Robert, I use Wordpress (self-hosted) and I don't find any of the limitations you list (although I also love Akismet!).
What specifically do you want to do with templates that you can't do (or don't know how to do) now?
I have mulltiple plugins installed that aren't WordPress specific, so I don't understand this issue either.
There are extensions - they are called "plugins" and there are hundreds of them out there.
Maybe your issue isn't really with WordPress but with "hosted WordPress" - and that's almost a completely different issue...
Rob
Robert Scoble
· 3 years ago
Ahh, yes. At PodTech we use self-hosted Wordpress.
For my personal blog I don't want to deal with the heck of keeping it running. So, I want it on a hosted service.
Jon
· 3 years ago
I'm a fellow Wordpress user (switched from home-grown software to DotNetNuke to Blogger and then to Wordpress) and agree with you on the addition of paid services such as those you mentioned but also do not forget the ability to map your own domain to your wordpress account. I agree their service so far is top notch.
Kevin
· 3 years ago
I'm using a self hosted version of Wordpress and have gotten my wife and father both blogging using Wordpress.com.
Good to see you at #2, number 2 always tries harder.
PXLated
· 3 years ago
I use Expression Engine...Includes Wiki, a Forum Module in addition to Blogging all integrated with the same membership module. The one thing I wished you had Robert (EE does) is comment notification via email. The way it is, I have to either keep your blog open and constantly refresh or revisit often just to stay with any conversation. And it's really difficult at times because you continue conversations over several posts at times...is that just to confuse us? That's where an integrated forum comes in handy,with EE you can automatically start a forum thread with your blog post. (I'm not affiliated with EE, just a satisfied user)
PXLated: yeah, it would be good to see some innovation in the comment area. Actually I get all comments in a "one page" view, so can participate in several conversations at the same time.
Rob La Gesse
· 3 years ago
I don't have any problem following comments on WordPress logs. I just add the "RSS Feeds for comments on this post" to my RSS reader in my "Scoble Folder". In time, once the feed seems "dead", I just delete it.
In fact I hate it when I am "forced" (heh!) to comment on blogs that DON'T have an RSS feed for comments, for exactly the reasons you mentioned (F-5, F-5, F-5!)
Rob
vladiator
· 3 years ago
Robert, being inspired by your talk last Thursday at HBSTech, I have also created an account on Wordpress. I like its categorization of topics. As a newbee, I still have many decisions to make / a lot to learn. For example, I am not yet sure how Access Control is organized in Wordpress if I decide to keep some blog entries Semi-Public (just for personal or family note taking). I need to make a decision between several options in terms of posting on different topics and keeping different level of public access; the options I would imagine are: (a) create a new category like "Family" and keep it only accessible to a close circle of subscribers on the same blog at Wordpress, (b) create a new category like "Close Friends" and do not show these posts on the home page but only under the category of “Close Friends” if clicked on that link, (c) create a new blog on Wordpress and make it semi-public, (d) keep blogs on separate topics with separate blogging tools, like Blogger, that have its own Access Control rules.
toivo
· 3 years ago
blogger beta? :)
engtech
· 3 years ago
The Wordpress.com blogs of the day page is age and traffic based. In order to hit the top 100 you need a popular post that was written in the past month or so.
My blog is at 6600+ page views today because an older post got picked up on lifehacker.com, digg.com etc. But it isn't showing up in the top 100 (or rather, I just sneaked in position 85 because of side traffic) because the post is old.
Which is as it should be, but a side effect is that stuff will only show up on the Top Blogs if you have an immediate audience for new posts.
The built - in spam filters rock, and with the latest versions, it's now a "delete junk comments" single click to deal with the ones in the junk folder, and quite easy to deal with the ones that get past the junk folder but still aren't published. In the last month, I've had maybe...5? spam comments slip through.
All that is with no effort on my part other than turning it on.
The setup is tedious, but it's solid once it gets going, and it's VERY customizable, a plus if you think the standard "ALL YOUR TEXT COLUMNS ARE 4" WIDE" blog "feature" is utter crap.
Runs on anything, and works well with ecto, my editor of choice, so I really don't have to care how good the web posting featureset is, although it's not bad.
Self-hosting has more pain upfront, but can have, (not always) a LOT more benefits.
Koolaid drinker
· 3 years ago
MSN Spaces (Live Spaces, whatever). Great chimp simple interface for creating my personal dashboard space without too much annoying flexibility (i.e. MySpace). I know you think that "real" bloggers hate Spaces, but it does work for some of us.
Woody
· 3 years ago
Does anyone else think it's odd that Scoble actually tracks whether or not he is #1 on Wordpress.com all the time?
