As a writer, I like it when an editor just tells me in one sentence why my article doesn’t work for their blog so I can send it somewhere else. I am not interested in seeing the hundreds of little comments an editor makes. If they have an idea about something that could make the article better then that’s great, but in general I am interested in getting my articles posted in a timely fashion. I am not offended (usually) if an editor doesn’t like my article, I will just try better next time.

However, it can be confusing when it comes time to give feedback on a hopeful blog article. There are a variety of things that can go wrong:

• The writer completely ignored your guidelines regarding topic, length, and tone
• The writer’s article has some good points, but the grammar wasn’t up to par
• The article is not developed enough for your blog
• The article discusses incorrect information
• The article is well written, but is too controversial for your blog

So what is the proper feedback etiquette? Unfortunately, there is no “right way” to give feedback to guest bloggers. As I stated above, I have received feedback in all forms. However, you take different risks with whatever type of feedback you decide to give. Consider some of the ways you can give feedback to bloggers and then consider some of the pros and cons to each before deciding how you want to approach feedback:

Top 3 Ways Editors Give Feedback to Guest Bloggers 

1.    Mark up their article so it’s just the way you want it.

Pros: Well, you will have an article just the way you want it. You will make sure that the vision of your blog remains intact despite the other voices adding in their two cents. This will also allow you to remain positive when talking with bloggers. Although some writers may get annoyed with the many revision requests, no writer will dislike you or your blog for it. This creates a positive environment overall.

Cons: This often takes a ton of time. The more guest blogs you get the more difficult it will be to keep up with the work. While most editors don’t mind the work if it means there will be a good result, there is always the risk that the writer will look at the revisions and say forget it. You have then spent a great deal of time improving the article of that writer (at least in your eyes), and get nothing in return.

2.    Tell them only reasons why you will not be able to use the article.

Pros: This is a good mix between giving a writer a lot of information and getting to the basics. This generally works well if someone ignored your guidelines or was off-topic in any way. They should understand, and you did not spend hours trying to “save” the article.

Cons: You could find yourself with a lot of follow-up emails. A lot of writers try and then fix the article themselves, which can be risky. If the author didn’t understand why you didn’t like the article in the first place, and then you have to turn it down a second time, you’re not going to be much liked.  These authors might also continually try to post an article on your site (in some cases just for the link), so you may end up spending more time reading several articles than if you were to edit just one.

3.    Be extremely brief, but polite.

Pros: This is the fastest option when giving “feedback.” You get right to the point, and chances are people will not follow-up. If they get back nothing more than a “not right now, thanks,” then nine times out of ten they aren’t going to come crawling back. You get your point across and save time.

Cons: Writers generally do not appreciate this. It can be seen as a brush-off, so they will have no interest in guest posting for you in the future. You could potentially lose a reader if they feel offended, and you could be missing out on some great content that would have otherwise come your way.

The most important thing to remember when giving feedback is to be polite. No matter how much you dislike the article, remember that someone put a lot of effort into writing it for your site. There are ways to be kind and not accepting a guest post. Other than that, it’s entirely up to the editor to weigh the pros and the cons. There are risks that go along with every approach, so it’s up to you to decide what it worth the risk.

Have you ever had to give feedback to a potential guest blogger? How did you handle the situation?

Photo Credit: projectsandpages.com

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to government small business loans. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including document software to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business information directory, Business.com.

It’s a promise we’ve all heard before. Web hosting companies all over are offering “unlimited” hosting for mere dollars per month.

On the surface, it seems like a great deal. For a low monthly price you get to stop worrying about bandwidth and server space caps and focus on running your site. You can host as many domains, get as much traffic and store as many files as you want.

However, unlimited hosting is much more myth than reality. It just means that the host doesn’t place “hard” caps on storage and transfer and instead has replaced it with soft ones that could come back to bite you at almost any time.

Fortunately, it is a relatively avoidable pitfall if one is willing to be realistic about the limitations of such hosting and take precautions to avoid abusing it.

The Pitfall

Though unlimited hosting is a tempting offer for a variety of reasons, it is an offer that we should be able to recognize as somewhat misleading right off the bat. After all, if unlimited hosting truly were unlimited, then Google, Microsoft and other companies could save millions on datacenters and just spend a few dollars per month at a regular host.

The truth about unlimited hosting is that it is indeed very limited. If you read the fine print on any unlimited contract, you’ll find that a variety of restrictions are placed on the account, including, in many cases, bans on providing streaming media, image hosting or other bandwidth/storage-intense activities.

Even if there are no such caps, the host always has a clause in their TOS that allows them to disconnect, temporarily or even permanently, those who use too much resources and cause problems for other accounts on the same server or network.

In short, your use of the server is only “unlimited” as long as it doesn’t cause a problem and, if it does, you may find that your site goes dark.

The Danger

The danger of unlimited hosting is illustrated very well by what recently happened to the Frogpants podcast network. The network, which was hosted on an unlimited account at Bluehost, went dark for a day after Bluehost cut their account for using too much of their resources.

While it was poorly handled by Bluehost, they should have offered warning before cutting the account, it illustrates the problem. The network, which includes several very popular podcasts, simply used up more of the host’s resources than they could afford to provide with the account that they were using and their host shut down the sites.

Frogpants was able to recover quickly, after being offered hosting at a different company and given the chance to recover its files, but it was down for over a day and other sites are not so lucky. Many sites that suffer sudden terminations aren’t given adequate opportunity to move and don’t have another company waiting to scoop them up.

Without adequate backups, this can be a very deadly pitfall for a blog and one that is well worth avoiding.

How to Avoid It

Avoiding this pitfall completely may seem to be fairly simple, but it really isn’t. This is especially true considering that most shared web hosts offer unlimited hosting as their primary account type and most low-end hosting accounts claim to be unlimited.

That being said, there are several things you can do to avoid this problem and having your account disconnected:

1. Avoid “Unlimited Hosting: This one seems simple enough, find a service with a hard cap and stick with it. The limits might be lower than with an unlimited host, but at least you can be sure what the limits are.
2. Read the TOS Carefully: If you do choose or have to use an unlimited host, read the TOS carefully. Most likely, the terms place a limit on what you can and can not do with your account dealing with media streaming, image hosting and FTP access.
3. Don’t Host Media: Media, including both audio and video, are the biggest bandwidth and space hogs on a server. You can use other services, such as YouTube and Talkshoe, to offload your media content and make your site much more lean.
4. Be Realistic: If your site grows beyond what one would expect to be a typical use for that level of a hosting account, upgrade to a larger account. Not only will it prevent a possible termination, but also make your site faster.
5. Warn of Traffic Spikes: If you get warning of a traffic spike, such as a story making its way to the front page of Digg, warn your host so they can prepare. They may be able to move your site to a lower congestion part of the network or a server with smaller load. That way, you won’t create problems and you will be working with them to resolve issues.

