As part of our holiday giveaway series WPMUDev has agreed to give away two 1-year licenses to their system for just 1% of the cost. That’s a $408 value for just $4.08!

So what do you receive for that price? How about 300+ WordPress plugins and WordPress themes, quality code, updates guaranteed, 24/7/365 WordPress Support and Manual, Videos and Webinars!

Because their experts in the field and intimately aware of WordPress coding standards the WPMUDev team also guarantee each plugin they create will work out of the box or they’ll give you your money back guaranteed.

You can see what they have to offer by visiting: premium.wpmudev.org

HOW TO ENTER THIS CONTEST:

1. Follow WPMUDev on Twitter: @wpmudev

2. Like WPMUDev on Facebook: Facebook.com/wpmudev

3. Leave a comment on this page with your Twitter handle after you have completed both steps above.

Two winners will be chosen on Friday, December 23.

WordPress.com users now publish close to 3 million posts per week and more than 1 million pages. Around 4 million files have been uploaded weekly per week in 2011 already and on average more than 4 million comments are posted every week on the platform managed by Automattic.

Check out more WordPress stats here.

At the time of writing WordPress 3.2, which was released less than a week ago, had already been downloaded more than 1 million times.

Check the WordPress download counter for actual up to date numbers.

Today we’re excited to bring you Custom Design, a powerful new tool that combines easy to use, code-free font selection from Typekit and a beautiful CSS editing interface with world-class support from our famous WordPress.com Happiness Engineers. [...]

The Font Editor provides a visual preview of your blog with over 50 gorgeous premium Typekit fonts—from foundries like Mark Simonson, exljbris, FontFont, and the League of Moveable Type—and allows you to easily modify the size and style of your fonts. (Official WordPress Blog)

In order to gain access to this feature users will have to purchase an inexpensive upgrade (which costs $30/year), which will allow WP.com fans to easily customize their sites to their hearts content.

As a bonus WordPress.com does allow users to test out the features via a free preview, although they will have to purchase the upgrade in order for readers to see these changes live upon ones site.

Combined with premium WP.com themes, Custom Design and Font Editor should make it even easier for WP.com users to create unique blogs in order to distinguish their sites from the rest of the crowd.

For those of you who host your blogs upon WP.com, what are your thoughts regarding the latest changes?

Also what other features would you want WordPress.com to release or enable in the future?

As an important touch, we let you stay logged in to multiple services. This means you can stay logged in to Facebook for convenience, but still leave a comment through Twitter or your WordPress.com account. Just click whichever identity you’d like to use, and the selected one will be associated with your comment when it is published. You’re in control of your identity, as you should be. (Official WordPress.com Blog)

Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) is planning on porting this feature for self hosted blogs via JetPack, which should help fill a gap for bloggers who want social commenting without having to embrace third party options like Disqus or Facebook.

Currently there is no option to post a comment using your Google account, although the team may consider the search engine giant in the not so distant future (depending upon demand of course).

For those of you powering your blogs via WordPress.com, have you activated social commenting upon your sites? Also what other services (aside from Google) would you like to see added?

We’ve just enabled a new feature for all VaultPress customers that will now automatically notify you via email when we detect a connection error between VaultPress and your site. [...]

If VaultPress is unable to contact your site for five consecutive hours, we’ll send an initial alert email to you. We’ll send additional follow-up alerts to you and then to our concierge support team so we can work with you to make sure your site is protected. (Official VaultPress Blog)

VaultPress will also automatically email users if their site is experiencing connection time outs, invalid API signatures , and last but not least the dreaded 500 internal server error.

Although a large number of hosting companies post status updates upon Twitter or a corporate blog when their servers go down, very few alert their users regarding the downtime via email until after the fact (preventing you from temporarily switching to a different host until the problem is resolved).

Unfortunately VaultPress doesn’t provide a user fancy graph highlighting server issues over time (a feature many cheap hosting companies would loathe), which could help WordPress fans determine the reliability of their hosting companies.

For those of you who use VaultPress, what are your thoughts about this feature? Also, would you prefer to be alerted via other means (say SMS, chat, etc.) if you’re site went down?

After many months of waiting, WordPress has finally blessed iOS fans with features that have long been enjoyed by Android, Nokia and Blackberry fans.

While the inclusion of WP.com stats will please data geeks (which requires JetPack or the WP.com Stats plugin), photo bloggers will love quick photo which is even easier than Tumblr’s iPhone app.

As you launch the app, you’ll notice there’s now a button in the bottom of your blogs list. Tap it to launch the camera and take a picture, when you’re satisfied you can add a title or a description (if you want, both are optional), and boom — you’re done! (WordPress for iOS)

It takes only 4 quick taps (from launch to publish) to send a photo to your blog compared to Tumblr’s 6 taps (7 if you start within the dashboard).

