The discussion around the Chris Anderson goof episode raises an interesting issue.
Is WordPress.com bad for the WordPress brand?
Think I am being to strong? Check out this from Mark Jaquith
What about the following, which I’ve all heard?• “You can’t edit your CSS on WordPress unless you pay.”
• “You can only use the themes that come with WordPress.”
• “WordPress doesn’t allow Adsense.”
• “Embeds don’t work on WordPress.”Those statements, which are absolutely true for WordPress.com, are false and damaging for WordPress
I see this confusion occasionally too in my forum and in conversations. Not a lot but enough that I know it is a problem, and I also know that the “WordPress is for non-commercial” meme has spread far and wide …
Now if you support the idea that WordPress.com is causing confusion for the WordPress brand, and I think many people will agree that it is, what to do about it?
Well, it is not like all those thousands of *.WordPress.com sites are going to be happily redirected to new domains. I can only think that rebranding the software would be the (inelegant, or even downright ugly) solution :(
What do you think? Am I blowing this up to be a bigger problem than it is? Is there a better solution? Please share your thoughts in the comments …