To be clear, this is actually a separate issue from the downtime many sites see when they are hit with a traffic spike. Hosts often temporarily disable accounts or individual sites during such spikes as their memory and CPU usage reaches dangerous levels. This is almost unavoidable on shared hosting accounts.

Unfortunately, these steps won’t do much to mitigate against those temporary outages but will go to great lengths to mitigate against the far less common, though far more worrisome, account closures that often happen when an unlimited account is overused.

Bottom Line

In the end, account terminations due to overuse of “unlimited” hosting plans are actually rare. Only a small number of accounts will see any kind of action taken against them and most of the time the response is much more tame than termination.

That being said though, it does happen and it is worth addressing since most of the steps are simply good hosting practices on any account.

In short, if you are smart about your hosting- you should work with a reputable provider and managed data center service, you will most likely find that it will serve you well. Try to get more than your money’s worth out and you will probably be facing an unplanned outage in the near future. Likely an extended one.

Blogging All-in-One for Dummies offers over 700 pages explaining anything and everything about blogging for a beginner audience, so you can start your own blog right away!  It’s a perfect supplement to the content you read here on BloggingPro.  The book includes 8 minibooks about starting a blog, choosing a blogging application, publishing blog content, growing your blog’s audience, making money from your blog, and more.  There is even a minibook about Twitter.

While Blogging All-in-One for Dummies is certainly the most comprehensive book about blogging available, following are a few other books that I recommend:

1. The Everything Blogging Book

This book is in need of an update, but it’s still an easy-to-read and understand guide to getting started as a blogger.

2. Blogging for Dummies

Blogging for Dummies is also a great beginner’s guide to blogging.  This book is several hundred pages shorter than Blogging All-in-One for Dummies, so concepts are not covered as in depth as they are in my book.  However, it’s still a great resource.

3. The Rough Guide to Blogging

This is a very short, very easy to read, and very simple book, which gives a great introduction to blogging.  It’s outdated, but the basic concepts of blogging are delivered in such a simple way that it might be worth reading if you’re an extreme novice to blogging.

4. WordPress for Dummies

This is a great guide to learn how to use WordPress as your blogging application.  I should also mention that my book about starting a blog with WordPress, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress, is coming out in 2011.

5. Google Blogger for Dummies

I wrote this book, and it’s one of the most up-to-date books to learn how to use Google’s Blogger blogging application.  Many other books about Blogger haven’t been updated in years, and Blogger has gone through many changes in the past year alone!

6. TypePad for Dummies

This is the best book you can buy to learn how to use TypePad, and since it wasn’t published that long ago, it’s quite up-to-date.

Did you use a book about blogging to help you get started as a blogger?  What book about blogging do you recommend?  Leave a comment and share your opinion.

Guidelines

The newly drafted guidelines are in fact pretty much straight forward on most topic such but there there are some questions it raises.

1. It’s about everything WordPress. The guidelines state that it for 80% should be about WordPress.
2. Open to all, easy to access, shared with community.WordCamps are meant to be low-key local gatherings that are affordable — cheap, even — to allow people from all walks of life to attend, meet, share, and learn.
3. Locally organized and focused. Showcasing local talent and helping local practitioners connect is one of the best things about WordCamp. The best WordCamps tend to have both local and visiting speakers.
4. Volunteers everywhere. It is generally acknowledged that participating in WordCamps is one of the easiest and most fun ways to give something back to the WordPress community.
5. Standalone event. The use of the WordCamp name indicates that it is an entire event dedicated to all things WordPress. WordPress “tracks” within larger events such as BarCamp or other conferences may not use the WordCamp name, as they are not standalone events, and it dilutes the brand of both events.
6. Promotes the philosophies behind WordPress. People or companies in violation of the WordPress license cannot be accepted as event organizers or sponsors, as that would provide promotion to entities acting in opposition to the philosophy behind WordPress. Speakers need to be compliant with the license for the same reason.
7. It’s not about the money. Most WordCamps use up all their sponsor and ticket money in planning the event, but when there is a surplus, it is expected to be used to benefit the community, not treated as profit to be pocketed.

Sponsors and Speakers

This all sounds very logical and it is good it’s written down, but I do see a few caveats. The first point about but do what do we consider to be about WordPress. Is the act of blogging considered ‘about WordPress’? May sound trivial to bring up something like this, but really, where do we draw the line? This could be interpreted as taking away your flexibility organizing a WordCamp when you already have trouble finding the proper topics.

The sixth point is where it get’s tricky however. “People or companies in violation of the WordPress license cannot be accepted as event organizers or sponsors“. Does this mean we have to block out sponsors as Microsoft and the likes? They are clearly not GPL compliant, and don’t get me wrong, I’m very much in favor of the GPL license, but this does not sound right to me. Same goes for speakers, what if you have perfect speaker and he or she is willing to help out, but because they work for a company that does not support the GPL they won’t be allowed to come? That can’t be right. I can understand that we should try to get behind the GPL as much as possible whenever a WordCamp event is being organized, but I don’t think it is humanly possible to conduct a background check on all sponsors and speakers.

Maybe I’m overreacting here, but having been close in the process of organizing a WordCamp I can’t help but raise these questions and wonder. What’s your take? Have you ever been to a WordCamp, helped out in organzing or just have an opinion about these new guidelines? I’d love to hear about them.

But all comments are not created equal.

While I am thankful to everyone who takes the time to leave a comment (well except for those annoying Russian spammers), I do think each blog commenter can be categorized into general groups.

1. The Correctors.
   They point out typos and factual errors. Look how smart I am.  They get off on getting you with your pants down.
2. The Congratulators.
   A pat on the back is nice, but after awhile, it’s not worth much coming from the same person over and over again.  Some people think they can brown nose their way to success. This person sees something in you (yes, you should be flattered) and wants to ride your coattails to success.
3. The Virgins.
   For this crew, it’s all about doing it first.  The want to devirginize your blog post by leaving the initial comment.
4. The Traffic Seekers.
   They know leaving comments will drive traffic back to their site, so they latch onto your blog hoping for some clicks.  If one of their comments generates some traffic for their Web properties, they’ll come back for more.
5. The Contest Sluts.
   Driving your exit rate numbers sky high, these are one-time visitors who have stopped by to see what they can leach off of you.
6. The Scum.
   This group if sub-humans includes spammers, link baiters and cyber-criminal types.  They’ll often leave comments in other languages or post short/generic notes that they hope will get past your human filter.

What circumstance is most likely to get you to leave a comment on a blog?

No matter how private or reclusive we may be in our own personal lives,
I believe we go “public” because it’s inherent in our “wiring” to want to change the world, inspire, and “win friends and influence people.”
And for us it’s through our creative ability.

As such, many of us set our sites on becoming bloggers as a way to expand our platforms, our influence base, and our bottom lines.
We in fact are told through an array of sources that we must!
Blogging has become the “new black”.