For those of you with WordPress Tumblogs, you will be glad to hear that the team is also planning on supporting post formats in the future, although there is no time table as when that will appear (as WordPress has to implement a core patch in order correctly assign the image post format).

Hopefully WordPress will consider other media formats such as video, quotes and audio files (note: perhaps changing between them by sliding the “quick photo” button to the side?), as their mobile apps could help WordPress regain some lost ground against Tumblr.

WordPress.com has also jumped a spot upon Quantcast top million rankings as the blog service has overtaken AOL.com for the 18th spot.

Surprisingly WP.com seems to be within striking distance of Bing.com (who currently occupies the 17th spot), although WordPress.com has a long ways to go before they can catch up to Blogger (who proudly sits at 13).

Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) has continued to release a slew of new features in order to attract new users (such as Writer Helper and premium themes) and it will be interesting to see how long it takes for WP.com to reach 40 million hosted blogs.

Note: With competition heating up from services like Tumblr, what features or services do you think WP.com should add in order to effectively compete in the micro blogging craze that has swept the web?

However one of the biggest changes (at least for non-geeks) is the fact that WordPress is finally embracing a simpler posting interface.

Distraction-free Writing. The visual editor’s full-screen composing experience has gotten a major overhaul, and is now available from HTML mode, too. More than ever, WordPress allows you to focus on what matters most — your content. (WordPress News)

Note: Emphasis theirs.

Along with Writing Helper, the new interface should help reduce the friction when it comes to creating a post, as well as appease fans of rival services (like Posterous and Tumblr) who desire simplicity without sacrificing on power.

Fans can test the beta by installing the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, although make sure you use a test blog or site (lest your break a few plugins or your theme in front of your readers).

Note: If you come across any bugs while beta testing WordPress 3.2, feel free to report it in the alpha/beta forum.

Beyond the recent bug fix releases, we’re investigating WordPress.com’s most popular features and how to engineer them to work inside Jetpack. I can’t say more, but it’s fair to say version 1.2 is likely to contain something impressive – something  no ordinary plugin can currently do. (Official JetPack Blog)

Note: Emphasis mine.

While Automattic isn’t providing many hints regarding their update, they are open to suggestions about which WP.com features they should include along side their surprise.

Unfortunately their comment section isn’t open for suggestions (note: perhaps it was accidently turned off?), although here are a few suggestions from yours truly.

WordPress Like Button

Similar to Facebook’s like button, WP.com could integrate their famous like button within ShareDaddy for self hosted fans, along with the mini Gravatars highlighting the faces of

Automattic could go one step further by providing bloggers with basic analytics for users liking their posts, or (even better) tie in the data with WP.com stats.

Although some may wonder why anyone would need another “like button” in the age of Facebook, doing so could provide WordPress fans with a decent alternative just in case they defriend the social giant in the future.

Optional Reblogging

After being popularized by Tumblr, several major platforms (including WordPress.com) have incorporated reblogging to the delight (or loathing) of their users.

While reblogging is still semi-controversial (as some view it more as “lazy blogging”), the feature is a convenient way to share interesting content without going through the hassle of launching a new post with block quotes.

Since not everyone enjoys reblogging, this should be an “opt in” feature, allowing self hosted fans to exclude themselves from the reblogging frenzy (which some may view as spam).

Note: It would be great if bloggers could reblog upon a WP.com or self hosted blog without having to like a post first, as not everyone reblogs content that they love.

Two Step Authentication

Last but not least it would be awesome if self hosted bloggers could partake in Automattic two step authentication feature, which is currently a premium service offered to WordPress.com users.

This could provide an extra layer of security for WordPress fans accessing their blogs (especially if one suspects their password may have been revealed through a hack).

Note: This feature is currently only available for US users, although hopefully Automattic can work out a deal with international carriers in the not so distant future.

What Features Would You Add?

For those of you who have installed JetPack, what features would you like to see added to the service?

Also if you have any guesses as what new feature Automattic plans on rolling out, feel free to voice your thoughts below.

Image Credits: Automattic, Milinkito

In a bid to help WordPress users get beyond the blank screen and inspire them to create content, Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) has released a new tool to help bloggers combat writers block.

Dubbed Writing Helper, WP.com’s new tool seeks to use the power of man and machine in order to help bloggers create spectacular posts.

First up is Copy A Post. You can now reuse the hard work of previous posts as the basis for the next one. Simply hit the Copy A Post button, pick a post, and we copy the title, content, tags and categories for you, saving you steps. [...]