Rob Breidecker
· 3 years ago
I use BlueHost (http://bluehost.com) to host my blog, Evolutionary Goo (http://evolutionarygoo.com/blog). The price is great, Wordpress is easy to install and plugins are easy install as well. I am a new Wordpress user/blogger, so I am very pleased with my first Wordpress experience.
Keyvan Nayyeri
· 3 years ago
Robert,
Since your wife is Iranian it's nice to know that Anoushe is an Iranian women who lives in US and her great hit is probably because Iranian are visiting her regularly.
Also I read it somewhere that she is rich because she could sell his software company with a great benefit.
But about WP and Akismet. They're really seem to have great services. I don't use their services but see their effect on web. They had blocked my domain in Akismet so some my comments got blocked on your blog (and others) but they got back a quick response to my contact and solved this issue.
engtech
· 3 years ago
Does anyone else think it’s odd that Scoble actually tracks whether or not he is #1 on Wordpress.com all the time?
Not really. Wordpress.com has some great statistics features and they're ridiculously addictive to check all the time.
paul
· 3 years ago
Robert, maybe we can take up a collection from all these new Web 2.0 millionaires and send you to the Moon.
Robert Scoble
· 3 years ago
engtech: it's worse than that, actually. Wordpress sticks them in my face everytime I post so I can't really escape.
Robert Scoble
· 3 years ago
Koolaid: you forget that my wife's blog is on Windows Live Spaces. I know intimately that service cause she yells and screams about it and I know exactly how slow it is in comparison to Wordpress.com cause I always want to read her blog and comment.
francine hardaway
· 3 years ago
I blog on a Blogger site I've had for five years, and then I cross post to AlwaysOn.goingon.com so that the "right" people will read it :-) My blog is hosted on my own site, and I have no clue who reads it. Blogger's pretty good since it was bought by Google.
You owe me a couple of email, dude :-)
andy
· 3 years ago
How does one go about becoming the number 1 on wordpress.com?
Cem Basman
· 3 years ago
Hosted WP.com - And I really love it. I'm blogging free about a absolute niche topic and I would pay a little fee for more features and freedom.
Jason McIntosh
· 3 years ago
I switched from self-hosted wordpress to self-hosted Expression Engine here recently, for a number of reasons. First, and foremost, trying to update my website - poetshome.com - was a ROYAL pain. I've got 7 different friends with blogs there, and trying to update the different installations of wordpress, with all the different plugins for each installation, not to mention new themes for each installation... well, I got tired of messing with those issues. Expression Engine supports multi-users from ONE installation. It allows my users to edit their own templates, supports caching for optimization, has a TON of features, etc. Yes, I paid the $100 for the license, but it's worth it for the full version and all it adds. Add to that, great developer support (the software writers often post on the forums directly to questions ya've got), lots of plugins & development, and a company that has been doing the stuff for a long while, and you've got a great system.
Things I do wish they did though include AJAX support, and a bit cleaner of an interface. However, the extra complexity is on the administration side, and allows a great deal of freedom in implementation, advanced security settings, etc. EE is in some ways more of a CMS than a blogging tool, but it's definitely worth looking into.
Robert Scoble
· 3 years ago
Andy: I've been blogging for more than five years nearly every day and worked at one of the biggest software companies for three years and one of the biggest hardware companies (NEC) for one and worked for Dave Winer for a while too.
BlogReader
· 3 years ago
Why does the Googles still return scoble.weblogs.com as the first result when looking for "scoble"? Earth to Google: its been about a year since it moved over to wordpress.
Zack
· 3 years ago
So flying to space is all it takes eh? Good to know.
I use WordPress as well and concur on it's greatness! Very easy to install and administer. I agree with #5 though, would be nice to have an option to receive comment updates via email. I get that request quite a bit from people who still have no clue what RSS is.
joshmaher
· 3 years ago
yes, dealing with self hosting is more trouble then it's worth...but I'd like to be able to pay for a few more features on wordpress!!
Marcelo Calbucci
· 3 years ago
Blatant plug...
You should try Sampa (http://www.sampa.com). I'm the founder & CTO and we really want to make blogging way more interesting than it is today. Which means that we want to give you the control to pretty much everything without you ever need to know HTML or JavaScript. It is all WISYWIG, drag-and-drop, etc.
Besides the super cool integration with YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Google Analytics and more.
And we have just begun.
Marcelo
Kuli MaingI
· 3 years ago
I use CommunityServer 2.0 as my blogging engine, but it's a bit of sledgehammer to crack a walnut, as I don't use the gallery, forum, and other natty features.
