Matt Muellenweg’s favorite WordCamp was in the Philippines
A WordCamp Buenos Aires particpant writes:
There was a pool between the stage and the public, bats flew all the place, the Mic was a Karaoke machine.
It looks like Matt was referring to the event that took place in Davao, not the big one in Manila. Still, I’m glad Filipinos have made such a great impression on him. First it was the WordCamp Philippines t-shirt design, and now this.
(Via Winston Almendras)
Interview with Matt Mullenweg by Annalyn Jusay of Manila Bulletin
The full transcript of Matt Mullenweg’s interview by Annalyn Jusay of Manila Bulletin can be found on her blog. Apparently the newspaper cut the interview due to space constraints—another advantage of new media over traditional media!
But let’s save that issue for another day and enjoy how the old meets the new in this interview. Some snippets below. Here is Matt’s first impressions of the Philippines and its people based on our own version of WordCamp:
Q. It’s your first visit to the Philippines and spent some time at the maiden Philippine edition of the WordCamp. First impressions?
A. People love taking pictures here and I prolly had more than a hundred of that in the WordCamp. It just blew my mind. It’s a little bit common in other parts but not the same here. During the event, I saw that Plurk was really big. Everyone was plurking!
Filipinos are very warm, very outgoing. I think it’s cultural. In places like Germany, they’re a little more reserved. Filipinos like talking and communicating. You have big families, it seems. I was hanging out and this person has, like, five cousins in the room. I love that all the warmth and openness creates a very vibrant blogging community.
And here’s his opinion on the divide between blogging/new media and traditional media:
Q. Now that blogging is a big thing and publicists are discovering the bloggers, what can you say about it?
A. There’s a danger if you get started being invited to more events and start to be treated like traditional media. Bloggers, then, become more like traditional media. They’re afraid to publish something because they might offend someone who gives them money or advertises on their blog. And that is dangerous because then, you’re no different from traditional folks.
It’s great that people are making money from their blogs but, just like journalists, you should try to balance the editorial and the business side. Focus on the long term, not short term.
WordPress.com users can go ad-free (for a fee)
Matt Mullenweg has just announced at the WordPress.com blog that based on their experimentation with Google ads, they’ve decided to make displaying advertisements optional—but for a fee.
…Light advertising has allowed us to focus on free features for you guys rather than paid upgrades, and enabled us to invest in infrastructure so your blog is always fast and reliable and never shows a fail whale.
[...]
The No-ads upgrade can be purchased for 30 credits a year ($0.08 a day) through the Upgrades tab in your blog’s dashboard.
So that basically answers two things: (1) it costs a lot to keep things free so they’re running ads, though only at a reasonable amount; and (2) yes, you can finally remove them, though you’ll have to pay for it.
The next question would have to be: will WordPress.com users be able to make money for themselves by running their own ads? Matt says they’re thinking about it, though take note that it will probably a paid upgrade too.
Sticky Posts for WordPress.com users
As Matt Mullenweg had mentioned in a demo of WordPress 2.7 “Crazyhorse” during WordCamp’s State of the Word, there will be a new feature called Sticky Posts. It turns out that feature is already installed on WordPress.com blogs. This is patterned after forum posts which you want to keep at the top of the page for everyone to see.
Chances are WordPress.org users have a blog at WordPress.com, so be sure to try out that feature as we await WP 2.7!
Matt Mullenweg arrives in the Philippines; Final WordCamp reminders
Matt Mullenweg touched down in Manila last September 2, then headed to Davao for the mini-WordCamp there. And here’s his very first comment about our country:
In other news, the immigration/customs forms here are sponsored by a booze company. Smartly, though, they use carbon copy so you don’t have to write the exact same thing twice, like you do in the US.
As for WordCamp Philippines itself, the organizers have sent a final email reminder for all the things you’ll need to bring and do at the event.
- Don’t forget to print out your camper’s pass!
- Be sure to bring a valid ID.
- “Less than 400 campers plus several members from mainstream media will converge at the College of Saint Benilde at Taft Avenue on Saturday, September 6. Gates open at 8:00 AM.”
- If you haven’t registered your gadget, do so already here.
