Archive for the ‘Interview’ Category
by David Peralty on November 16th, 2006
Recently, I had a chance to talk to Justin Shattuck of justinshattuck.com which can be described as:
“A glimpse into the subconscious mind of Justin Shattuck; developer, critic, designer, and successful entrepreneur. Consider the content more-or-less your daily mental diuretic of useless information and ramblings. Amazingly, on occasion, there is some pretty decent writings.”
Warning, this interview is long, but really interesting. We cover personal thoughts an opinions from WordPress to the guys at Hitch50.com.
David: Anyways, thanks for doing this Justin, I know you are busy with a variety of things.
Jumping right in though, you are an information services and technology specialist, what is that like? I am sure that does not define who you are, so what words describe Justin on a day to day basis?
Justin: It means I better know my stuff!
Honestly, individuals come to me and ask me questions related to technology; solutions and conflicts. I’m supposed to be the guy that sits back and gives them an answer or knows exactly where to find the answer. People trust my opinions and suggestions; I have to know what I’m talking about. Everyday brings a new challenge, a new idea and a brand new hurdle.
My career does not define who I am; personally. Who I am has defined my career. I always rationalize and analyze everything in my life. From choosing a girlfriend, purchasing a website or starting another project. I evaluate and pay equal attention to the smallest of variables. I’m a thinker — and a doer. Describing me.. its funny, my friend Molly described me best in an article on her personal website.
I’m no super hero..
David: You and I have been talking back and forth for quite some time now, and that is due in part to your interest in the WordPress community. You have created plug-ins and themes for WordPress. What got you started in Blogging and WordPress?
Justin: Man, looking back into when I started blogging is a blurry time line. If the term blogging meant what it does now, eight years ago.. I guess you would say I started in 1997. However, back then we were simply logging our thoughts online in our great ‘journals.’ Moving on over time I tried out every content management system available. In 2001 I started coding my own CMS.
Although it wasn’t meant for public release, I utilized it to power some of the websites I was developing over the years. Once I decided to sell off the code to another individual, I decided it was time to find something else. After toying with other systems, like Serendipity (s9y), Movabletype, Typepad, and expression engine — I somehow just got sucked into Wordpress.
David: Good, another WordPress convert. Everyone knows how I feel about WordPress.
Justin:Wordpress seems to be community driven, both on the development and support. Not that there aren’t a lot of projects out there in the GPL world that aren’t supported as such, Wordpress is just different.
As far as plug-ins and themes, I can’t take all the credit. I get inspiration just like anyone else. If I run into an issue I think needs to be resolved I begin hammering out plans to fix it. I still have four other plug-ins that I utilize on my personal website, as well as seven themes that I want to release.. its all about the timing.
Its people like you who keep me doing what I do..
David: This brings me to your personal website domain. I recently decided to shift from one online alias to a domain that included my first name. You currently are using your first and last (JustinShattuck.com) as your domain. How have you found it for a domain (good traffic, good search engine results), and why did you choose your name?
Justin: I’m not sure that there is really a better option for me. I’m out there, I’m a crazy guy. I guess for me there isn’t a better place for someone to find me online — than my own name. I’ve thought about a few other domain names in the past but there hasn’t been one to really hit me and say, “USE ME USE ME!” Therefore, by default justinshattuck.com is used.
The traffic seems to be traffic. I get a lot of visits from people searching for other “Shattucks” in the world. The search engines seem to be nice to me and I can’t complain.
You have another domain name in mind for me? Maybe I could grab phoenixrealm from you?
David: Unfortunately not on both accounts. I think using your name is a great idea, despite the possible spelling issues that people might have. Your last name is not the most common in the world.
Justin: I’ve heard it all when it comes to mispronunciations, spellings and such. You can probably imagine the possibilities…
David: I can imagine. Try having Peralty as a last name. I get Puralte, Peralte, Perralty… It never ends.