And now it can be hosted for you, so no setup required!
engtech
· 3 years ago
Blatant self-promotion on
A lot of people are talking about how great Wordpress.com is, and I agree. I've got a collection of Wordpress Tips you might find interesting.
You also might be interested in the Alt-B trick in the Wordpress.com rich text editor that let's you cut-and-paste from Word documents without having any formating issues.
I've also got some greasemonkey/perl scripts in the works (not yet released). That's how I do things like have a tag cloud and a list of all posts by title even though Wordpress.com doesn't support those features.
Scobble, just for your info this is not the first time you got beaten out. Bhuvan's blog also beat you out some time earlier. So we don't need "some rich American/space tourist paid a bunch of money to fly to space" to beat you out. A little bit of modesty certainly helps...
with the increasing death of the trackback on many blogs, that these blogs link to this post feature would be nice as well.
- better comment spame - some get through lately.
Jonny Goldstein
· 3 years ago
Another blatant plug:
I think you might be able to find what you want with my company, Phovi. For more precise info, email my boss at: peter at phovi dot com and he'd be happy to give you the full on specs of our free WordPress blogs which have way more functinality than wordpress.com affords.
Jonny Goldstein
· 3 years ago
Now if only my spelling had more functionality....
Living in China
· 3 years ago
Unfortunately, Wordpress blogs are blocked in China along with Blogger and Blogspot. Blogs that have their own domain name are rarely blocked. Worth thinking about if you truly want to have a global audience. (we are all aware of proxies, but it's not something you want to hassle with on a day-to-day basis for checking blogs/RSS feeds)
Doug Karr
· 3 years ago
I love WordPress, too. But the admin section needs a facelift. User Interfaces don't have to be designed like they were programmed on a Commodore 64. Wordpress has done such a fantastic job on the theme editing and CMS portions (I use it for a dozen clients), pleaaaase make the admin just as robust. In fact, why not put the Admin IN the theme??!!!
James Cotton
· 3 years ago
For me Hosted Wordpress rocks and I've used typepad, movable type, blogger, wordpress.com but found that hosted wordpress can do everything i need and is easy to use for me. Mind you i've been using it since version 1.2 so i guess i'm used to it.
Kevin Harder
· 3 years ago
I use Community Server 2.1 running on my own server. But as a developer on the CS team, what else would you expect. =P
For a long time it was easy to divide the various blog software platforms into self-hosted vs. using a service. But now it's becoming much easier to get the "self-hosted" platforms as a service. Either via hosting companies that do it all for you and directly by the companies behind the software.
Six Apart of course has MT to install and the TypePad/LJ services. Automatic has done an awesome job with the Wordpress.com blogging service to complement the WP software. And Telligent recently introduced a beta version of hosted Community Server (http://weblogs.asp.net/rhoward/archive/2006/09/...).
The initial version of Hosted CS is aimed mostly as businesses or organizations that want a community site. But hopefully we can roll out a free ad-supported hosted version soon that will be a good fit for small orgs and individual bloggers like you. =)
Dillon Thomas
· 3 years ago
"Does anyone else think it’s odd that Scoble actually tracks whether or not he is #1 on Wordpress.com all the time?" He doesn't. The current best posts and blogs are listed in front of you every time you login. Which for Robert would be many times a day.
sytycd
· 3 years ago
If Scoble logs into Wordpress every day then I'm going to stop reading his blog. He's got to have shortcuts to the stats page and the writing page(or some page other than the Wordpress.com dashboard.
More importantly, visit my blog so that Scoble can be even lower. I've reached 7 (for english) today.
As far as stats... A blogger is not a blogger if he doesn't check his stats.
Ivan Pope
· 3 years ago
Robert, Wordpress.com doesn't allow javascript widgets. Widgets are the future - you either need to pursuade Wordpress to allow a widget management system like Snipperoo through the door - or move to one of the systems that allows it. Several do and have more potential as a result. And I presume your show will have a widget so I can have the latest stuff in my sidebar?
Jack
· 3 years ago
I have tried most of the blogging software and, in my humble opinion, I have to say that Wordpress is the best program out there. I agree that it has its limits, but comparatively fewer than most.
Ted Haeger
· 3 years ago
I remember the day I managed to beat out Scoble...how sweet it was. :)
Om Malik, Jeff Jarvis and Techcrunch as users. Oh, and then a long list of other 'notable users'.
But these people don't use Wordpress.com. How do I know? Well, Wordpress.com doesn't allow advertising. So how are Techcrunch and Om Malik and everyone getting adverts on their site? Well, they may be using the Wordpress self-hosted software - but that is a totally different thing.