SIDEBAR…

This kind of reminds me of how when a new, “popular” fashion or fad is introduced in the women’s clothing arena, many females will embrace it regardless as to whether or not it’s appropriate to their lifestyle, size, figure or age.
And some really shouldn’t.
Case in point?
(Spandex is not every woman’s friend!)
The point of this piece?
Not all writers should necessarily become bloggers just because it’s the “in” thing to do.

In other words, blogging should not be considered a natural “write of passage”.

This revelation came to me some time ago when I put out a call for bloggers for a creative project I was working on.
I got submissions from folks from all walks of life, with all sorts of degrees, awards and credentials.

And some, to be quite honest, with more impressive backgrounds than my own!

Unfortunately what I ended up with were blog posts that were too technical, or too cerebral, or too long, or too “vanilla” and bland in nature.

I hate to say it, but I was over worked and

underwhelmed.

These very talented authors were skilled in “communicating” but not “connecting”.
(Are you with me?)

Here are a few reasons that “all” writers do not necessarily make good (pro) bloggers.
They lack one or more of the abilities that fall under the categories I like to refer to as the 3C’s.

• Conversational tone-–Blog writing calls for an informal style, smooth flow, and brevity. Some writers, in their desire to impress, use hundred dollar words, uncommon acronyms, or technical jargon that is not easily grasped by the average reader. Don’t be one of them.
• Consistency—Bloggers with paid gigs, or those hoping to cultivate a solid following for their own personal blogs, must blog well and blog often. One has to produce with or without a “muse”.
• Creativity-–Gifted bloggers know how to take an old topic, theme, or event and give it new life in the way that they spin it. Like good chefs they take the same everyday ingredients and blend them together differently to yield “food for thought” for readers’ enjoyment.

Should blogging have standards?

Do you think that blogging calls for different writing skills than more formal forms of writing?

Are all writers “blogging material”?
What are your thoughts on this?

In my mind, reading an enjoyable (or minimally interesting) blog and not leaving a comment is like dining at a restaurant and not leaving a tip. And isn’t “food for thought” just as gratifying?

Ask any blogger and they’ll tell you that comments left on a blog by visiting readers are the equivalent of finding a 20 dollar bill in a back pocket of some old jeans, or receiving extra chicken nuggets in your value meal package that you didn’t have to pay for.
Or getting a date with Keanu Reeves.

Okay, well maybe that’s just me.

But anyhow…
Consider this a public service message: We wanna hear from you.
Or it kind of defeats the point of taking our “journals” public.
I don’t say this to be crass or crazy.  Really…

We know you’re out there.
The electronic “click counters” confirm it.
Whether you’re reading our blogs because you accidentally landed on our spot, were referred, got bored, or actually dig our style and our platform, we welcome you!
Now stand up and be counted. Your ‘two cents’ is valuable.

I admit that until I started on a regular basis, I too didn’t realize all the work that goes into building and sustaining a blog. There’s the design and set up, the content, formatting, the marketing, and many hours of solitude sitting in front of a computer until your back and your eyes hurt.

Now, of course I’m not suggesting that we don’t get something out of it too. But, I’ve always believed that successful communication is a two-way street. Bloggers don’t want to always talk “at you” we want to “talk with you”.
And although I think it’s neat when I get a “tweet,” I dig a little intellectual online exchange every now and then. Then again, maybe it’s a chick thing; women hate the “silent treatment”, unless we’re giving it.

I kid you not, on some days it’s so quiet, we’d welcome hecklers!

Let’s Look At The Problem And Solutions

If perhaps you’re not shy, but instead time constraints are a factor, I can certainly understand. Everybody is hugely busy these days. Consider this.
A comment doesn’t have to be of epic proportions. A simple, “I enjoyed your post” would suffice and potentially qualify you for B.F.F. status. Or even something like ”I give this post 4 grunts.”

Also adding insult to injury are fellow bloggers who refrain from giving comments on your post for fear that you’ll have more responses than them in what they perceive to be an online popularity contest. Go figure.

The Payoff

If you still need some gentle convincing, here are 5 reasons to leave comments on your favorite Blogs.

1. Because it’s free. That’s right; it won’t cost a dime and just a few minutes of your time. And think about it, how often is your opinion really sought? Probably not as much as you’d like.
2. Because it helps us decide the future direction of our blogs.
3. Because it helps to build a cohesive community in the Blogosphere.
4. Because it leaves a “virtual paper trail” that leads readers to your joint, and potentially increases your Blog traffic.
5. Because it promotes good karma. You don’t owe us anything, but it sure would be nice.

Well, I’m off my “soap box” for now. It’s Tuesday ni and I anxiously await the “comments” of Simon Cowell on American Idol. Cheerio!

Blogger was (not surprisingly) one of the first to adopt this technology, followed quickly by Typepad, Tumblr, MovableType, Posterous and last but not least WordPress.com (who finally joined the PuSH club a few days ago and was kind enough to create an official plugin for WP.org fans too).

With PuSH quickly becoming a standard feature for blog platforms and services, one has to wonder whether or not Twitter’s days of fame are numbered.

All Things (Now) Equal

One of the main reasons Twitter enjoyed early fame was it’s “real time” status updates that usually put the services tens of minuets (if not hours) ahead of the blogosphere (at least as far as breaking news went).

This led some bloggers to declare that RSS is dead, despite the fact that Twitter itself supports RSS feeds.

PuSH now removes this excuse, which means bloggers can now receive their instantaneous updates from their favorite blogs without having to deal with the 140 character limit.

Real Time Search Engines?

In the quest to index the “live web” first, all 3 major search engines (that would be Google, Bing and Yahoo) have licensed Twitter’s “fire hose” of tweets in order to display live conversations as they happen.

With PuSh finally gaining mainstream adoption across the blogosphere, search engines can simply index the tens of millions of blogs in order to present “the pulse of the web” at that exact moment.

This may lead to “the big 3″ as well as blog search engines like Technorati to display less interest in paying to access Twitter’s fire hose in the future (making it harder for them to raise revenue  outside of internal search ads).

Are Twitter’s day’s numbered?

Although Twitter recently celebrated its 10 billionth tweet, its user growth has been slowing down since January. While tweetaholics are more engaged with Twitter overall, there seem to be less and less people signing up for the service, unlike blogging which has continued to grow since last year.

While Twitter will probably still enjoy the spot light amongst the media, marketing firms and politicians, we may see micro blogging as a whole decline as users once again full featured blogs to deliver them the news as it happens.

Often on the forefront of mobile blogging, WordPress has been able to spread the “WP love” upon multiple devices (specifically for the Blackberry, iPhone and Android smartphones), with plans  to create a Nokia app as well.

While bloggers will probably swallow the iPill and buy the iPad, it may not be in WordPress’s best interest (or even its rivals like Typepad and Squarespace) to create an iPad app due it its present limitations.

(Image via Hack My Pad)

Dude, Where’s My Camera?!

No matter how you see it (pun intended), the lack of a camera will make the iPad app look “big and dumb” compared to its smartphone cousins.