Justin: Your last name is Peralty? Oh boy, I’m in the wrong interview…
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Categories: Interview
by David Peralty on November 10th, 2006
Wendy Boswell is an accomplished mother, wife and blogger. She can be found at many popular blog networks and sites, including b5media (Stewie is the best!), About.com and LifeHacker.
1.) Wendy, first off I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it. I was wondering if you can tell my readers a bit about yourself, and how you got into blogging?
Sure! I’m pretty boring, actually – been married for almost fifteen years to my high school sweetheart, three kids, and we live in a wonderful small town in the Northwest that probably fulfills every small town cliche there is (and we still love it). I got into blogging about five years ago, mostly because I love to write and it was instant gratification for that itch.
2.) Marriage, children, and working towards a degree must all make it very difficult to concentrate on blogging. How do you find the time and energy to focus?
Focus? Energy? Time? You’re joking, right? Actually, it seems to work out pretty well with the help of something called 5 AM and lots of coffee. Plus, I dropped the school this year, but I plan on finishing before 2008 (knock on wood) since I only have 20 credits left. I also tend to work extremely fast and produce a lot in a short amount of time; I know that’s a blessing and I’m thankful. It also helps that I’m absolutely determined not to let my work overtake my home life – which means that I work around the kids’ schedules and I try my darndest not to work on the weekends. It works out pretty well.
3.) Can you describe to me the differences you have to deal with in say your activities on a site like LifeHacker, which is well known in the blogosphere, and starting out on a brand new blog like you have for b5media?
The biggest difference is probably finding your audience, finding your niche. With Lifehacker, there’s a built-in demographic that you’re writing for – you’re already out there, so to speak, so half your job is done for you. At b5, the complete opposite is true and that’s my biggest obstacle; however, the perk is I get to talk about David Hasselhoff. A lot.
4.) Participating in the web for as long as you have, I am sure you have opinions on where this whole blogging/social media thing is heading. Do you think anyone is doing it well enough to really effect the grip that mainstream media has on the world? And do you think you will still be able to blog for money in five years?
Honestly, I see traditional media going the way of the dinosaur unless they get their heads out of the sand and check out this new thing called the webernets. For example, I don’t know anyone in my age group that depends exclusively on the TV or newspapers for news; they go straight to the Web because A)it’s instant and B)they control access. For instance, election night? I wanted to hear about our school bond passing or not passing, and I didn’t even bother to watch the tube, I just Googled it. Another example: Britney and Kevin (come on, you know you’re interested). Within one hour I knew the whole scoop, but next week, an entire week later, after the fact, the gossip rags will have some info that I’ll have to pay for to get to. No, thank you.
And as for anyone doing it well enough…I can’t point to any one organization and say that THIS Is the savior of social media; I think the whole conglomeration of those who would classify themselves in the social media category are doing pretty well. It’s now a matter of getting the word out past the geek firewall to the regular folks – that’s when all this stuff is really going to take off. Most people who get on the Web are just now discovering that they can watch Family Guy on YouTube or Google themselves; but when they get their heads around Digg, or Yahoo Answers, or Netscape, or Wikipedia….they’ll be amazed.
Blogging for money in five years..I don’t see why not. Unless you know something I don’t….do you? DO YOU? Seriously, lots of people make their living on the Web and I see that actually growing instead of diminishing…it’s just too enticing a prospect to go away.
5.)If someone was looking to get to where you have with your blogging, what tips or advice would you give them?
Number One: don’t expect overnight success. So many people get into blogging or tweaking something on the Web and don’t take into account that there’s no magic formula to making this work. It’s just as much hard work as any other job, except you do get to wear your pj’s all day (if you want to). I would also say that you need to find your niche, find what works for you, instead of trying to piggyback on someone else’s success. Lastly, have some fun with it.
Some great advice there. Having fun with blogging should be pretty high on the priority list. Thanks again to Wendy for taking the time out of her day to answer some questions between writing on b5media, and dealing with her kids and cats.
