We’ve had a rug rethink! Check out the new WPMU.org…

by James Farmer July 7^th, 2011 43 Responses

It’s been a while in the making, and the subject of, oooh, ~500-1000 emails… but today we’re delighted to unveil the brand new WPMU.org design!

Special shout out to Tammie and Ve, who have been the force behind it and had to put up with a *lot*, especially from me :)

It’s hard to know where to start in terms of the improvements, but I’ll give it a crack nonetheless.
Responsive design!
Oh yeh, time to visit WPMU.org on your Android, iPhone or iPad… we think you’re going to like it.

Oh yes :)
Navigation-tastic

Community

Fancy being a ‘mystery customer’ at WPMU DEV?

by James Farmer June 21^st, 2011

Just a quickie today… but I was out shopping the other day and thinking about how some of these chains employ ‘mystery customers’ to visit their stores and feedback on their experience.

And I thought… wouldn’t it be cool to have a few WPMU DEV mystery customers – who can visit the site, sign up, experience the new customer process, use the plugins and themes, get support and let us know how we can improve!

So… would you like to be a mystery customer?

In return we’ll completely refund your membership fees once you submit your review (which we’ll outline in an email).

Community

Fancy joining Incsub / Edublogs as a crack SysAdmin (PT OK, location unimportant)?

by James Farmer May 24^th, 2011 Leave a comment

Are you, or do you know a fantastic SysAdmin who’d like to work with the bestest WordPress outfit on the web?

Well, we are looking for a new SysAdmin to complement our existing team.

The role involves the following major tasks:

Managing and improving our existing highly customized extensive web/db/file/S3 server setup that powers edublogs.org, Edublogs Campus, WPMU.org and WPMU DEV
Managing and improving existing systems and server automation tools
Conceiving of and implementing improved systems for the above and future projects

And also the following minor tasks:

As required management and expertise for dedicated servers housing other Incsub projects

Themes

Farms 133 WordPress Theme Pack Updated – custom menus and more…

by James Farmer May 10^th, 2011 6 Responses

Man, it seems like a long time ago since the first Farms theme pack.

Maybe that’s because it was – here’s the first ever release, 25 *widgetized* (wow!) themes back in December 2006.

Well, now, there’s another release and we’re particularly pleased with this one as it contains 133 themes, all of which have:

Custom menus (in every theme!)
Post thumbnails
Special SEO Options
Custom headers in ever theme it’s possible in
Widgets, widgets everywhere (naturally:)
And plenty, plenty more!

And, of course it’s completely free so go download it here.

Community

Should wordpress.org introduce a ‘reputation’ system?

by James Farmer May 5^th, 2011 11 Responses

Update: Massive kudos to Otto who spotted that there were over 60 fake accounts created over a year ago and used for the purpose of knocking this plugin, now sorted, what a legend!

Earlier today I was browsing our ever increasing number of free plugin releases at WordPress.org and made a pretty unpleasant discovery.

Plugins

Google +1 button for WordPress – plugin coming soon

by James Farmer March 30^th, 2011

(Edit: June 2, 2011: The free plugin is here! Get your copy now!)

So, the big news in Google and SEO land today is undoubtedly the introduction of the +1 button in competition to the already ubiquitous Facebook Like button and, of course, as a major component of improving the Googs search results.

But, as you would have no doubt read, so far it’s for the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) only… but not for long.

According to Search Engine Land:
But “coming soon” (Google tells me in months, rather than weeks), publishers will be able to put these buttons on their web pages

Community

Open source platforms (including WordPress!) on the decline?

by James Farmer March 29^th, 2011 19 Responses

I dunno about you, but it seems a week doesn’t go past where I don’t hear someone spruking the growth and importance of open source in the enterprise – or how OS principles are going to revolutionize how we work etc. etc.

And yet, check out this latest data from compete – comparing the homepages of WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Concrete5 and TextPattern

Not looking too great, huh!

And then take a look at the yearly changes:

Ouch!

Are open source platforms declining in popularity?

Community

Nice work with the WordPress Planet, now let’s make it just about WordPress

by James Farmer March 27^th, 2011 23 Responses

It’s great to see WP Tavern and WP Candy added to the WordPress Planet – two excellent resources for WordPress news and information, and now you can get them both by just unsubscribing to their feeds and picking up the Planet RSS one.

Or by checking out your dashboard!

Community

Why Jetpack really packs a punch – the future of WordPress and why you may not like it much (if you’re a premium developer or service provider)

by James Farmer March 14^th, 2011 27 Responses

I told myself to stay away from this.

Honestly, I couldn’t see a good reason to enter into the debate, it felt negative and bleugh and whats-the-point, so we just discussed it a bit internally, did a bit of low-level ranting, figured let sleeping dogs lie, and got on with the business implications on the quiet.

But having just read Ryan’s post about what Jetpack really means to WordPress, as a whole I figured sod it, if he can do it (or at least hint at it) so can I.