News

Is There Life Beyond WordPress?

15 November 2012 by Zé Fontainhas 3 Comments

Jason Schuller, of Press75 fame, has posted his thoughts on life beyond WordPress. Two paragraphs that stick out:

For me, WordPress has become what used to be that “tiny cubicle” back in 2007. I feel trapped by something that is heading in a direction that I’m finding harder and harder to align my ideas of what a website solution should be.

and

My issues with WordPress stem from how complex and bloated it has become over the last few years. WordPress used to be this “charming” little piece of software that had you at “hello”. Now that all simplicity has been left behind in versions past, WordPress seems to be void of any personality. It no longer has any specific purpose or individuality that sets it apart from the rest, and that’s where I am lost.

It looks to me that if you add Jason’s post to John O’Nolan’s Ghost concept and Tony Perez’s post on WordPress commercialization, we seem to have a trend here.

Use WordPress to Track Whose Turn it is to Make Tea

14 November 2012 by Remkus de Vries 10 Comments

Those of you who have intimate knowledge of WordPress know that WordPress really has become an application framework you can build all sorts of apps on it, not just websites. Point in case: the guys at humanmade ltd actually are using WordPress to app internally that tracks who’s turn it is to make tea. This has to be one of the most brilliant uses for WordPress I have yet seen. But, it’s possible I haven’t seen everything just yet 😉 , so if you know of WordPress being used for something completely out of the box, do share in the comments! Want to fork the tea plugin to your choice of hot beverage btw? Go right ahead.

Can WordPress i18n be Crowdsourced?

12 November 2012 by Remkus de Vries Leave a Comment

Tom Auger posted his thoughts about Crowdsourcing WordPress 118n after the WordPress Summit in Tybee Island, Georgia two weeks back.

“Crowdsourcing” is such a buzzword these days, but in the case of a community-driven project like WordPress, especially in the domain of i18n, it couldn’t be more appropriate. All that remains is setting up the technology in such a way as to make it really easy for any user to submit their translations, improvements, even new locales, without even knowing what a .pot, .po or .mo file is, and without having to visit GlotPress.”

His topic has already gained a little bit of traction and our very own Zé added his comments to the post as well, but we’re curious about your thoughts as well. Do check out his post if your preferred language in WordPress is anything other than English 😉

Ghost: WordPress forked for blogging

5 November 2012 by Remkus de Vries 9 Comments

John O’Nolan, who worked as a Deputy Head of the WordPress UI Group a few years back, has jotted down his concept for a fork of WordPress. One that, in his words, will focus very specifically on blogging again instead of being a full blown CMS like WordPress itself.

I actually like some of the ideas he’s suggested in his post. I think it would be a huge undertaking to do such a fork, but it’s certainly a refreshing approach focussing on just blogging again. So what do you think, is John on the right track?

Translating BuddyPress the easy way

20 October 2012 by Remkus de Vries Leave a Comment

Paul Gibbs released a nifty plugin – if I do say so myself – that is a godsend for anyone using BuddyPress in any other language than the default English language. Paul found a way to pull in available translations on the BuddyPress GlotPress project so basically if his plugin is not yet supporting your language of choice you need to get yourself in gear and start translating that puppy. More information can be found in Paul’s release post.

So what do you think, is creating a plugin like this the right way to do it?

Find your WordPress Meetup in Germany

19 October 2012 by Remkus de Vries 7 Comments

WordCamps are not the only type of WordPress related events you can go to, there are also – even more local than WordCamps – WordPress Meetups. The WordPress community in Germany has created a dedicated site as an overview for all the German WordPress Meetups. Looking for one to go to? Here ya go. Or if you prefer, you can also find a WordPress Meetup in the Netherlands.

So what do you think, should these type of overview sites be done by the local communities or should a list of meetups be added to WordCamp Central?

Now on WordPress: The oldest continuously published magazine in the English language

10 October 2012 by Siobhan McKeown Leave a Comment

Interconnect/IT have launched the latest iteration of The Spectator on WordPress. It looks gorgeous and, most important, it’s on WordPress. Why should anyone care? The Spectator is the oldest running continuous publication in the English language. It’s been in production since 1828. So it’s great to see the oldest running English pubication finally land on the world’s best blogging platform. Go check them out..