I find this promotion to be dishonest and I think you should move somewhere that doesn't feel the need to make things up.
raincoaster
· 3 years ago
I beat Scoble!
It can be done, but you have to catch a meme. I've done it once, maybe twice (I didn't check that time). What does this mean? Not a raging snotload of a lot unless you've got something to keep people coming back.
Scoble always gives value to his readers; I'm the least techie person you'll meet, but I read him when his topics are blogosphere-related, because I'm very socially oriented.
I can tell you from experience that getting in the top ten Wordpress blogs is awesome for hits, but that if you don't follow that up with something of interest to that community within four days you are walking dead.
In related news, I'm one of the premiere crusaders for an even playing field at Wordpress. I think that either all Wordpress blogs should be allowed affiliate links like Amazon OR that affiliate linked blogs should be siphoned off to their own category, because such options don't exist for regular Wordpress bloggers.
I'm probably the only communal anarchist blogger who's ever beaten Robert for #1 Wordpress blog. As such, I can say authoritatively that those blogs with such kickback links should be in a different category. There may only be three or four of them, but they should be separated out because they've got a vested interest in pimping the hits.
I haven't seen any major examples of this in this particular blog, but if you're going to make a special exemption, make it exempt from ALL categories is my thinking.
raincoaster
· 3 years ago
Oh yes, I must add: if you've seen ads on my blog, rest assured I've complained about them VOCALLY to Wordpress, as they weren't a possibility when I signed on. I make no money from them.
I have, however, suggested a revenue sharing model to Wordpress, which I understand they're considering. I, personally, want no ads and no revenue; I just want to know how much it'll cost me to get the no-ad model I had to begin with.
RTPeat
· 3 years ago
I've had a self-hosted Wordpress blog for quite a while, but when my wife got fed up with her poems getting lost amongst the technical stuff I tend to post she set up her own on Wordpress.com (called et Uxor)
I have to say that I do have to spend a bit of time every month upgrading all the various plugins and things I have on our main blog, and whenever a new version of Wordpress or K2 comes out I have to be careful to not break the existing customisation, but it does give a lot more flexibility in what you can do.
However from my wife's point of view, all she wanted is something that looks good, is straightforward to use, and is generally no hassle, where she could post her poems, occasional thoughts and so on, without getting buried amongst all of my stuff, for which the hosted service offered by Wordpress.com is great. What you're trading for the convenience of having someone else doing the upgrades, and worrying about spam, is the flexibility to install any of the multitude of Wordpress plugins that are around.
Wesley Parish
· 3 years ago
@ paul — September 18, 2006:
"Robert, maybe we can take up a collection from all these new Web 2.0 millionaires and send you to the Moon."
No, No, and NO! He'll interview the first aliens he comes across and we'll be treated to a vlog or podcast of truly alien proportions! ;)
More facetiously: I don't have a blogging schedule set up, so I've left blogging alone for the time being. I've considered blogger and wordpress, and might reactivate my "anonymous" livejournal some time or other.
Besides, does anyone _really_ have an urgent need to read my every word? Some of my very best are already being published at antisf.com; and at a mere 500 or so words a story, it's a real bargain!
Colin
· 3 years ago
There has been quite a bit of update on the Presentation section of WP hosted lately, with new templates,blank templates, and CSS editing for a small payment.
Abby
· 3 years ago
@13, i'm on Spaces too. And a real blogger.
James F
· 3 years ago
Very interesting information.
theschwartz
· 3 years ago
Yeah, I have to agree. I started my blog a couple months ago on Wordpress cause you did, and I figured you knew what you were doing. :D Love it. My only open question really is about customization - I can write my own code - but it's not a huge priority. I once bought a car without sitting in it based on Consumer Reports reviews, too. Loved it. :D
Russ Henry
· 3 years ago
I know this is off topic. Please keep your text width. If not please add a function when the window is sized down you do not have to scroll to read (left to right) . The reason I am asking is so I can watch your videos in another window while reading your text. It is easy to stop reading once a jewel pops up in the videos. Blogg blogg blogg ...jewel... blogg blogg blogg. etc.
I wish channel 10 followed your video format. You can not jump ahead when you hit a blah blah spot in the video. Makes content searching harder. This feature is good for long tech content videos.
Just a thought!
drmike
· 3 years ago
I just think you'll a bunch of nuts. :)
And Scoble isn't #1 every day.
axewielderx
· 3 years ago
Guess, I will never be #1 then since you have to go to space to do it. That is actually a good thing though.Less pressure on the bottom!