Next is Request Feedback. You can now share a private draft of a post with a friend before it is published. They can help you find typos, suggest improvements and give advice to make the post amazing before your publish it to the world. (Official WordPress.com Blog)

Note: Emphasis theirs.

The Request Feedback is great as it allows you to seek feedback from other blog writers as well as friends who may not be into the “whole blog thing” (but who are excellent editors).

As far as Copy A Post goes, while it may help inspire you towards your next post, the fact that it replaces the contents of your current article with an archived one is irritating.

It would be great if Automattic allowed users to keep their previous content (perhaps in another box?) in order to compare both entries and figure out what they want to keep as well as delete from their current article.

Writing Helper is currently available for WordPress.com users, although Automattic is working on exporting this feature for self hosted WordPress blogs via JetPack.

Have you used Writing Helper? If so, what do you like about it, and what would you add to improve it?

For webmasters with self-hosted Wordpress [sic] blogs, there’s now a Webmaster Tools site verifcation plugin for WordPress [sic] that completely automates our verification process! [...]

With verified ownership of your site in Webmaster Tools, you can receive specific statistics and information (e.g. relevant search queries, malware notices) about your site directly from Google. (Google Webmaster Central Blog)

The plugin only works for blogs running WordPress 3.0 (or higher) as well as PHP 5.2 (which you can verify with your hosting provider).

It is also recommended that WordPress fans create an account upon Webmaster Tools first before activating the plugin, otherwise you may encounter a few irritating errors afterwards (something I discovered on my personal blog).

The verification plugin allows you to easily submit a WordPress blog to Google in 2 simple clicks, although unfortunately a few users are encountering “fatal errors” when attempting to verify their blog.

Note: If you are unable to verify your blog via the plugin, you can submit your site to Webmaster Tools by clicking the “Add a site” button, typing in your domain, then clicking on the “Alternate methods” tab.

Select the “Link to your Google Analytics account” option, then click the “Verify” button below.

You can now easily set the publish date and time in the app when creating a post or page. The date can be set to the future which will set the post status to ‘Scheduled’ and publish on your blog when the time arrives. [...]

At the bottom of the post editor we’ve added a Post Password field to help protect your content. Simply enter a password here and the post will require that the password be entered for viewing on the blog when published. (WordPress for Android)

The Android app also supports HTTP Authentication for self hosted blogs, which means WordPress fans no longer have to choose between mobile blogging an tighter security via select plugins.

Unfortunately for those of you who have installed the app from Amazon’s App store, this update is not yet available (it’s awaiting approval from Amazon’s app tribunal).

However fans of Amazon’s app store can always install a fresh copy from Android Market (which might be wiser in the future, especially if WordPress releases a security update).

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

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

To their credit Automattic alerted the community regarding the breach, a habit I wish was emulated within other industries (who often inform users days if not weeks later).

Automattic is still investigating the hack although there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of any passwords compromised, however the company is recommending that users change their passwords.

It’s also a good idea for self hosted blogs using WordPress.com services (like VaultPress) to change their WP.com passwords as well.

Note: For those of you who are extra paranoid, you can also change your username as well by visiting your Global Dashboard, then clicking on “Personal Settings” in the sidebar, then scrolling down to the “Account Details” section and clicking on the “Change” link next to your user name.

Although this breach indirectly affects self hosted WordPress fans, it might be wise to verify your hosting companies security defenses, as well as install a few plugins (like Login Lockdown) upon your site.

The most important to-do in the 2.8 road map is Localization. WordPress for iOS will now become much more accessible for many users. 2.8 will also introduce a Stats view (finally!), a Quick Photo button, as well as a few more nifty improvements. (WordPress for iOS)

WordPress Stats is a feature that every other smartphone platform (even Nokia!) has long enjoyed save iOS fans, who had to rely upon a third party app to receive their WP stats fix.

While the next update will finally bake in stats, WordPress is still looking for a few more good ideas on how to improve the app further (probably beyond what has already been discussed).

One suggestion that has yet to be widely discussed would be for the iOS app to embrace post layouts for Tumbl themes using status, quotes, asides, links, etc., similar to what Express App does (minus the hacking or WooThemes requirement).

For those of you who enjoy blogging on the go, what extra features would you like to see integrated within the WordPress app?

Upon visiting webOS.wordpress.org, WordPress fans are greeted with this message:

The blog http://webos.wordpress.org was marked private by its owner. If you were invited to view this blog, please log in below. For more information about blog privacy settings, please visit our support site.

This is the nearly the same message that appeared when WordPress was working upon Windows Phone 7, Nokia and Android before launching them to the public.