- Get to College of St. Benilde by going to the Vito Cruz LRT station. The building is right beside it. If you’re bringing a car, it will be difficult to find parking. See the vicinity map for more details.
- WordCamp t-shirts have been delivered to the campers’ homes.
- After-party is at mag:net Cafe in Serendra, The Fort, at 9:30 pm. Entrance fee is Php 150.
See you there!
Matt Mullenweg gives a shoutout to WordCamp Philippines at WordCamp SF 2008
Christian Cabuay reports that Matt Mullenweg mentioned WordCamp Philippines at this year’s WordCamp, held in San Francisco. Apparently the t-shirts for the local WordCamp are his favorite so far. Here’s the video:
People from the audience pointed out that the sun is from the Philippine flag. To the organizers, especially the t-shirt designer Andrew dela Serna, congratulations!
Oh, and if you still want to order a WordCamp PH tee, you’ll be glad to know that ordering has been reopened.
WordCamp 2008 live coverage
WordCamp 2008 is underway right now and Matt Mullenweg recommends ZDNet’s live coverage straight from University of California San Francisco.
Here’s the schedule:
9:00 a.m. The Future of Education and Wordpress -
9:30 a.m. SEO Mistakes Most Bloggers Make - Stephan Spencer
10:00 a.m. Open Source Business Models - Stephen O’Grady
10:50 a.m. Andy Skelton - A musical performance
11:00 a.m. LOLcats and the Secret of Virality
11:30 a.m. Wordpress & Microformats
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 p.m. Switching to Wordpress Painlessly - Lloyd Budd
1:20 p.m. 450 Wordpress Power User Tips - Lorelle VanFossen
1:40 p.m. Hassle-free Upgrades - Sam Bauers
2:00 p.m. State of the Word - Matt Mullenweg
3:00 p.m. Get Friendly with BuddyPress - Andy Peatling
3:20 p.m. Democratizing the Web through Global Voices - Jeremy Clarke
3:40 p.m. An interview with Om Malik
4:00 p.m. Riding the Crazyhorse - Liz Danzico and Jane Wells
5:00 p.m. A musical performance by Chuck Lewis aka SEO Rapper
5:10 p.m. Kicking Ass and Creating Passionate Users - Kathy Sierra
Visit the blog post for a glimpse of what’s to come for our very own WordCamp Philippines. It’s a good read not only for WordPress fans but also for bloggers and technology enthusiasts in general.
See also the live Twitter updates coming in via its search interface.
Interview with Matt Mullenweg and Joseph Scott on the WordPress Theme Directory
Ian Stewart of ThemeShaper has interviewed Matt Mullenweg and Joseph Scott about the recently reopened WordPress Theme Directory. You’ll get a good idea of where WordPress theming is headed—for example, automatic theme updating just like plugins—and the general vision behind the official theme repository and its guidelines.
The WordPress theme directory addresses all of these, and as a bonus allows us to do a theme update mechanism like we have for plugins and give theme authors a canonical place to track their distribution.
Since there have been over 150,000 downloads in less than a month it seems to be working.
Read the whole interview here.
WordPress.com redesigned
Hosted platform WordPress.com just got a design refresh, as announced by Matt Mullenweg via Twitter last August 11.
You’ll notice that while WordPress.com and WordPress.org sport similar design elements now (since version 2.5), the content of their homepages differ greatly. The former features posts from the users’ blogs, while the latter boasts of the blog software’s excellent features.
Which one do you prefer? It’s like comparing apples to oranges. I do, however, would like to see WordPress.org aggregate content from self-hosted blogs too. Wouldn’t that be exciting?
WordCamp Davao
Yes, folks. Aside from the upcoming WordCamp Philippines 2008 in Manila, the same organizers of said event have come up with WordCamp Davao on September 4. Matt Mullenweg will also be there.
WordCamp Davao will be a chance for the bloggers down South to learn from the master himself, to find out more about making full use of the power of WordPress. The Davao affair won’t be as comprehensive as the main event in Manila, but it will be something to look forward to just the same! So, fellow Dabawenyos and Mindanaoans, you’re getting what you’ve asked for!
Venue is currently TBA, but it will be held from 6:00 to 10:00pm. Register here.