With Automattic on the verge of integrating VideoPress within the WordPress iPhone app, the lack of a camera means that WP fans will be unable to upload original videos to their blogs (something professional bloggers do quite frequently).

(Image via Engadget)

What The Flash?

Even if the mighty iPad had a camera (as some rumors keep hinting that one will emerge), Steve Jobs “greatest creation” would be unable to view VideoPress videos due to his war against all things flash.

As high priest of the HTML5 faith, Steve Jobs refusal to embrace flash (something every netbook can view by the way) will make video blogging less fun for WordPress fans, forcing them to use alternatives like BlogPress (which heavily embraces YouTube).

A Virtual Keyboard For An Avatar?

After the magic wore off from Apple’s keynote address, a few bloggers were complaining about the iPad’s keyboard.

(Gizmodo) Typing in portrait is better than anticipated but still quite a stretch for our average-sized hands, which means that letters like F G and H will take a moderate conditioning for some. What about in landscape mode, sitting flat on the table? Well this is problematic too, as the iPad sort of wobbles. The back is not perfectly flat, meaning your typing surface is never perfectly flat, so the virtual keyboard becomes that much more difficult to use.

With the keyboard too big for comfortably typing on one hand and too small for two hands, the virtual keyboard seems to be designed for a 3 meter Na’vi from Avatar (perhaps as a super sized iPod Touch?) than for a human blogger.

Although WordPress fans could simply purchase the physical keyboard to accompany the large iDevice, this would make it less mobile (than say a “handy dandy”  netbook (since carrying around the keyboard will be kind of awkward).

So will WordPress create an iPad app?

I would not be surprised if they did, especially if Squarespace and Typepad created an app for their users.

While the iPad will probably be an awesome tool for researching information online, when it comes to blogging on the go, I think I will stick to my iPhone (and I predict that most WP fans will too).

While rumors are still speculating on whether those ads will be within the tweet stream, it looks like All Things D suspects that Twitter will instead place ads within search results, similar to how the mighty Google profits off of search (hat tip: Mashable).

If Twitter chooses to go the tweet search route, it may be wiser for bloggers to spend their marketing dollars within Tweet search than Google Adwords for three simple reasons.

Building A Loyal Audience–Fast!

One of the hardest things about blogging is getting exposure, especially in a popular niche (like Apple products).

Instead of competing against product resellers, code monkeys (aka super geeks) or multimedia giants in a Google search, bloggers could instead buy a spot to pop up within a hashtag stream (lets say #Apple) at every 10th result (or however Twitter decides).

Example: Putting your iPod Touch / iPhone On Kitchen Duty (via @AppleGazette) http://twet.ad/12345

Note: Twitter of course would have to create an official short URL for ads (and perhaps highlight the backgrounds) in order to differentiate the ad from the search stream.

This could help bloggers quickly gain exposure from an engaging, passionate audience, especially during a popular seasonal event (say an Apple Keynote launching the new iPad, an iMac or even the glorious iPhone).

Breaking News

Whether it’s a celebrity scandal, a sporting event or (God forbid) a natural disaster, the first thing many people turn to for reaction is Twitter (as you can tell from the numerous references in the media).

A celebrity/sports blogger covering the Tiger Woods scandal for example could buy a search term or hashtag (say #woods or #golf) linking a post with updates about the golfer’s fall from grace (or even rebound).

This could help direct new users to your site, and possibly help them subscribe to your RSS feed (or more likely follow your Twitter account).

Knowledge Is Power

Although one could easily determine what the hottest trends are in a Google search by simply glancing at the hot trends section, it may be hard to determine what the overall reaction to the topic is without scanning the blogosphere for reactions.

Example: As of this post, the word “whale” is trending right now in the US (on Google).

If I were an animal blogger, I might think “Gee, now would be a good time to promote my “10 reasons why I love whales” post via Adwords, not realizing that people are discussing the recent killer whale attack that has horrified America.

A quick Tweet search of whale could inform you of this, allowing a potential blogger to instead submit a Tweet ad link titled “Are Whales Safe To Train With?” instead, helping you to avoid a public backlash due to ignorance.

Conclusion

Although some bloggers may still choose to go the route of the Google Goliath or even organic SEO, both methods may not help one build a community quickly upon their blog, something Twitter can do thanks to the zillions of apps upon mobile phones and computers.

While other factors such as pricing, availability and the payment method will ultimately determine whether or not tweet search stream ads are a hit within the twittersphere, bloggers may want to seriously consider it as an option that could help them eventually become a problogger.

Image Credits: Brain by Gaetan Lee via Flickr, Trust image via US goverment.

Whether this is due towards Blogger’s powerful free features or “keep it simple” user interface is subject to debate, but regardless of the reason the fact remains that Blogger is King.

While WordPress’s odds of over taking Blogger on the PC may be as great as Frosty the snowman’s chances of conquering hades by himself, WordPress may be able to surpass Blogger globally thanks in part to the popularity of cell phones worldwide.

(Spacemart) The ranks of cell phone subscribers will swell to five billion people this year thanks to the growth of smartphones in developed nations and mobile services in poor nations, a UN agency said Monday. [...]

“Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services,” ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure said in a statement at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the industry’s biggest trade show.

This probably explain’s why WordPress has heavily embraced smartphones (at least for Android, Blackberry and the mighty iPhone), as well as feature phones like Nokia (the latter which should be easier to purchase in third world nations).

Even though Google has embraced the world of mobile via the Android OS, they have yet to build their own apps, choosing instead to delegate the responsibilities to third parties like BlogPress, Blogaway and Bloglive (for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry, respectively).

Although these third party blogger apps are powerful when it comes to multimedia blogging, they fail to give users a “total blog experience,” especially when it comes to comment moderation and page editing (features built within all of the WP apps, but sadly lacking within Blogger apps).

While only time will tell whether or not WordPress will over take Blogger in the next few years, the fact that users can update as well as edit their blog while on the go may help thrust WordPress ahead of Blogger in the next few years as the world moves slowly away from PC’s to smart phones due to the global recession.

Considered by some to be a distant cousin to WordPress (as they have  ”same blood“), b2evolution has continued to evolve at a seemingly faster pace than its younger cousin (as b2evolution is on version 3.3.3 while WordPress is on 2.9.2).

Although boasting numerous plugins, template skins and a small but passionate community, b2evolution has nearly faded from the public spot light as most people outside of the “realm known as geek” have never heard of b2evolution (as it brings up blanks stares, unlike WordPress or Blogger).

Despite its humble reputation, the b2evolution crew announced in January that they are planning on releasing version 4.0 in a few months. But the question remains: will it be enough to save this dying brand?

Even though there are some bloggers who prefer b2evolution over WordPress, a quick Google search reveals that the vast majority of users are leaving the platform in order to embrace the WP faith.

This could be due to its user interface which although powerful is not the most elegant thing to look at (especially if one compares it against WordPress, Blogger or Movable Type).