Although there are blogging apps upon webOS, most (if not all) of them are from third party developers as the mobile OS has been ignored by all of the major blogging platforms until now.

By courting webOS, WordPress will extend its influence upon every major mobile OS save Bada (from Samsung), helping to strengthen their position as the dominant mobile platform (at least when it comes to blogging upon a smartphone).

WordPress has yet to reveal any details regarding their webOS app, although for those of you sporting the Palm Pre 2 what features would you like to see included within the app?

While WordPress will also be working on optimizing the software in order to improve loading speeds, it will also boast an interesting feature that may make it easier for bloggers to write posts as well.

Distraction Free Writing. This is our headline “ooh, shiny” user feature. Replace our current fullscreen implementation with something more beautiful, more useful (in terms of line-length and font size), and simpler (only limited RTE functionality). Look at WriteRoom, OmmWriter, http://www.quietwrite.com/ for inspiration. Koop is investigating this, and may crank out a quick plugin to jump-start development efforts (WordPress Development Updates)

Simplifying the interface could make it easier for new bloggers to create posts within WordPress without being distracted by all the bells and whistles of the software.

The upcoming version of WordPress will require PHP 5.2.4 as well as MySQL 5 (note: make sure your web host is aware of these changes), and will also be transitioning away from IE6.

WordPress has not yet released a time frame for when they expect version 3.2 to be available to the public, although those of you on the bleeding edge can install the Beta Tester plugin to experiment with 3.2 (preferably upon a test site).

Simply select the icons along the bottom of the post editor to edit post settings, view attachments and add media. You can also now upload multiple media objects at once!

‘Pull to refresh’ has been added to the list views of the app. To refresh the list, simply pull down until the arrow flips around and then release[.] (WordPress for iOS)

One of my favorite features is the ability to email commenters from within the app, which makes it easier to reply to readers privately without having to log into your blog via mobile Safari.

As a bonus WordPress has “magically” (to borrow a phrase from Steve Jobs) reduced the amount of time uploading videos to a blog, and has even made it easy to cancel videos uploading midway by tapping upon the clip.

Note: Bug resolved. See update below.

The only “critical” bug I discovered while using the app was the fact that WordPress seems to enjoy silencing my music (even upon third party apps like Pandora) whenever I launch WordPress for iOS.

Music silencing aside, the latest update should resolve most of the issues for WordPress fans (especially those using “unlimited hosting” plans), and is available for free upon the app store.

Update: Apparently the bug (which was also replicated within other apps ironically) dissappeared after syncing my iPhone with iTunes.

Today we’re launching the first version of what’s been a dream of mine for several years now, really since my State of the Word presentation in 2009: a way to provide feature parity between WordPress.com and WordPress.org for everybody. [...]

For launch we’ve brought eight of the most-requested features into Jetpack as one easy bundle: Hovercards, Stats, After the Deadline, Twitter widget, shortcodes, shortlinks, easy Facebook/Twitter/WordPress sharing buttons (Sharedaddy), and for our fellow math nerds, . We’re excited about this initial set of features, but we’re even more excited for what’s coming down the road. (Jetpack News)

Automattic is partnering with a number of hosts (including GoDaddy and DreamHost) in order to have Jetpack pre-installed with new WordPress users. Current WordPress fans can install the Jetpack plugin manually from the directory.

Note: installing Jetpack will deactivate duplicate plugins (like ShareDaddy) that you’ve previously uploaded, so you may have to reconfigure them again upon your blog.

Surprisingly Automattic does hint that they may offer users premium plugins through Jetpack in the future, which makes one wonder whether the company is pondering a one one stop shop for premium plugins.

Jetpack itself is, and always will be free. Some individual features that Jetpack provides will be free, but others in the future may require payment. Installing Jetpack is free and requires no payment information. (Jetpack FAQ)

Note: Emphasis mine.

While Automattic will probably launch a few of their premium plugins (like VaultPress, VideoPress and PollDaddy) through Jetpack, there might be a slim chance that Automattic could open up Jetpack to premium plugin developers as well.

In my honest opinion Jetpack is highly recommend for bloggers (both new comers and guru’s), although hopefully the company will consider porting the Gravatar like button (as not everyone wants to outsource everything to Facebook).

Last month in February the NY Times wrote an article detailing how blog platforms were some how being canibilized by Facebook and Twitter, with only Tumblr showing healthy signs of growth (at least among the youth).

While no one can dispute the fact that social networks are claiming their fare share of online content (at least upon Twitter and Facebook), their presence has yet to starve blogging as a whole and (not surprisingly) they are often used by bloggers themselves to promote their content.

