WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress Wins and Loses, WordCamp Argentina Success, WordPressMU, and WordPress Themes on WordPress.com Debated

WordPress wins Best Social Networking, but loses to Drupal overall. WordCamp Argentina was a hit. WordCamp Melbourne is next. WordPress at Blog World Expo. WordPressMU 1.3 released. WordPress 2.3.1 released. WordPress Themes being sold on WordPress.com are being thoroughly discussed and hashed out. Hot new WordPress Plugins are coming out fast and furious. And more WordPress news.

WordPress News


WordPress Wins and Loses: Drupal won the Overall 2007 Open Source CMS Award, and WordPress won for the Best Social Networking for Open Source, a new category “designed to recognize Content Management Systems that promoted the collaboration and distribution of information and development of communities.” The award netted WordPress another USD $2,000 in addition to the monetary award for being a finalist in the award competition.

WordPress 2.3.1 Released: The latest version of WordPress is out and contains security fixes, which makes this a mandatory upgrade. It also includes tagging support for Windows Live Writer, faster taxonomy database queries, and fixes to the login and link importer.

For a list of all the changes between the last two versions, see the Trac, and . For more information, see Peter Westwood’s description of the changes in WordPress 2.3.1. Also see PlanetOzh’s WordPress Upgrade Script for those with shell access to their web server, making upgrading WordPress “a matter of painless seconds”.

WordCamp Melbourne: Australia, is the next international spot for WordCamp Melbourne for November 17, a little over a week away. There is now an Upcoming Events page which list WordCamp Melbourne will be at the Watermark Bar.

WordCamp Argentina: WordCamp Argentina, October 31, 2007, appeared to be a great success for bloggers and WordCamp fans.

WordPress Hamburg News: WordCamp Hamburg’s registration is open with tickets at 20 Euros ($29). Sponsor tickets are 400 Euros ($575), also available online. Blog Yoda writes about the excitement of the upcoming WordCamp Hamburg or WordCamp Germany, as many are calling it. The author also points to the popular wordpress-deutschland.org, which services German speaking WordPress users with helpful articles and tips. I’ll be searching for new reports and news on the upcoming WordCamp event, so please point me in the right direction if you have information on this!

International WordCamps: Is there a WordCamp coming to your area? Volunteers are needed to help coordinate WordCamp conferences around the world. Below are some of the first, and they need your help to be a success, so pitch in and spread the news.

WordPress on Your Calendar: Here are some WordPress-related dates and events to put on your calendar as found on the WordPress Roadmap and the WordPress Meetup Group Listings (subject to change):

If you are having a WordPress-related event that isn’t on the calendar, post them below or via email.

Speedy Gravatars: With the recent purchase of Gravatar by Automattic, Barry talks about speeding Gravatar up in the integration process with WordPress.com. If you are tired of having a slow avatar, consider switching to a Gravatar for faster responses.

WordPressMU 1.3: The latest version of WordPress MU 1.3 is now out and includes improved sign-up control, protection from search engine indexing of the signup form, ability to set your primary blog via the Profile panel, ability to assign imported posts to other uses on the blog, an optional taxonomy sync script, UTF-8 database tables, and many fixes and improvements.

WordPress at Blog World Expo: Brian Layman and Mark Jaquith made a presentation on WordPress at Blog World Expo and they share their slides.

Secure WordPress Whitepaper in German, too: Blog Security’s Secure WP Whitepaper is now available in German as well as English.

WordPress Podcast: The latest WordPress Podcast is out: Episode 31: Automattic acquires Gravatar, Automattic being acquired? It covers a ton of information including Charles’ trip to Podcast and New Media Expo, Aaron sharing about PodCamp Philly, Automattic buying Gravatar, rumors of the sale of Automattic, WordPress tags, Blog Security’s Whitepaper on WordPress security flaws, problems with WP-Cache, international WordCamps, wPhone WordPress Plugin and much, much more.

WordPress for Dummies: WordPress for Dummies is officially released Monday, October 29 by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

WordPress 2.4 Digest: In this week’s WordPress weekly digest on WordPress 2.4 development by Peter Westwood, he reports on a ton of upgrades, fixes, and new bells and whistles for the next release of WordPress 2.4, including more work on caching, AJAX added to a few more features, and so much more.

Vote for WordPress Ideas: Did you know you could have your say in how WordPress works? You can add your idea and vote on any of the ideas to push them to the top in getting them added or removed from WordPress future versions. The section on WordPress is an open forum for you to have your say. Why not take advantage of it and add your voice to the vote.