Categories: Interview
by David Peralty on November 3rd, 2006
Recently, I was going through a list of people I would love to interview/talk to, about their roles in blogging and the blogosphere, and one of the names that kept on popping into my head was Tris Hussey. So I tracked him down, and bugged him to do an interview with me.
While he couldn’t do it right then and there as he was a speaker, and live blogger at the Blog Business Summit, I was able to get him on Google Talk later in the week, and ask him some questions.
Me: First off, tell me a bit about yourself. Tris is an interesting name. Is it short for Tristan, or what’s the etymology of your name?
Tris: It’s short for Tristram, which is the old English version and pre-dates Tristan. The meaning remains unclear, though some say it relates to Triste (sad).
Me: What makes Tris tick? You are from the west coast of Canada, right?
Tris: Well, I live on the West Coast now, but originally I’m a New Englander (go Red Sox!) What makes me tick? A lot of it has to do with being a geek at heart and liking to goof around with new stuff. The rest is that I have found a niche and passion in writing about tech and new media.
Me: Can you tell me more about how you got into blogging? When did you start, and who was your inspiration?
Tris: I started blogging in the days when I was in market research and bored that I couldn’t play with collaboration apps at work, they just weren’t into it. So I decided that I needed to kick start my consulting practice and needed to get into this blogging thing. That was April 2004.
I had started a blog before then, but deleted it (which is a shame because then I could say I had been blogging since 2003)
Me: So we are quickly coming up on more or less your third year in the blogosphere. You are one of the ancient ones when it comes to online publishing then.
For all of those out there that have not heard of Qumana, what can you tell me about the company and what it provides?
Tris: Yeah I guess I’m old guard now, eh? Well Qumana started off as just an offline blog editor.
The first version was pretty advanced, probably too advanced for its time. So now the application is much simpler.
About two years ago I had a flash of brillance (they don’t happen often) and came up with the idea of “post-centric advertising”. This gave birth to Qumana now… an application with a simple way to insert keyword-generated ads into your posts.
Me: Kind of like Adsense?
Tris: Yeah, but focused on content and letting authors control whether or not they want an ad in a post and what the ad is for. So you could write about kids toys and have an ad for fly fishing if you so desired (clearly not a good idea though). But the point is we give the control to the author, not a server.
Me: I noticed your blog a View from the Isle has no “powered by” logo on it. It looks like Typepad but it says Blogware on it? And which software is your favourite thus far for blogging?
Tris: Yeah I took the Powered by off my posts because it was mucking up me tracking other people using Qumana that’s why I put the graphic on my blog. So, yes it’s a Blogware blog, they have sponsored it for about two years now.
My favourite for DIY is Wordpress, my favourite for completely free is Wordpress.com. Hosted, well that’s hard. I’m not a fan of Typepad, but they are leaders and offer good stuff. I like a lot of the features in Blogware though.
Me: So you have used just about every blog software out there. That’s pretty nice. Why Blogware though? Its not one I have heard much about.
Tris: I have, I’ve tried them all at some point. When I wanted to move my blog off of Blogger a friend had just become a reseller for Blogware. You don’t hear much about it because of the Tucows reseller model.
Me: What do you think blogging will be like in two to five years? Will there still be professional bloggers or will main stream media come in and be the only source for paid blogging?
Tris: I think blogging in 2-5 yrs will just become more about “writing”. Because there is always a market for writers/content providers, there will always be a market.
Me: So you think that mainstream media will have to compete against blog networks and whatnot like b5media? Or will they just buy out such companies/networks?
Tris: I think they will have to compete and leverage the content being generated. I wouldn’t be surprised if online versions of MSM outlets (and maybe even the dead-tree versions) pay bloggers for their “columns”
Me: We can only hope… Google… I am available if need be…
Tris: lol
Me: You seem to work for a wide variety of different companies, networks and independantly. Give me a quick rundown of who all do you work for now and how much time do you spend blogging in a day?