While I could name several blogs supporting the WP brand (like Mashable, Inside Blackberry, and many, many more), the only prominent blog supporting b2evolution (that I know of) is the Moon Society (disclaimer: I occasionally write for that blog, and have in the past asked the leaders to switch away from b2evolution–hence this post).

Unless b2evolution 4.0 releases something innovative and perhaps even embraces the world of mobile like WordPress (which is now upon Android, Blackberry and the mighty iPhone), I do not see a healthy future for this platform–although I am hoping that somewhere some b2 geek can hopefully prove me wrong in the not so distant future (hint, hint).

Despite the power and popularity of WordPress amongst the blogging elite (at least upon the Techmeme Leaderboard), Blogger still remains the dominant blogging platform in the world, with the glorious WP coming in at a distant second.

Some in the WordPress faith may wonder why anyone would consider using Blogger, especially since WordPress boasts thousands (or is it tens of thousands?) of plugins, themes and developers–not to mention awesome smartphone apps upon the iPhone, Blackberry and Google’s very own Android OS.

However upon closer examination, BlogSpot fans may not be as “delusional” as some geeks may think for choosing Google over Automattic, as there are at least 5 major advantages of using Blogger instead of WordPress–both WP.com and WP.org.

1) Problogging On Your Domain

No matter how you slice it or dice it, Blogger is just far cheaper when it comes to blogging underneath your custom domain.

Backed by the mighty Google, Blogger is free when it comes to hooking up your domain. WordPress charges you $10 per domain (and that is on top of what you pay for registering your domain elsewhere).

While this may seem like a small price to pay, the bill can add up quickly if you own 5 or 6 domains.

2) Image Hosting

When it comes to default image hosting, WordPress beats Blogger 3 times over (as the former offers 3 gigabytes of default space vs Google’s 1 gigabyte).

However when it comes to upgrading to the next level on both accounts, Blogger destroy’s WordPress by offering users 20 GB of space for $5/year while WP.com offers users 5GB of space for about $20/year (note: the options become worse for us WP fans the higher up we go).

3) Video Hosting

If image hosting wasn’t bad enough, the video options alone will make one weep when you consider that WordPress charges users $60/year to use VideoPress–a fee that does not include any extra space.

BlogSpot fans on the other hand are offered video uploading for free (thanks to Google Video), with no limits on space.

4) Themes: Free for thee, but not for me?!

Despite Blogger’s popularity, WordPress (to my knowledge) still has more custom themes than its Google rival. However a new trend that I am noticing is that many premium WordPress themes are available for FREE (or very cheap) on Blogger.

One example (out of many) would be a premium WordPress theme called Church is available for $60 for WP fans. BlogSpot lovers however can get the same exact theme for free.

In fact there are many sites out there (like WordPress To Blogger) that convert premium WordPress themes to Blogger for free or very inexpensive prices (note: I am not sure how legal these businesses are, but thus far they seem to have faced little action against the original creators).

5) Security

This last point is probably debatable, but lets just face the facts: Google has one of the most secure platforms in the world.

Although WordPress.com and many hosting companies (such as Media Temple, Host Monster and GoDaddy) provide excellent security for their customers, the fact that Google can take on foreign hackers from semi-hostile nations speaks volumes about how tough their defenses are.

So is Blogger better than WordPress?

Answer: That depends on who you ask.

I personally use WordPress for most of my blogging needs right now, although I do also use other platforms such as Tumblr, Joomla–and yes, even Blogger.

However now that I’m done playing Devil’s Advocate, I’m interested in hearing what your opinion is regarding these two rival platforms (and the reasons why you chose one over the other).

If you have been following the drama over in the Blackberry App World, you probably know by now that the company is planning on developing a corporate app for Twitter and releasing it for free (hat tip: Mashable)

(Inside Blackberry) The Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones application has been designed to take advantage of the BlackBerry platform to create a user experience that will be familiar to both Twitter and BlackBerry smartphone users. Some of the areas that we have focused on are:

• Push technology and Message List integration to notify you of your direct messages as soon as they arrive.
• Send/Share BlackBerry menu integration along with bit.ly URL shortening so that you can share your favorite BlackBerry App Worldâ„¢ applications, interesting websites or a random picture from your camera with your Twitter followers.

From the initial screenshots the Blackberry Twitter app (thus far) looks impressive, although its entrance within the BB App World could signal the death of excellent mobile apps in the not so distant future.

Although I’ll admit to you that many of the twitter apps on BB world were underwhelming, there were a few diamonds in the rough like TweetGenius, which was like “the Tweetie” for Blackberry devices.

Despite offering an array of features for BB fans, it’s doubtful that users will pay BeeJive $8 when Blackberry is offering a native one for free.

This will probably discourage other third party developers from creating decent premium apps for the blackberry, which could translate into blackberry becoming a smartphone that sucks when it comes to blogging (unless you are using WordPress that is).

Could I be wrong? I seriously hope so. Although if I were a developer I would think twice about creating a blogging app on the Blackberry as the last thing you need is direct competition from the mobile phone creator itself.

Finally the news has hit the scene, while being as overdue as this post probably is: there finally is a WordPress Foundation. But this entry is not about the WordPress Foundation but about the weakness of communities and their need for strong leaders, using the WordPress community as a perfect example.

More than two years ago, during the heated sponsored themes FUD debate, I wrote that it was time to return the WordPress trademark to the Community and was also called out, by Matt himself, for it being an attack post. I have been a critic of Matt for a long time already but there is one thing ‘the community’ must understand: Matt has the guts most people would not have. Every community needs their Matt Mullenweg.

Period.

Design By Communittee Leads to Mediocrity

An often misunderstood statement and one I will dare to challenge at times but when it comes to projects as large as WordPress, Movable Type and other open source projects, design by committee leads to mediocrity. Face it, accept it and get over it.

Why does this happen? You do not need me to understand this but the turning point is when communities start to grow and become important. When a project becomes popular. When a project passes beyond being new and exciting. Could you imagine how WordPress would look like if everyone could decide what would flow in to the code? No? Just have a look at the numerous plugins in the repository. Like ‘There’s an app for that’, there’s a plugin for almost anything. Just like most iPhone apps suck, most plugins for WordPress suck and so do a majority of the WordPress themes. So does a majority of all sites you find on the internet,so do a majority of all books you find in the library aso.

Strong and opinionated leadership is essential.
Design by committee ensures mediocrity — at best.

It’s what happens when you let the community decide. It’s what happens when you are allowed to decide. It’s what happens when I am allowed to decide. Instead of thinking for the community we tend to let our own ideas influence our decisions. It’s called being human. Leaders need to be different though: most projects need someone who is not afraid of calling shots, someone who dares to go against the flow and dares to say ‘This is my decision and that’s how things will be’. Over the last years Matt did so with the Themes repository, with the WordPress 2010 theme and Matt will lead the WordPress Foundation as well.