AXE
mksucks
· 3 years ago
Hey Scob - I think I sneaked past you once for a couple of hours. So if you write about something as funny as why Mary Kay Sucks, it's possible to beat you. If only for a fleeting moment!
Robert, I just started blogging and looked at Blogger and Windows Live Spaces in addition to Wordpress. Currently, Wordpress wins for me.
My goal is to create a "personal" portal with things like my recommended book and tools list in addition to my blog. Windows Live Spaces has a number of components that I liked initially, but the customize limitations did them in. I also dislike the web parts that cannot be removed.
Now, like you, I am searching for additional components for Wordpress.
-- Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!
· 3 years ago
Greetings, I'm self-hosted on Wordpress (Akismet pwns!), but let me explain (for those who don't already know) why hosted Wordpress can't allow Javascript.
Blogs are served from {name}.wordpress.com. The Wordpress cookie is delivered to any site that ends in wordpress.com. Any Javascript on the page is legitimately allowed to look up cookies that would be sent to the domain it's served from.
This means that if you can run Javascript on a hosted Wordpress page, you can retrieve the login cookie from another Wordpress user, and then pass it to an external site. (Generally by creating an image reference that includes the encoded login cookie.)
This is just a basic part of the underlying technology of the web browser, and it's required for sites like gmail, Yahoo!, and others to operate.
There are ways a site can avoid this problem (generally by constantly changing the login cookie data with EVERY response, and invalidating the old ones immediately), but they require more horsepower on the backend than the blogging sites are really able to provide, and there's still usually a small window of opportunity.
This is why Livejournal, Wordpress, and most other hosted sites disallow Javascript on their pages.
I hope that helps!
Brett Nordquist
· 3 years ago
Robert, I'm not very technical and I spend very little time on my hosted Wordpress blog as far as admin stuff goes. Once you get it up and running ok, there's not that much too it. Sure, you can tweak templates for hours but I don't see it as much of a time drain to just keep it running. I tried a number of others before moving to Wordpress; Radio, Expression Engine, Graymatter and Moveable Type to name a few. Wordpress has been the best choice for my blog mostly because of the excellent community and ability to tweak to my liking.
kOoLiNuS
· 3 years ago
Robert, why you - just for fun - don't start a new blog starting from nowhere ?
Leave this "void" of capital's contents and give us them in the new "space ghost" blog.
We could learn a thing or two on quality energy to emerge on a 300k+ blog arena, don't you think so?
:-)
LearningNerd
· 3 years ago
I spent a fair amount of time looking at other free hosted services, and WordPress is definitely the way to go. I'm also on WordPress.com, but I plan to switch to a self-hosted version of WordPress one day.
And congrats on #2! I was getting bored of always seeing your blog at the top, too. ;)
mrgoat
· 3 years ago
a) free wordpress accounts suck. b) becuase you can do SHIT with them
I have apopular blog and want migrate it to a paid for server, real instal of WP andall that. I can't do redirect of the traffic or attcess HTACCESS to do this myself
Hey, Looks like your # 3 now. that's the first time since I have been here that I've seen you at #3!
byteburn
· 3 years ago
yes, using a hosted wordpress is better. lots of plug-ins
byteburn
· 3 years ago
it seems i cannot open the spaceblog site. maybe too much traffic sent the site down
jayson knight
· 3 years ago
Community Server user since the early betas of 1.0, and was .Text before that. Before .Text I was using a homegrown solution. Self hosted for a couple of years but got sick of the administrative overhead so I moved to ASPnix.
For everyone who loves Akismet (me included) CS2.1 has full support for Akismet, and CS3.0 (last I checked at least) will have support built in natively for Akismet.
WP is just too lightweight IMO, but it's still a great service.
imhelendt
· 3 years ago
Robert- You're just teasing me with the title. You really didn't tell me how to beat you on Wordpress. And Lord knows, I'm trying. ;) I can't afford to go into space. So new plan, K? ;)
raincoaster
· 3 years ago
Blog about something that EVERYONE will be talking about in two days. Do it now. Get on Metafilter and Bob's your uncle (700 hits in 12 hours on top of my regular).
imhelendt
· 3 years ago
Raincoaster- I've only been able to do that once (on my old blog.). And I got 50,000 hits in three days. Made CNET. It's hard to repeat that. :)
foolswisdom
· 3 years ago
Hi Robert,
Have you considered adding the Akismet widget to your sidebar to show off just how much SPAM never sees the light of day?
Cheers, Lloyd
Anghus
· 2 years ago
Guess you can fly to Mars and beat them :)
Brett
· 1 year ago
I use both Wordpress and BlueHost. Amazing service from each. The functionality Wordpress gives up is amazing. BlueHost cpanel is unequaled. I have been using both services for over a year, all with out one single problem.
