Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Automattic

Automattic and Federated Media Launch WordAds For WordPress.com Blogs

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:17:39 +0000

For years Automattic’s WordPress.com has allowed bloggers to make money with ads. The best option thus far has been Google AdSense. Now WordPress is saying “you deserve better than AdSense.” Now Automattic has launched a new service called WordAds. There are over 50,000 WordPress-powered blogs launching every day. These blogs will soon be able to place ads on their websites through Automattic’s partnership with Federated Media. [WordPress Blog]

20+ WordPress Admin Plugins Every Web Designer Should Know About

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 13:00:39 +0000

People that use the WordPress platform knows about the eco-system built around it. Plugins are one of the most important aspects of running a blog that runs on WordPress. Below is a list of over 20 plugins available that would come in handy for WordPress admins.

1. 404 Notifier – 404 Notifier is a plugin that gives you a log of all of the 404 errors that your readers end up seeing.

2. Admin Dropdown Menus – Admin Dropdown Menus adds dropdown menus to portions of the admin area to make it feel less cluttered.

3. Auto-Hyperlink URLs – Auto-hyperlink URLs allows you to automatically convert URLs into hyperlinks with several different options.

4. AWSOM Pixgallery – AWSOM Pixgallery is an image gallery and archive plugin for WordPress that makes it easy for artists to set up portfolios.

5. Cincopa – Cincopa is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add image galleries, slideshows, photo albums, videos, music playlists, and media libraries to WordPress posts and pages.

Hackers Gained Root-Access To WordPress.com Servers

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:36:53 +0000

Hackers have gained root-access to several WordPress.com servers this morning. Some of the VIP customers’ source code was accessible by the hackers. WordPress.com VIP customers were alerted a “code red” and passwords/API keys were changed.

Here is a statement from the company:

“Tough note to communicate today: Automattic had a low-level (root) break-in to several of our servers, and potentially anything on those servers could have been revealed.

We have been diligently reviewing logs and records about the break-in to determine the extent of the information exposed, and re-securing avenues used to gain access. We presume our source code was exposed and copied. While much of our code is Open Source, there are sensitive bits of our and our partners’ code. Beyond that, however, it appears information disclosed was limited.”

WordPress.com parent company Automattic said that the investigation about the hackers is on-going. WordPress.com has about 18 million publishers and sees about 300 million unique visitors per month.

[TechCrunch]

Some Of The Reasons Why WordPress Beat Movable Type

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:39:53 +0000

WordPress is used by 13% of the 1 million biggest websites. In terms of competition, WordPress surpassed Movable Type, another blog content management system. Why is WordPress winning the battle? According to Byrne Reese, the former product manager of Movable Type and TypePad, there are several reasons why WordPress is winning.

According to Reese:
- Movable Type had a licensing issue that angered their community in 2004.
- Movable Type is not an open source platform like WordPress is.
- Movable Type is written in PERL while WordPress is written in PHP.
- WordPress has a lot more themes and plugins.
- WordPress is easy to install compared to Movable Type.
- Automattic has a solid sales team. They cold called a large number of companies to .

Reese worked at Six Apart between 2004-2008. Now he is a partner at Endevver LLC, a Movable Type consulting company.

[Major Dojo]

Over 500,000 Windows Live Spaces Blogs Have Been Successfully Migrated To WordPress.com

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:06:20 +0000

This past September Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that Windows Live Spaces would be migrated over to WordPress.com. Today they have announced that over 500,000 Windows Live Spaces blogs have been successfully imgrated over to WordPress.com. As part of Microsoft’s partnership with WordPress.com parent company Automattic, Microsoft Messenger Connect can be used by WordPress.com users to share their blog posts with Messenger. [Windows Team Blog]

WordPress Launches Application For Nokia Symbian^3

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 05:36:44 +0000

WordPress has launched an application for Nokia Symbian^3. This is the fourth largest mobile platform that the blogging company launch an app for after launching on iOS, Android, and BlackBerry. The application was written in Qt, which means that it will work on the Nokia N8, The Nokia C7, and the Nokia C6-01. Features include the ability to post on the go, moderate comments, check statistics, and photo uploading. [IntoMobile]

How To Update WordPress.com Blog Posts Using SMS

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:30:34 +0000

Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com has added SMS text messaging support for the blog platform (note: this service is only available to U.S. WordPress.com users as of right now). There are free WordPress.com SMS features and there are paid features.

The free features are:
- Receive SMS when users are added or removed
- Receive SMS when theme changes
- Receive SMS when privacy settings are changed

The upgraded ($20 per year features) are:
- Protect your blog using two-step login process. A text message will be sent to your phone upon login with a passcode that must be entered to access the Dashboard
- SMS notifications of new comments and the ability to moderate them using a text message reply
- SMS notification when a new post is published to the blog
- Text message can be a new post

To get started, go to the “Text Messaging” section on the blog Dashboard and register your phone with the service. Activate the feature and select the text messaging features that you want to use for your blog.

[WordPress.com Blog]

Windows Live Spaces Now Powered By WordPress.com

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:05:44 +0000

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and WordPress.com has announced that Windows Live Space users will now be using the WordPress.com blogging platform. WordPress.com has made the migration easy using a brand a new import. Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to import all posts, comments, and photos to the WordPress.com platform.

Wordpress.com has added support to Messenger Connect as a Publicize option on WordPress.com also. This allows you to share blog updates on WordPress.com with your Windows Live Messenger friends.

[WordPress.com Blog]

WordPress.com Hits 200 Million Blog Posts

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:35:05 +0000

Blog platform company WordPress.com has hit the 200 million blog post mark. WordPress.com has about 11.4 million hosted blogs and sees about 260 million visitors per month (Quantcast). About 13.8 million blogs used the self-hosted WordPress platform. WordPress parent company Automattic raised about $30 million in funding since they started in 2005. [Mashable]

WordPress.com Adds Reblogging and Like Feature

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:02:58 +0000

Wordpress.com has introduced two new features to their blog service: a like button and reflagging. The new features can be accessed through a Like menu item in the admin bar at the top of WordPress.com pages.

The author can find out how many times people have clicked the like button on their post. Once you click like on a blog post, the top menu says “you like this.” In that same menu there is another option that says “Reblog this Post.”

If you click Reblog this Post, it takes you to QuickPress. QuickPress contains the title and the beginning of the post you are reblogging. The reblogging feature is very similar to what Tumblr and Posterous offers.

[WordPress.com Blog]