Personal Opinion Can Lead to Lack of Respect

After the sponsored theme controversy and Matt’s decision to nuke and clean the theme repository the cries to remove the default links to the sites of core (historical?) contributors to the code of WordPress got louder all the time and subsequently these were removed and replaced with links to WordPress documentation. Many people said that links were a currency, a way to pay the people listed, but have you ever tried to get a loan approved based on how many backlinks you have in Google?
The original links to these contributors were there because of what these people meant to the code of the platform we all use, the links honoured their participation. If at any point these links provided a valuable financial return, it was based on the merit of the great code these people contributed to.

Not Every Decision Needs to Please the Community

The strength of great leaders is that they think further, think months, often years, ahead already. Think about what will positively help their project grow. Often they do decide not to do what would seem the popular option but instead they will offend a part of the contributing community by opting for the other, less popular among smaller but very active groups, solution. Well known examples are the sponsored themes debate and the canonical plugins debate.

Leading a project as large as WordPress is not much different from being the President of the USA

As the WordPress community grows up there is one thing it has to accept: leading a project as large as WordPress is not much different than being the President of the USA.
Whoever is the leader will be hated by some people, will make decisions disliked by others and if the leader were to be replaced by another, democratically chosen, leader the new leader would be just as hated by some within the shortest time.

You do not have to agree with this statement but we do not have to look far back in history to realise that the last ‘lauded Messiah’ nothing more than another miserable failure is and perfectly serves as example here.

The Grass Is Not Greener at the Other Side

On Twitter Jeff Chandler expressed that maybe there had been a shift in thinking.

I’m guessing the pursuit of happiness which existed at one time has since disappeared.

The fact is that for hardcore users, long term contributors and evangelists, WordPress no longer a new, shiny and exciting project is. And hasn’t been since probably the days of the sponsored themes debate. This does not take anything away of how awesome and powerful the platform, software is.

If you look at the other side, at other popular open source projects, you will find the same discussions in almost every ‘democratically lead’ open source project. Projects have faltered because of this, have failed because of community pressure, others have been forked. Often to live the same fatal destiny within the next 5 years.
WordPress though is on a good and stable path and this is probably because of Matt and nobody else. He seems to think long term and is surrounded with great people. He hasn’t made any major errors.
If Matt makes too many errors, WordPress might become the next ‘Mambo Server/Joomla’. Or the project might die within the next 10 years, like happened to PostNuke.

Feel free to fork and go your own way (as I am sure will happen to WordPressMU lead by the WPMU.org crew).

If you like small teams and shiny new, exciting projects help the Habari community, which is also designed by Committee. And so far things work out great, but if Habari grows and becomes big at some point, the deficiencies of design by committee will become more and more apparent and also that community will see its fair share of upset contributors and people will leave annoyed, each for their own reasons.

Otherwise… accept that Matt the Boss is but do not forget that he’s the first one to admit that he isn’t perfect and to admit errors. He also has learned from previous errors.
Personally I am not excited by the evolution of WordPress anymore, I prefer being a watchdog of small, shiny and exciting new projects. WordPress has many great things going and the community is blessed to have a great leader in the name of Matt. People who, like me, love being ‘bleeding edge’ are already looking for the next big thing and have made place for the reporters, the real watchdogs. But to conclude, trust me that many communities would love to have a leader like Matt. Like it or don’t. Stay or leave.

The three triggers are danger, food, and sex. If you notice, these are the basic elements that fire-off red flags in our collective instincts. This is because the way our brains are configured due to millions of years of evolution. All three items relate or our self-preservation instincts.

The premise is that the brain is hard-wired to get immediately attracted to words, images, and videos that pertain to danger, food, and sex. And if people are aware of these content, there is a higher likelihood that interest will be developed and the desired action, which is clicking (if it’s a hyperlink), will follow.

Here’s a few suggestions in incorporating the triggers:

• Danger - Make the wordings of your links to be more active and, if appropriate, place “threatening” images or images that convey cautionary measures.
• Food – The author of the book says that people pay attention to food (and that’s why there are plenty of food bloggers out there). If possible, place food items or benefits people can derive from your blog and blog posts.
• Sex – I’ve mentioned this is in the past and that sex is always a powerful attention getter.

2010 is just around the corner and it may be a good new year’s resolution to make your content more interesting. Just rememebr the three key triggers: danger, food, and sex.

Happy New Year!

But as a blogger, how do you get into the whole “spreading the wealth” business?

But let’s get some things straight first: for a lot of professional bloggers, the content being written is focused on a particular niche.  So try putting yourself on your readers’ shoes and ask the question “What’s in it for me?”

This may sound too mercenary-like (and the last thing about the holidays), but think about it– why should your readers care about your blog? If your blog is one thing that leads to benefits, such as wealth, a better life, or  more informed way of doing things, then there are reasons people will come back.

So, as a blogger, be generous in pointing the benefits and making sure your readers know that there is a benefit to reading your posts. Here are three ways to highlight the benefits:

1. State the Obvious – If there’s a benefit your readers should find worth getting, say it! This may entail having an approach that’s more direct to the point and being clear with the benefits. Apple is very good in this because they are able to put the key benefits of their products very concisely.
2. Reinforce with Images – Blog posts will always look a little shinier and spiffier with images (provided the image will provide the proper context.) The images can also reinforce the tangible benefit your readers can derive.
3. Make the Benefit Scarce – Create a sense of scarcity with what you are offering because people respond to loss and scarcity in a more natural way than abundance. If you think the information contained in your blog post is only good for a season, then make it clear.

Remember, make the benefits clear, obvious, and worth getting. The benefit for you may be a better performing blog.

Happy Holidays!

I won’t be surprised if 9 out of 10 people who came to this blog post spent around 10 seconds looking at the picture above.  It’s just human nature to be attracted to content that convey sexual messages.

As a blogger, it would be good to consider that nature of people when writing blog posts. From the age old “Sex sells” mantra to sensational headlines, there is wisdom in putting a little spice to make thinks interesting in blogs. Sex is just one of this things that raise a flag in people’s brains.

But the picture above is really an extreme example of audience titillation– the image really has no place in a blog about blogging (or maybe not). But my point is that find the right amount of sexiness in the proper context. Here are a couple of ideas:

• Provocative images – Haven’t you ever wondered why a company like GoDaddy, a domain and web hosting seller, uses models like Danica Partick in its advertising and marketing campaigns? If you ask me, it’s really for audience titillation. Placing a provocative image in your blog post that related to your topic may provide that spark.
• Sensational Headlines – Following the “Man Bites Dog” adage, a crafty and clever headline with the proper innuendos may pique the interest of the most indifferent of readers. Instead of saying “Blogger Wins Award,” a sexy version could be “Female Teen Blogger Grabs Top Spot”.

Of course, sexifying your blog posts doesn’t mean that all ounces of decency are thrown out of the window. Just the right amount and right context, coupled with the ethical considerations will make your blog spicy and sexy.

What are ‘canonical plugins’?