Tris: I keep being amazed at how fast things move … I think we’re going to be blown away by what’s around a year from now. I pretty much blog all day. So I write for myself, Qumana, and b5media. Then I contribute to Business Blog Consulting as well.
I should start doing more blogging on BigBusinessJet.com soon as well. There are other cool things in the works that I can’t talk about yet.
Me: Can’t give any hints or tips? Like…stay away from blogging about that subject.
Tris: Hmm… essentially, I might be contributing to a pretty high-profile blog that you might have heard of.
Me: That’s great. I can think of a few that you have “access” to, and I will be watching to see what happens.
Me: So, lastly… If you were to give one tip to all the bloggers out there aspiring to achieve as much as you have, what would that tip be?
Tris: write everyday. Every day. It really is the practice makes perfect. If I could give another, it would be to read lots of sources.
Me: What is lots of sources for you?
Tris: Well I’m in the 600-700 range. But generally don’t just read blogs, read places like the BBC, CBC, Google News. Getting out of the echo chamber is essential.
Me: I totally agree. Thanks again for taking the time to do this Tris.
Tris: Your welcome, it was great.
Categories: Interview
by David Peralty on November 1st, 2006
For me, Keith Robinson needs no introduction. A great writer, and designer among other things, I see his name popping up all over the place. You might have read some of his works on LifeHacker, A List Apart, among other places. I shot him an e-mail hoping to get his perspective on all the things going on with the blogosphere.
Me: Tell me a bit about yourself. What does the D. at the start of your name mean, and why don’t you use it rather than Keith? What are you interested in? And where can people find you online?
Keith: The D. stands for David, but people often like to think I’m a Dr. If you knew me well this would be pretty damn funny. I don’t use it because I’ve gone by Keith my whole life. I’m not really sure why my parents did that to me.
You can find me online at dkeithrobinson.com or at my company, Blue Flavor. In addition I’m sure if you run a Google search for me you’d find lots of other fun stuff of mine.
Me: You have been involved with some great sites and companies over the last few years. What has been your favourite blog or site to write on thus far and why?
Keith: Well, I think my own blogs have been my favorites. I’ve got a bit more freedom to do what I want there and there is less pressure to write. That makes things easier. I really enjoyed writing for Lifehacker however and would say that’s been my favorite of those that I didn’t own myself. Although I’m currently writing for the Podbop blog and that’s been quite fun as well, I really wish I had more time to devote to that.
Me: Your current personal blog design is absolutely amazing, both in design and as a resource for information on design, writing and development. Why did you move away from 7nights.com/asterisk? And why didn’t all your archives come with you?
Keith: First of all, thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate hearing that kind of feedback! So, the choice to move my domain was a hard one. I think the biggest reason is that I did so much writing that my Movable Type install had become a bit unwieldily. The rebuild times were horrendous and I was having lots of problems with comment spam.
In starting a new company I was finding I had less and less time to work on those things, and I was writing less as well. So I went out on a limb and made a completely clean break; new domain, new CMS, new design, etc. I didn’t see any compelling reason to move the archives because they were fine right where they were.
Keep in mind this was my personal blog, there is pretty little risk in me doing whatever I please with it. Had this been Blue Flavor’s blog I’d most likely have done something a bit more thought out.
Me: How much do you think design matters in a blog’s success? And what about standards based code? Isn’t the content the most important part?
Keith: Content is the most important part. No argument there. To be honest I think it depends on your audience how important those things are. If your readers are Web designers things like standards and good design are very important. You’ve got to walk the walk.
In general good design and proper code will help your blog be successful, for various reasons, but they’re no guarantee and if you’ve got to make a choice you should work on your content.
Now, having said that, I can’t think of a good reason why you wouldn’t want great content, a great design and a properly coded site. That’ll do the most towards making sure your blog is successful.