Here’s a few to consider expressing an opinion and voting on:

Last Week’s WordPress Wednesday News: Last week’s WordPress Wednesday News report covered WordPress 2.3.1 Released, Get Your Upgrade, WordPress Podcast Speaks out, WordCamp Israel a Success, Argentina is Next, and WordPress Wins., if you would like to catch up with the news on WordPress.

WordPress.com News

WordPress.com W logo300 Servers for WordPress.com: If you are into the geek side of WordPress.com, Barry announces the 300th server for WordPress.com, and offers some server tips and techniques behind the power that runs WordPress.com.

WordPress.com Marketplace: In the works for a long time is the idea of a marketplace for products and services for WordPress.com bloggers. Recently, Matt Mullenweg expressed his ideas and thoughts about a WordPress.com Marketplace on his blog and at the WordCamp Argentina conference. He also offered a follow up with more explanation, but many are offering their suggestions and ideas and awaiting more information on the proposals, which include selling access to “premium” WordPress Themes to WordPress.com bloggers. If you have an opinion on the subject, get your voice heard.

What’s Hot on WordPress.com? The hottest blogs on WordPress.com were:

The hottest blog posts on WordPress.com were:

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseWordPress Super Cache: Donncha O’Caoimh announces WP Super Cache WordPress Plugin, the “next generation” of the popular WP-Cache WordPress Plugin by Ricardo Galli Granada. Donncha’s version creates static HTML files served directly by the server as well as the usual WP-Cache data files, and fixes some much needed-to-be-fixed bugs, and adding some new flexible features to this powerful, “digg-effect”, blog saving Plugin.

Speeding Up Comment Replies: Absolute Comments WordPress Plugin is the new “Comment Manager with Instant Reply” by Ozh, another brilliant attempt to add AJAX to the Comments panel and speed up the comment response time on WordPress blogs. We need to get such features put into the WordPress core as comments are so critical to the social aspect of blogging.

See Also

Polaroid Style Thumbnails Meets Lightbox: In Polaroid Style Thumbnails, Bretton explains how to use the Thumbnail Viewer WordPress Plugin, Windows Live Writer, and his Polaroid WordPress Plugin to create easy Polaroid-style framed pictures on your WordPress blog.

Interesting WordPress Plugins: Some interesting WordPress Plugins I’ve stumbled across recently include:

Finding WordPress Plugins: For more WordPress Plugins see the official WordPress Plugin Directory, which now lists 1,204 plugins and 2,177,105 downloads, the WordPress Plugins Database, and Weblog Tools Collection of WordPress Plugins released daily.

Plugins from the WordPress Plugins Directory: The posts tag is the most popular tag on the WordPress Plugin Directory, and I thought I’d list a few of the 138 Plugins in that tag.

Most Popular WordPress Themes: The WordPress Theme Viewer features more than 10 million downloads now and lists the most popular WordPress Themes as:

WordPress Techniques and Tips

Here are some featured articles and videos from around the WordPress Community and the , the online manual for WordPress Users, the source to turn to first for your WordPress help.

NOTE: If you would like your WordPress tip and technique included in this list, see Tips For Writing Good WordPress Tips.

WordPress Community News

WordPress Community graphicLooking for a WordPress Expert? Do you want a custom WordPress blog? Want to convert your website into a WordPress blog or use WordPress as a CMS? If you are looking for an expert in WordPress Themes, WordPress development, WordPress Plugins, or other WordPress-related expertise, check out the list of WordPress Consultants on , the parent company of WordPress, the WordPress Jobs listings, and the WP-Pro mailing list.

WordPress Jobs: WordPress Jobs is a new “service” announced by Weblog Tools Collection. It features jobs for WordPress experts and WordPress experts looking for work. Currently, the service is free as it is still in beta testing. Give it try.

WordPress Installed For Free: If you have problems installing the full version of WordPress, visit Installing WordPress for Free (aka Install4Free WordPress). This free, volunteer-driven service is limited to personal blogs only, and they help only with installations, not upgrades.

Using WordPress in Your Blog’s Name: Just a reminder. WordPress is a trademark and you are not allowed to use WordPress in your blog’s name or URL unless you have permission of and . Also, remember, it’s spelled “WordPress” not “Wordpress”. Oh, and Plugin is Plugin, not plug-in (what you put into a wall electrical socket).

Even More WordPress News?

Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports

WordPress News Sources


Each Wednesday on is WordPress Wednesday, featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact me at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

Picture of Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen

The author of Lorelle on WordPress and the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging for over 15 years, covering blogging, WordPress, travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development extensively as web technologies developed.

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