The first question which comes to mind is ‘What are canonical plugins?‘. The team has provided the following definition:

Canonical plugins would be plugins that are community developed (multiple developers, not just one person) and address the most popular functionality requests with superlative execution. These plugins would be GPL and live in the WordPress.org repo, and would be developed in close connection with WordPress core. There would be a very strong relationship between core and these plugins that ensured that a) the plugin code would be secure and the best possible example of coding standards, and b) that new versions of WordPress would be tested against these plugins prior to release to ensure compatibility.

Canonical plugins will not be developed by one plugin developer anymore but by the community. They will also have their official web presence on the wordpress.org plugin repository instead of on website of the (original) developer.
What does this mean for several plugin developers? If you have a popular plugin and your plugin contains a ‘Donate’ button, be prepared to ditch this button if you want your plugin to be taken in consideration. This would be the case for example for. Arne Brachold’s Google (XML) Sitemap Generator and Donncha’s WP Super Cache plugin.

How to name ‘canonical plugins’?

The team clearly identified that the term canonical rather niche is and asks the community to vote on how these ‘super plugins’ should be categorised/labelled. The entry on the develop blog offers some names for canonical plugins:

Standard – Implies that these are the standard by which all other plugins should be judged, as well as the idea of them being the default plugins.
Core – Makes the close relationship to core WordPress development very clear, and has the implication of bundled plugins (even though we don’t need to actually bundle them now that the installer is right in the admin tool).
Premium – Identifies these officially-supported plugins as best-in-class and of the highest value, and could potentially disambiguate the word Premium as it is currently being used in the community (to refer to anything from commercial support to licensing terms to actual code quality).
Validated – Focuses on the fact that the code is reviewed for compatibility with core and for security.
Official – Makes it plain that these are the plugins officially endorsed by the core team as being the best at their functions.
Canonical – Maybe once people get used to it, canonical wouldn’t confuse so many people?

I know that when browsing the download section at Apple’s website I am usually tempted to first check the Staff Pick labelled downloads so there’s no doubt that a great name, label would highly increase the popularity of these plugins. But I do have some concerns with some of the proposed names.

• Core : I do not think that any plugin should be called core unless it is added to the core code of WordPress itself and thus not a plugin anymore;
• Standard : To me this somehow implies that they will be wrapped up together with the download. Similar to Askimet and Hello Dolly. Is this the way forward? Maybe and it would be great to immediately provide the user with a great selection of plugins without making WordPress itself bloatware. But if the name Standard is chosen and they are included in the download, this would certainly restrict the number of canonical plugins… unless you see no issue in adding 100 plugins to the download;
• Premium : I think Premium has become standard for commercial themes and to avoid confusion this status quo should be maintained;
• Official : What happens to the other plugins, non-canonical plugins? Are they unofficial? This is bound to create a big divide in the plugin community and I would rather not see this name become… well official;

Personally I have not been able to come with an alternative name but I think that canonical the best of the proposed ones is. Otherwise I would lean to something along the lines of Community Maintained or Community Pick.

Can you think of another more appropriate name for canonical plugins? Go cast your vote.

Last but not least, what about Askimet? Matt has more than once said, and I defend this decision, that Askimet works best if the secret juice is not open sourced. Would this exclude Askimet and should this exclusion have an impact on Askimet’s inclusion?

Canonical plugins, have you gotten used to canonical already, would also require to have excellent community support and have a Trac system, but more about what this could imply and how this could improve wordpress.org in another entry. Right now, my vote goes to ‘canonical‘.

Ever since WordPress 2.3, which was released almost exactly 2 years ago, every WordPress blogger receives an update notification whenever a new version available is. The majority of new releases are bug fixes and security updates.
Personally, whenever I see that yellow new release notification I can not hit update now fast enough. If it weren’t for the security aspect then it is for the ugliness of the notification.

Nevertheless, in these days some people are given a megaphone online and can not resist the need to be vocal, even though they were the only ones who were to blame. One of these people last weekend was Robert Scoble. His post I don’t feel safe with WordPress, Hackers broke in and took things quickly went viral Robert received support but also bashing. Gruber even went as far to say that Movable Type safer is.

Regardless whether MT is more secure, it is clearly safer.

I have criticized WordPress in the past and will continue my search for alternative platforms, but this time I have to defend the WP community and Automattic. WordPress has done everything right.
We certainly can argue lots about whether WordPress a safe engine is or not, but statements like Michael Gray‘s tweet some days ago are what we tend to call BS:

if wordpress was serious 9am tomorrow morning stable secure code would become priority #1 … not features to amuse programmers

I will repeat myself: WordPress/Automattic has done everything right. WordPress is highly optimized to make update hell easier for the blogger:

1. Notifications about new releases
   Not once, usually you can see at least 3 different notifications: at the top of the admin back-end all-over wp-admin, on the wp-admin/index.php page you will probably see at least 3 feed entries mentioning an update (Dev blog, WLTC and Andy or Ryan). Upgrade notifications have been implemented since September 2007 (WordPress 2.3);
2. One click upgrade
   WordPress comes with an upgrade feature for both the core platform and plug-ins since December 2008 (WP2.7). To please pedants, I will admit that it’s a two-click update.
3. Security releases come quickly when they are needed.
   The above mentioned 2.8.4 relases is the proof of this

But both WordPress and the upgrade feature aren’t failsafe. The argument that plug-ins aren’t compatible and could break an upgrade should not prevent users from upgrading:

Been asked what I thought about Scoble/WP: NEVER put an addon over the SECURITY of your CONTENT. Put your content 2nd, you’ll get hacked. [via @tyme]

There are several things which could be improved to makes upgrades (feel) safer and even easier for users though:

1. Automated database backup
   Instead of displaying a notification that users should update the database, this feature should have become a core feature ever since the automated upgrader was launched. Instead we recommend WP DB Manager (WP DB Manager tubetorial video) or use a cron job if you do not want to rely on a plugin. Optionally the backup procedure should also offer to backup the WP files;
2. Deactivate the plugins
   The second recommendation from the WordPress Codex page on upgrading is to deactivate your plugins. Maybe this should be build in and after upgrade the user should be offered to reactivate them. Better would even be if there were a compatibility check built-in;
3. Force plugin hooks to check if the plugin is activated after upgrade
   I am no coder but would assume it would even be possible to require a hook or API to make plugins check for the use of if (function_exists()). This would ultimately prevent that themes would break if the upgrade deactivates plugins.
4. Plug-ins with customization options should adopt a ‘child themes alike’ structure
   Many plugins come with the option to change the CSS or have different options. Several write these in the database, other overwrite the original CSS file on the server. Other plugins still require hacking of the core plugin files. In the latter case the changes will be overwritten whenever the plugin is updated. Plugins should adopt a similar structure to child themes, allowing the user to revert to the original plugin structure whenever customization went wrong, all while keeping the changes after updates.
5. Separate Admin back-end from front-end

There is not one single reason one can think of why the admin area should be in a standard folder. Automattic, change this now and also offer those who want to an easy option to install the admin area on (shared) SSL space.