Me: I know you have tried Movable Type and Expression Engine, among others I am sure. What has been your favourite publishing tool, and why?
Keith: I’d say overall it’s been Movable Type. I’ve found that it’s very powerful and flexible if you’re willing to learn the ins and outs, as I have. It’s a great one for people who are willing to get their hands dirty as you can do lots of customization with it. I imagine, however, that the same could be said for Expression Engine, Wordpress, etc. I just have quite a bit more experience with Movable Type.
I will say that I’m really liking Expression Engine quite a bit so far.
Me: What do you think has been the key factor in getting you where you are today? (i.e. Design skills, networking, understanding client needs…)
Keith: Hard work and having a passion for what I do. All of those things you mention are important, but at the end of the day it’s the people that are willing to do the work and love what they do that become successful.
Me: In an interview with the Web Standards Group, you mentioned the “Golden Triangle”.
The “Golden Triangle” I talk about is simply a metaphor I use to illustrate the delicate balance of goals that should be laid out for any successful Web project.
Can you apply it to personal blogging? Or is it a business use only metaphor?
Keith: It can apply to many things. When talking about personal blogging it could be balancing your personal writing goals against your readers level of engagement and the amount of time you’ve got to devote to it. Obviously there isn’t much risk involved with a personal project as you’re the only one who’s likely to have a major stake in things, but the same theories can apply.
Me: You have worked for many large companies before, and seen how they approach the web. Do you think traditional media and big box companies like Microsoft ,or Boeing are ready for the shift that is occurring with the online world via Blogging, podcasting, social media, citizen journalism and the like?
Keith: No.
Just kidding. Really, I don’t think they’re 100% ready yet, but they are starting to pick up on these things. For example there has been great interest in blogging by all of these companies and my guess is things like podcasting are going to follow shortly if they’re not there already.
There are smart, forward-thinking people at these companies and as long as they’ve got interest you’ll see this stuff work its way in.
Me: Thanks again to Keith for taking the time out to do this interview with me. If you have not taken a look at his personal blog, you should. The design is inspiring and his content is great. So check him out at DKeithRobinson.com.
Categories: Interview
by David Peralty on October 30th, 2006
I recently was lucky enough to secure a few minutes with Matt Mullenweg, one of the people that took it upon himself to create WordPress. Being so busy, I expected him to say “no” when I asked, but he didn’t and so here is the interview.
1.) Most people that read this site know you thanks to WordPress, but I am sure there is more to you than that. Could you give a few details on the other things you have done?
1. I once climbed to the top of Masada.
2. I did a jazz arrangement of Mario Bros music for a saxophone quartet and played it, which you can find on the net if you dig.
3. I’ve been very lucky in finding folks smarter than myself and hiring them for a funny little company called Automattic.
4. I’m an adviser to Sphere, and I dig their stuff.
5. I take a lot of photos, but I’m really behind on uploading them.
2.) Can you give us a quick history on WordPress? It was not just you that decided a fork from b2 was needed, correct?
Thanks to the wonders of permalinks you can actually read the comment where WordPress was born, from a swell fellow named Mike Little. We started by integrating his links code and some of my texturize/autop stuff and then worked a lot of creating the options system (moving stuff out of config files) and simplifying the install. Add in a new default template, XHTML compliance, and remove all color from the admin interface and you have WordPress 0.70, which was used by approximately 5 people including myself and my cat.
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Categories: Interview
by David Peralty on October 26th, 2006
Last night I had the lucky opportunity to chat with Scotty of Hitch50.com. Scotty and Fiddy are travelling across the US in fifty days thanks to the miracle of hitchhiking.
Justin, a friend of mine picked them up and let me know they were in his car. I have to admit to not being prepared, but very excited. I posted about their journey on BloggingPro just before they started it. Now they are over two weeks into it and going strong.
Me: Hi Scotty, this is David from BloggingPro. I posted about your mission not too long ago.