Гинеколог
· 1 year ago
Update! WordPress 2.6.2
Day Trading Help
· 11 months ago
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have seen so much junk on the internet, so it is nice to see something positive being said. Kind regards, Barry
All Comments
What specifically do you want to do with templates that you can't do (or don't know how to do) now?
I have mulltiple plugins installed that aren't WordPress specific, so I don't understand this issue either.
There are extensions - they are called "plugins" and there are hundreds of them out there.
Maybe your issue isn't really with WordPress but with "hosted WordPress" - and that's almost a completely different issue...
Rob
For my personal blog I don't want to deal with the heck of keeping it running. So, I want it on a hosted service.
Good to see you at #2, number 2 always tries harder.
The one thing I wished you had Robert (EE does) is comment notification via email. The way it is, I have to either keep your blog open and constantly refresh or revisit often just to stay with any conversation. And it's really difficult at times because you continue conversations over several posts at times...is that just to confuse us? That's where an integrated forum comes in handy,with EE you can automatically start a forum thread with your blog post.
(I'm not affiliated with EE, just a satisfied user)
In fact I hate it when I am "forced" (heh!) to comment on blogs that DON'T have an RSS feed for comments, for exactly the reasons you mentioned (F-5, F-5, F-5!)
Rob
being inspired by your talk last Thursday at HBSTech, I have also created an account on Wordpress. I like its categorization of topics. As a newbee, I still have many decisions to make / a lot to learn. For example, I am not yet sure how Access Control is organized in Wordpress if I decide to keep some blog entries Semi-Public (just for personal or family note taking).
I need to make a decision between several options in terms of posting on different topics and keeping different level of public access; the options I would imagine are:
(a) create a new category like "Family" and keep it only accessible to a close circle of subscribers on the same blog at Wordpress,
(b) create a new category like "Close Friends" and do not show these posts on the home page but only under the category of “Close Friends” if clicked on that link,
(c) create a new blog on Wordpress and make it semi-public,
(d) keep blogs on separate topics with separate blogging tools, like Blogger, that have its own Access Control rules.
My blog is at 6600+ page views today because an older post got picked up on lifehacker.com, digg.com etc. But it isn't showing up in the top 100 (or rather, I just sneaked in position 85 because of side traffic) because the post is old.
Which is as it should be, but a side effect is that stuff will only show up on the Top Blogs if you have an immediate audience for new posts.
The built - in spam filters rock, and with the latest versions, it's now a "delete junk comments" single click to deal with the ones in the junk folder, and quite easy to deal with the ones that get past the junk folder but still aren't published. In the last month, I've had maybe...5? spam comments slip through.
All that is with no effort on my part other than turning it on.
The setup is tedious, but it's solid once it gets going, and it's VERY customizable, a plus if you think the standard "ALL YOUR TEXT COLUMNS ARE 4" WIDE" blog "feature" is utter crap.
Runs on anything, and works well with ecto, my editor of choice, so I really don't have to care how good the web posting featureset is, although it's not bad.
Self-hosting has more pain upfront, but can have, (not always) a LOT more benefits.
Since your wife is Iranian it's nice to know that Anoushe is an Iranian women who lives in US and her great hit is probably because Iranian are visiting her regularly.
Also I read it somewhere that she is rich because she could sell his software company with a great benefit.
But about WP and Akismet. They're really seem to have great services. I don't use their services but see their effect on web. They had blocked my domain in Akismet so some my comments got blocked on your blog (and others) but they got back a quick response to my contact and solved this issue.
Not really. Wordpress.com has some great statistics features and they're ridiculously addictive to check all the time.
You owe me a couple of email, dude :-)
Things I do wish they did though include AJAX support, and a bit cleaner of an interface. However, the extra complexity is on the administration side, and allows a great deal of freedom in implementation, advanced security settings, etc. EE is in some ways more of a CMS than a blogging tool, but it's definitely worth looking into.
I use WordPress as well and concur on it's greatness! Very easy to install and administer. I agree with #5 though, would be nice to have an option to receive comment updates via email. I get that request quite a bit from people who still have no clue what RSS is.
You should try Sampa (http://www.sampa.com). I'm the founder & CTO and we really want to make blogging way more interesting than it is today. Which means that we want to give you the control to pretty much everything without you ever need to know HTML or JavaScript. It is all WISYWIG, drag-and-drop, etc.
Besides the super cool integration with YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Google Analytics and more.
And we have just begun.