To Robert Scoble I only have to say that it’s time he finds a hoster with daily/weekly/monthly automated backups.

Here’s a little sample to wet your whistle, so to speak.

Right now WordPress can be a forum, multi blogs platform, social media platform, microblog, social bookmarking and these are just a few of the possibilities.

WordPress is slowly making it’s way into the corporate world as well: Yahoo, CNN, New York Times, Ford, Nike are just a few of big names that implemented it for it’s ease of use, fast development times, cost reduction and easy maintenance of the platform. Oh… and U.S. Government Agencies are also using WordPress.

So where do we go from here? Recently it was announced WordPress to merge with WordPress MU. This will probably appear with the 3.0 launch. This seams to be just one of the big steps towards a social web platform. The next step will probably be to integrate more social media features from BuddyPress.

It goes on to discuss some of the implications of the new (and future) changes and additions to WordPress, as well as some of the issues surrounding GPL licensing and themes.

Personally I can’t wait for more social features in WordPress. Allowing the building of a framework for an entire social community within the WordPress platform would be a huge step forward in a lot of ways.

The one major downside to that I suppose would be the idea of “core bloat”. That is to say, the more features built directly into the core, the slower WordPress tends to get. Though I’m conflicted on just how much of an effect that has on most people, it’s certainly interesting to discuss.

All in all I’d say good things are in store for WordPress users in the coming months/years. Especially if you’re looking to use WordPress as the foundation for a site which includes a lot of social features.

This morning a few people I follow on Twitter were practically raving about this new blog based on a the story of 2 characters from a play-through of the Sims 3, and after checking it out, I have to say that it’s entertaining, hilarious, and more than the slightly tragic.

It’s called “Alice and Kev, The story of being homeless in The Sims 3“, and it’s being put together by Robin Burkinshaw, who is a student of Games Design (and likely has a glorious future in it if this blog is any indication).

Here’s what Robin has to say about this “experiment”…

This is an experiment in playing a homeless family in The Sims 3. I created two Sims, moved them in to a place made to look like an abandoned park, removed all of their remaining money, and then attempted to help them survive without taking any job promotions or easy cash routes. It’s based on the old ‘poverty challenge’ idea from The Sims 2, but it turned out to be a lot more interesting with The Sims 3’s living neighborhood features.

I have attempted to tell my experiences with the minimum of embellishment. Everything I describe in here is something that happened in the game. What’s more, a surprising amount of the interesting things in this story were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over.

The resulting blog entries, complete with many MANY screen shots, tell the story of the two main characters and their interactions with the world around them. You really get a sense of their personalities and emotions, which is amazing given that they are semi-autonomous game characters.

I highly suggest checking it out if you want a laugh (and occasionally feel sad for Alice). Whether or not you’re a fan of The Sims, the story of these two characters is surprisingly compelling. I for one can’t wait to see what’s next in store for them on their adventure to survive on stolen apples and live on the digital streets of their virtual town.

Here’s a sample from the intro…

Bad and inaccurate information from websites isn’t new. The Internet can be a fabulous tool, but it should not be the sole source of information for any factual writing from blogs, to research for fiction, to magazine or newspaper articles. Anyone can create a website and fill it with text. There’s never a guarantee that information online is accurate or current. That’s why writers and journalists should not rely on the Internet.

I couldn’t agree more that the internet can be a source of misleading information, made all the more dangerous due to how fast information spreads through things like blogs, twitter, etc.

There is a tendency to want to trust sources of information online, and there is good reason for that: There is a lot of great information out there. The problem is simply that literally ANYONE can dump whatever they want onto a website, blog, wiki, etc, and there is often little or no fact checking happening by anyone other than the writer.

It’s all too common to see someone post something to twitter or their blog and then within minutes (or seconds) dozens or more people are tweeting/blogging away about their opinion of the original statement/event/whatever, only to find out hours later that the original poster was wrong, or just seeing who would believe them.

If the internet is truly to become a great source of fast and accurate information (and for the most part is CAN be already), we all have to work a little harder at sifting through the river of information to find the nuggets of truth. Hopefully before the misleading info has spread too far.

It’s a fairly informal discussion between Ryan Hellyer (of PixelPoint.com) and an unnamed “specialist in copyright law”. And while Ryan freely admits to not knowing whether what this “specialist” says is true or not, the discussion is pretty interesting.

They get into some details that often seem to be overlooked when discussing GPL licensing, such as having a copyright to the design of a theme separate from the backend code, and beach of contract issues. Law geeks will probably get the most of out it, but it’s not too full of legalese, so most people should be able to follow it if they are interested to learn more about the subject.

Take it all with a grain of salt though, since the “specialist” is unnamed, and his opinion is just that, HIS opinion.

That said, what are YOUR thoughts on the matter of GPL and Non-GPL licensed themes?

I believe two things matter: what is in it for the developer, and is the community served?

I don’t believe that the GPL is providing for the developers nor truly living up to what the community needs.

Consider this:

You’ve just created an amazing plugin, it took you over a dozen hours, and you’ve given it out to the community for free.

Now they come to you for support, and you try your best to provide them with the answers they need, adding another two hours per week to your “work”. WordPress then changes in some major way, and you have to recode your plugin to work under the new “rules” of WordPress, adding another two hours of development time to your plugin.

All of this time spent is from the goodness of your heart, but it becomes tiring. One day, you decide to start charging for support. Each request is only two dollars, and you go from needing to spend two hours a week to only spending two hours a month on support related inquiries.

The problems didn’t disappear though, instead the WordPress community forums are littered with people asking for help with your plugin, and they are getting answers, thus bypassing your new business enterprise completely.

You feel frustrated that the hours you originally and continue to put have been rewarded in such a way, and in the end you never make back in community currency, links or actual money the investment that you had put into the project.

Where is the benefit to continue? You either end up discontinuing your work or finding ways to try to drive business to yourself, only to have your plugin removed from the WordPress Plugins repository for not being “GPL enough”. Someone else forks your work and continues on, paying no homage to the original idea creator, you.

Sound like fiction? I have no doubt that this has been the case for at least a few WordPress theme and plugin developers as the GPL creates a number of limitations with no business model set up to reward those that spend the time adding to the community.

Flip that around and remove the GPL, and the plugin author could have built a business around the plugin, while still remaining in the forefront of the community. The monetary benefit would have hopefully changed the market in two ways.

The first way would be that the plugin developer would have been more likely to spend time developing their plugin continually. The second change would be that popular plugins would have to compete in the market in both price and features.

I don’t believe that GPL is the great equalizer and protector, and I also believe that within five years, WordPress will see much of their current plugin and theme development rock stars move onto other platforms that don’t have such restrictive licensing.

iThemes now has a Movable Type store. How long will it be until more theme developers follow suit? Habari’s license allows the creators to manage and sell their work under any license they like, allowing for true business to be built around their platform.