Scotty: Kinda caught you off guard being in the car huh?
Me: Yeah, seriously. I figured I would only just keep watching the website. So to start things off, why was 50 consecutive days was chosen? You could have stretched it out to far more… 100 days sounds like even more fun.
Scotty: Maybe so, but it doesn’t have the same edge as 50 days. We figured 100 days would be easy, so we wanted a bigger challenge. Also, 50 in 50 has a nice ring to it.
Me: What about this “Golden Ticket“, other than the fact of maybe getting to go on a trip, why do you think people would want to give you a ride at a chance to party with you? What activities do you have in mind?
Scotty: We’re hoping and planning as much as we can that the final destination is Hawaii. So Hawaii alone is a good time. We’re also hoping this will snowball enough with the media and publicity, so the events may come through the level of exposure we get. If that is never realized we can just hang out on the beach, surf and eat pineapples.
Me: What about money concerns? Is there some corporate sponsor we don’t know about?
Scotty: No, there is no sponsors. We dont want this to be “Yahoo presents Hitch 50″ or something like that. If there’s a corporate bank account behind the project it takes away the feel of it. It would be easy for people to do this if they had a big budget. We’re trying to keep it ‘grassroots’. So we’re taking the risk on ourselves through our credit cards.
Me: Oooh…credit cards. Nice. Have you found it hard to keep up with the blogging? Getting online must be annoying sometimes?
Scotty: Sometimes yeah, we have mobile broadband service so alot of it is done in the back of cars. Also, we are trying to spend as much time with our drivers and hosts as possible, without being burried in our computers. So alot of work is done between 1-4 AM If we take a day off from updating the site we get just burried in work to catch up. Also, we have a short time-frame, with only 50 days to do the project we need to keep the content comming to maximize the exposure.
Me: How have you found the interactions that you have had so far with other bloggers, commenters and the people that pick you up?
Scotty: Almost all comments have been positive and supportive. We get alot of “I wish I thought of that” or “I’m living vicariously through you”. The people who give us rides are thanking us for letting them be a part of the project. So its been so positive. As for bloggers, we’re getting the same support. I’m not sure how many blog links we have now, but we had like 40 in the first day alone. Its the bloggers more than anyone who see the vision of the project. Many of our rides are from other bloggers and we try to link to their sites.
Me: I am one of the people living vicariously through you guys. Infact my fiance is now bugging me to do something similar across Canada now… Thanks a lot…
You have to come through Canada to get to Alaska, any chance you will save a day for British Columbia? I know it is not the USA, but us Canadians are friendly and would probably give you a ride, and B.C. is beautiful.
Scotty: Sure, we’re gonna be in Victoria soon. Oh ya, we’re both from Vancouver so we know what its like.
Thanks to Justin for creating the opportunity and Scotty for being up to it. I really appreciate the time and effort that he put into going back and forth with me in the car on the move.
Scotty also let me know that his buddy that is doing all the great programming and whatnot on the site is going to be releasing some new features soon where you can see the approximate speed they are travelling as well as some geo-tagged photos.
Great stuff, and the best of luck to them from me.
Categories: Interview
by David Peralty on October 25th, 2006
Folksonomy has a short interview up with Dick Costolo, co-founder and CEO of FeedBurner.
The most interesting question for me was the one about blogging of course.
You have a unique advantage of having one foot in the world of blogging, and one foot in the world of Web 2.0. What advice would you give to a blogger, and what advice would you give to an entrepreneur?
My advice to bloggers is to write frequently. Bloggers who write frequently seem to find their voice more readily and establish an audience who come back expecting to engage in conversation frequently. My advice to entrepreneurs? Goodness, my advice to entrepreneurs is not to listen to other people’s advice. There are fifty reasons not to start a company, and when you start it, there are fifty reasons not to continue to pursue it when you run into the first spot of trouble (which will be the first of many spots of trouble, even if you’re the next Google). You have to focus solely on what you want to accomplish and ignore everything else. [emphasis mine]
Not surprising he advocates posting more often. It just works. More posts means more chances to get things right, more content to read, more writing practice, more things for a search engine to index, and unless you are going too crazy with the number of posts, it means a constant reason for people to come back often to check out the new things you have written.