Marcelo
And now it can be hosted for you, so no setup required!
A lot of people are talking about how great Wordpress.com is, and I agree. I've got a collection of Wordpress Tips you might find interesting.
Of special note is a project I've been working on to create a spreadsheet of all the features for the available Wordpress.com themes (you can't install Themes on wordpress.com, you have to use one of the default ones).
You also might be interested in the Alt-B trick in the Wordpress.com rich text editor that let's you cut-and-paste from Word documents without having any formating issues.
I've also got some greasemonkey/perl scripts in the works (not yet released). That's how I do things like have a tag cloud and a list of all posts by title even though Wordpress.com doesn't support those features.
Blatant self-promotion off
My main blog (self-hosted Wordpress) gets 300-400 spam comments a day. Akismet does a great job. Capcha does even better.
I do agree with you on the Template part for Wordpress.
There are many people who designed Templates for Wordpress, but it requires going through downloading them, the FTP, uploading them and a bit more.
It might put off many people who are not technically inclined.
There is also a lack of 'uniformity' between people who offer an hosted version of Wordpress.
In my case 1and1 and Yahoo.
I guess this is why I have been more active on my Typepad blog 'Serge the Concierge'
Take care
SERGE
Biz:
http://www.njconcierges.com
Blog:
http://www.sergetheconcierge.com
oh, wait I wrote a post on that 6 weeks ago.
http://daviddalka.com/createvalue/2006/08/05/wo...
with the increasing death of the trackback on many blogs, that these blogs link to this post feature would be nice as well.
- better comment spame - some get through lately.
I think you might be able to find what you want with my company, Phovi. For more precise info, email my boss at: peter at phovi dot com and he'd be happy to give you the full on specs of our free WordPress blogs which have way more functinality than wordpress.com affords.
For a long time it was easy to divide the various blog software platforms into self-hosted vs. using a service. But now it's becoming much easier to get the "self-hosted" platforms as a service. Either via hosting companies that do it all for you and directly by the companies behind the software.
Six Apart of course has MT to install and the TypePad/LJ services. Automatic has done an awesome job with the Wordpress.com blogging service to complement the WP software. And Telligent recently introduced a beta version of hosted Community Server (http://weblogs.asp.net/rhoward/archive/2006/09/...).
The initial version of Hosted CS is aimed mostly as businesses or organizations that want a community site. But hopefully we can roll out a free ad-supported hosted version soon that will be a good fit for small orgs and individual bloggers like you. =)
He doesn't. The current best posts and blogs are listed in front of you every time you login. Which for Robert would be many times a day.
More importantly, visit my blog so that Scoble can be even lower. I've reached 7 (for english) today.
As far as stats...
A blogger is not a blogger if he doesn't check his stats.
Wordpress.com doesn't allow javascript widgets. Widgets are the future - you either need to pursuade Wordpress to allow a widget management system like Snipperoo through the door - or move to one of the systems that allows it. Several do and have more potential as a result.
And I presume your show will have a widget so I can have the latest stuff in my sidebar?
Wordpress.com use you as their poster boy. http://wordpress.com/notable-users/
Note there is a huge difference between wordpress.com and Wordpress. Robert, you do host on wordpress.com, but they go on to list:
Om Malik, Jeff Jarvis and Techcrunch as users. Oh, and then a long list of other 'notable users'.
But these people don't use Wordpress.com. How do I know? Well, Wordpress.com doesn't allow advertising. So how are Techcrunch and Om Malik and everyone getting adverts on their site? Well, they may be using the Wordpress self-hosted software - but that is a totally different thing.
I find this promotion to be dishonest and I think you should move somewhere that doesn't feel the need to make things up.
It can be done, but you have to catch a meme. I've done it once, maybe twice (I didn't check that time). What does this mean? Not a raging snotload of a lot unless you've got something to keep people coming back.
Scoble always gives value to his readers; I'm the least techie person you'll meet, but I read him when his topics are blogosphere-related, because I'm very socially oriented.
I can tell you from experience that getting in the top ten Wordpress blogs is awesome for hits, but that if you don't follow that up with something of interest to that community within four days you are walking dead.
In related news, I'm one of the premiere crusaders for an even playing field at Wordpress. I think that either all Wordpress blogs should be allowed affiliate links like Amazon OR that affiliate linked blogs should be siphoned off to their own category, because such options don't exist for regular Wordpress bloggers.
I'm probably the only communal anarchist blogger who's ever beaten Robert for #1 Wordpress blog. As such, I can say authoritatively that those blogs with such kickback links should be in a different category. There may only be three or four of them, but they should be separated out because they've got a vested interest in pimping the hits.
