

It really is. Without it, I would have never been able to see things from that moment in time regarding the state of WordPress.org, Automattic, WordPress.com, Akismet, etc. One thing I learned while compiling this post is how awesome it is to click on a link in an archived page from the Wayback Machine and see the content linked to as it was in that time frame which gives me a much better picture of that time period. For example, during my clicking around, I saw WordPress.org sporting sponsored links which we know by now, Matt learned his lesson. In any case, I hope this dial-up crushing page not only enabled you to learn a thing a two from the past regarding WordPress.com, WordPress.org, or Automattic, but I hope it gives you a sense of appreciation for how far the project has come, thanks in large part to the contributions of code from volunteers.

Related posts:

1. Matt The Domain Guru Strikes Again
2. How To Get Into The WordPress Showcase
3. Update On Automattics Services And Blogs

Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com has revamped their home page by presenting a clean layout of the services they own along with the non-profit open-source projects they support.

I like this new way of presenting the projects page which used to show the same information. This clearly shows the projects they support that they don’t directly own/operate which I hope clears some of the confusion people have with thinking Automattic is the development force behind WordPress.org.

Related posts:

1. Automattic ALMOST Acquired At One Point
2. Update On Automattics Services And Blogs

As I finally had a chance to sit down and add content to my feedreader last night, I thought it would be a good idea to provide an update on all the Automattic owned services and also provide a list in case anyone was wanting to know which services or blogs were Automattic owned. So without further adieu.

Akisment – Last night, a new version of Akismet was released which fixes a diagnostic error which was responsible for reporting spurious errors. The new version should already be available on your plugin management page.

blo.gs – Blo.gs which was acquired back on April 21st, 2009 by Automattic is still sitting pretty. I have no idea what will become of this site but based on what it’s capable of doing, I have to wonder if this will end up being a merged version of Ping-O-Matic and Blo.gs.

Gravatar – The Gravatar blog has been silent since March so I’m going to guess not much is happening on that front. But Gravatars are working well so at least we know the lights are on!

IntenseDebate – I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned these guys on the site but one day, I plan on writing a review about their commenting system. IntenseDebate has been busy as of late with the most recent post being published on July 10th. They have now added the ability to ban users and view deleted comments, two things which should make administrators happy.

Ping-O-Matic – Ping-O-Matic received a complete make over earlier this year but since then, not a whole lot of things happening with this service. It still works for pinging but as I’ve noticed last night, the stats page which I’ve been complaining about for awhile now is still broken. It’s been broken for over a year now. Blog posts that are there are published in the UnCategorized section and I don’t think anyone is looking over the comments box. Publish and forget seems to be the name of the game.

PollDaddy – This service has been busy as well, just like IntenseDebate. They have recently launched a brand new support page which you can find here which I think looks a lot like WordPress.com. They have also worked on various bits of the User Interface so all is well on the PollDaddy front.

WordPress For Blackberry – Although not a service, this is an Automattic backed project so I felt it necessary to include in this list. Recently, a new beta of the app for the Blackberry phone was released that now displays text encoded with some additional character sets.

WordPress Publisher Blog – An Automattic backed blog that is used to showcase big time folks who have chosen to use or move to WordPress. Raanan Bar-Cohen does a good job keeping the site updated and it’s through here that I find out about celebrities or other big names choosing to go with WordPress. The most recent post deals with the Telegraph.co.uk moving to the WordPress MU platform.

WordPress.com – WordPress.com is doing just fine, no need to go into details there.

iPhone App For WordPress – Since I own one of these devices, I now have a reason to read Apple related content. I use the app on my iPhone 3GS and it works flawlessly for me. Recently, the team announced that Version 1.3 went live.

WordPress.TV – WordPress.TV is kicking. I’m sure Michael Pick has quite the backlog of video content to go through along with his partner who was hired back in April or May. WordCampTV is also doing well which is a subsection of the site.

Automattic – I don’t know of anything new taking place at WordPress headquarters but I did notice that the job for Theme Czar was still open or at least, they are still taking applications for the position.

Some Things Omitted

While bbPress, WordPress.org and BuddyPress all show up on the page showcasing the projects Automattic is involved with, I decided not to group them in with this post and keep them separate for the sake of confusion. However, Sam Bauers of bbPress and Andy Peatling of BuddyPress are employed by Automattic and we all know a few people from Automattic who work with the WordPress.org software.

If I missed any services or blogs, point them out to me in the comments as I’d like to create a sticky thread in the forum so I can have them all in a list format.

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You probably knew that WordPress could be used as a CMS for a simple content website, but did you know that it could also be used as a fully powered CMS for a complex real estate website? What about as a directory of iPhone applications? The short version of it is that WordPress is an excellent platform to do just about any sort of publishing on the web and most people aren’t aware of that. To help address that, the WordPress Showcase was created.

The Showcase aims to show the world what can be done with WordPress and help demonstrate that WordPress has tremendous capabilities as a publishing platform. For people new to WordPress or unfamiliar with the extent of its capabilities, the Showcase shows them some of the most notable, successful, and coolest uses of WordPress around the Internet. Approximately 400 sites are featured in the Showcase and the idea (and hopefully the reality) is that the sites in the Showcase are the best of the best.

For website owners, developers, designers, or business people, the Showcase can help give you instant credibility, some great link juice, a nice traffic boost, or even a personal ego boost. Regardless of your reasons for submitting your site to the Showcase, doing so isn’t difficult or time consuming.

Sites that want to be added to the Showcase need to meet one or more of the four submission criteria, which are as follows:

• Using WordPress in a unique or innovative way.
• Attracting tens of thousands of regular readers.
• Being written by someone famous or especially notable in his or her particular field.
• Representing a notable organization, government entity, or corporation as an official blog or web site.

If your site fits just one of the criterion, then it’s fine and definitely “Showcase-worthy”. Meeting all four is great (and entirely possible), but not required by any means.

Once you’ve read the criteria and have an idea on how to articulate why your site meets one of more of the items, then just head over to the WordPress Showcase Submission Page, fill out the form, and click submit site. The form asks a few simple questions and takes about two minutes to fill out. Sites that are added will be notified via email within a week or so of the original submission.

If you have any questions about the Showcase, what is and isn’t “Showcase-worthy”, or anything else, head over to this forum topic at the WordPress Tavern Forum and ask. I’ll be monitoring the topic and answering questions as they come up.

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