Check out the full interview at Folksonomy.
Categories: Blogging Tips, Interview
by David Peralty on October 18th, 2006
No, Matt Mullenweg is not really the CEO of Automattic, the company he helped founded. It is actually in the lap of Toni Schneider who was recently interviewed with PodTech.
PodTech is built on top of Wordpress, a blogging and content management package from Automattic. Here we sit down with Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic, to talk about a variety of things — from Om Malik to splogs and what Automattic is doing about that problem.
It is a very interesting watch, and rather amusing. I highly recommend the video.
Categories: Interview, WordPress News
by David Peralty on October 9th, 2006
A Whole Lotta Nothing has a great interview up with Joel Johnson, from Dethroner and Gawker.
MH: So how do you find the motivation for it? I know lots of people (myself included) that might leave a professional writing gig with a book, blog, or magazine and say “fuck this mere pittance they’re paying me, I’ll do it on my own, and it’ll be better, and I’ll have complete control and make way more money” but then they can never muster the energy to even begin. This is why I wanted to talk to you — you have come out of the gate just killing it! And I can’t imagine what it takes to muster up that kind of productivity and motivation.
JJ: See, that’s so funny to me, because I feel like I’m just barely puttering along.
MH: Really? I signed up to read the feed and I’m amazed by how much original content is popping up every day. It’s almost too much, but it’s useful and good.
JJ: I’ve come to realize that I’m a pretty fast writer, which helps. I also am extremely self-critical, so if I don’t get six posts up a day I feel like I’m a horrible person.
Also, the more you blog, the better and faster you get. (Which applies to all writing, sure, but so much of what is important about blogging is just getting it out there and worrying about polish later. Or never.)
Suffice it to say, I’m glad to hear that you’re not feeling like it’s lacking!
A great interview, and it says a lot about how different people feel about what they are producing, and what people are getting. You might think that your blog is producing nothing of value, while others see it as a great resource, so try not to be too hard on yourself, and enjoy what you are producing.
Categories: Blogging News, Interview
by David Peralty on July 4th, 2006
I recently contacted Liz Strauss about the WordPress Challenge I had imposed, as her audience was much the same as who I was hoping would participate in the challenge. I will have the results on that challenge later today or tomorrow, but right now I want to talk about Successful Blog, which is written by Liz. She not only mentioned my challege, but contacted me for an interview about what I was doing.
I was amazed that someone I had been reading for months was at all interested in what I was doing, but she sent off an e-mail with a few questions and so I proceeded to answer them.
An example of our exchange includes:
Aren’t there already enough WordPress themes and plugins to go around?
Honestly, I still feel some very important areas have been ignored. How many grunge themes are there? Themes that are more girly in nature? What about good three and four column themes? I still feel that there are also so many ways WordPress themes could go that have not been explored.
Also as the community grows, I have been noticing that there are about a dozen themes that do really well, while all the rest are more or less ignored. I would like to see that upper level increase to a group of two dozen superb themes.
I also think the same of WordPress plugins. You might say “how many plugins do you need to integrate an image gallery into your site?” but honestly I have yet to come across one that does what I need it to do, how I want to do it. With plugins, the different workflow that people have has to be taken into consideration, which is why you can have a dozen plugins that do the same thing, but people will follow the one that works the best for them.
I think that there are still more plugins in the minds of creative people that if given the right incentive, and motivation, will be released and we will all go “Wow!”.
Check out the rest of the interview over at Successful Blog, and look around the archives of the site for some great golden nuggets of wisdom, as well as some links to some great sites.
Categories: Blogging: How To, Interview
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