I haven't seen any major examples of this in this particular blog, but if you're going to make a special exemption, make it exempt from ALL categories is my thinking.
I have, however, suggested a revenue sharing model to Wordpress, which I understand they're considering. I, personally, want no ads and no revenue; I just want to know how much it'll cost me to get the no-ad model I had to begin with.
I have to say that I do have to spend a bit of time every month upgrading all the various plugins and things I have on our main blog, and whenever a new version of Wordpress or K2 comes out I have to be careful to not break the existing customisation, but it does give a lot more flexibility in what you can do.
However from my wife's point of view, all she wanted is something that looks good, is straightforward to use, and is generally no hassle, where she could post her poems, occasional thoughts and so on, without getting buried amongst all of my stuff, for which the hosted service offered by Wordpress.com is great. What you're trading for the convenience of having someone else doing the upgrades, and worrying about spam, is the flexibility to install any of the multitude of Wordpress plugins that are around.
"Robert, maybe we can take up a collection from all these new Web 2.0 millionaires and send you to the Moon."
No, No, and NO! He'll interview the first aliens he comes across and we'll be treated to a vlog or podcast of truly alien proportions! ;)
More facetiously: I don't have a blogging schedule set up, so I've left blogging alone for the time being. I've considered blogger and wordpress, and might reactivate my "anonymous" livejournal some time or other.
Besides, does anyone _really_ have an urgent need to read my every word? Some of my very best are already being published at antisf.com; and at a mere 500 or so words a story, it's a real bargain!
Please keep your text width. If not please add a function when the window is sized down you do not have to scroll to read (left to right) .
The reason I am asking is so I can watch your videos in another window while reading your text. It is easy to stop reading once a jewel pops up in the videos.
Blogg blogg blogg ...jewel... blogg blogg blogg. etc.
I wish channel 10 followed your video format. You can not jump ahead when you hit a blah blah spot in the video. Makes content searching harder. This feature is good for long tech content videos.
Just a thought!
And Scoble isn't #1 every day.
AXE
:P
MKS
http://marykaysucks.wordpress.com
My goal is to create a "personal" portal with things like my recommended book and tools list in addition to my blog. Windows Live Spaces has a number of components that I liked initially, but the customize limitations did them in. I also dislike the web parts that cannot be removed.
Now, like you, I am searching for additional components for Wordpress.
I'm self-hosted on Wordpress (Akismet pwns!), but let me explain (for those who don't already know) why hosted Wordpress can't allow Javascript.
Blogs are served from {name}.wordpress.com. The Wordpress cookie is delivered to any site that ends in wordpress.com. Any Javascript on the page is legitimately allowed to look up cookies that would be sent to the domain it's served from.
This means that if you can run Javascript on a hosted Wordpress page, you can retrieve the login cookie from another Wordpress user, and then pass it to an external site. (Generally by creating an image reference that includes the encoded login cookie.)
This is just a basic part of the underlying technology of the web browser, and it's required for sites like gmail, Yahoo!, and others to operate.
There are ways a site can avoid this problem (generally by constantly changing the login cookie data with EVERY response, and invalidating the old ones immediately), but they require more horsepower on the backend than the blogging sites are really able to provide, and there's still usually a small window of opportunity.
This is why Livejournal, Wordpress, and most other hosted sites disallow Javascript on their pages.
I hope that helps!
Leave this "void" of capital's contents and give us them in the new "space ghost" blog.
We could learn a thing or two on quality energy to emerge on a 300k+ blog arena, don't you think so?
:-)
And congrats on #2! I was getting bored of always seeing your blog at the top, too. ;)
b) becuase you can do SHIT with them
I have apopular blog and want migrate it to a paid for server, real instal of WP andall that. I can't do redirect of the traffic or attcess HTACCESS to do this myself
I know its free and I shouldnt complain
But I am
Let us bastard well redirect you gits
xxx
http://doanair.wordpress.com/
For everyone who loves Akismet (me included) CS2.1 has full support for Akismet, and CS3.0 (last I checked at least) will have support built in natively for Akismet.
WP is just too lightweight IMO, but it's still a great service.
You're just teasing me with the title. You really didn't tell me how to beat you on Wordpress. And Lord knows, I'm trying. ;) I can't afford to go into space. So new plan, K? ;)
I've only been able to do that once (on my old blog.). And I got 50,000 hits in three days. Made CNET. It's hard to repeat that. :)
Have you considered adding the Akismet widget to your sidebar to show off just how much SPAM never sees the light of day?
Cheers,
Lloyd
Kind regards,
Barry