Other blogging platforms are also boasting healthy signs of growth, with Tumblr approaching 15 million blogs, with smaller players like OnSugar (which is a fork of Drupal 4.7) gaining influence as well.

Note: Although there are probably as many self hosted WordPress blogs as there are WordPress.com blogs, there is currently no way to track them all as not everyone installs WP.com stats or Google Analytics within their blog.

According to Network World’s research (who analyzed the top 1 million sites online), WordPress’s total market share is between 6.9% (according to Quantcast) and 12.9% (according to Alexa), respectively.

Lots of changes were made under the hood and this is the reason you haven’t seen any update for a while. We thought that security matters, so most of the changes affect the overall app security: We are now using a completely different, strongly encrypted storage model. To make the transition smooth we haven’t added any new features yet. New features will be released in the future. This is the good, the bad is that you might have to re-add your blogs/sites, as well as reconfiguring the app. Draft posts will not be erased, so once you have re-added a blog your old drafts should become available again. (WordPress for Blackberry Dev Blog)

While re-adding your blogs will displease some users, the extra security features should ease the minds for bloggers who literally live off of their phones.

WordPress is one of the few blogging platforms to not only have embraced Blackberry devices  (the others being Tumblr as well as Typepad), but also continues to develop upon the mobile OS despite the smartphone’s decline of late.

The WordPress Blackberry team has not revealed what additional features they plan on adding to the app, but for those of you who refuse to embrace Android or iOS, what features do you want to see implemented upon the app?

The latest version contains a few extra goodies including the internal linking feature (which in hindsight is something every blog platform should have), although the latest update may help WordPress appeal more to the KISS generation (aka “keep it simple stupid”).

This release features a lightning fast redesigned linking workflow which makes it easy to link to your existing posts and pages, an admin bar so you’re never more than a click away from your most-used dashboard pages, a streamlined writing interface that hides many of the seldom-used panels by default to create a simpler and less intimidating writing experience for new bloggers (visit Screen Options in the top right to get old panels back), and a refreshed blue admin scheme available for selection under your personal options.

There’s a bucket of candy for developers as well, including our new Post Formats support which makes it easy for themes to create portable tumblelogs with different styling for different types of posts, new CMS capabilities like archive pages for custom content types, a new Network Admin, an overhaul of the import and export system, and the ability to perform advanced taxonomy and custom fields queries. (WordPress News)

Note: Emphasis theirs.

With the latest release we will probably see a lot more tumblr-like themes created by designers which should help make blogging a much more enjoyable for personal sites who desire the Tumblr experience but want to host their own content.

Combined with the simpler layout, we may see a larger spike in the number of young people blogging upon WordPress, which may help combat those “blogging is dead” stories that the media likes to write about every year.

Thus far my favorite part of the release is the internal linking feature, which not only makes it easier to link towards previous content, but also comes with an “insta-search” (note: think Google search for your archived posts).

Have you upgraded to WordPress 3.1 yet? If so, what is your favorite feature?

Usually by the time a security guru is able to analyze the real culprit (which usually is an insecure web host or an out of date blog), the media is already perpetuating the myth that WordPress is an “unsafe” to use for one’s blog or website.

Although the WordPress community has made upgrading to the latest version as painless as possible, trying to convince cheap web hosts (especially those promising unlimited hosting) to improve security despite the cost can be frustrating affair.

Instead of trying to present guidelines for hosting companies in the hopes that they’ll improve on their own, it might be better for the WP community to establish a “report card” to help inform new comers which hosts will provide the best experience for their site or blog.

What Would Hosts Be Graded Upon?

Although there are numerous factors hosts could be graded upon, here are a couple of items that would be excellent to grade hosts upon.

Security: How secure is the WordPress hosting company and (more importantly) what steps are they taking to prevent themselves from being hacked?

Since hackers are constantly trying to discover new exploits upon web sites, this will probably require frequent audits.

Stability: Basically what is the uptime of the web host overall and (more importantly) are the WordPress blogs hosted experiencing frequent errors?

Although no one expects a web host to boast perfect uptime (something Google is great at), it would be great to see which hosts provide near perfect uptime for their users.

What/Who Would Be The Standard?

Although some hosting companies would balk at this idea, using WordPress VIP (by Automattic) as the standard might be a great idea despite the companies insanely high standards.

While it’s probably doubtful that any company would be able to match Automattic’s security, it would be great to see web hosts everywhere strive towards being as secure as the blogs being hosted upon WP.com (or rather Automattic’s VIP program).

If that standard is to high for hosting companies (after all WordPress is all Automattic has to host), they could opt for other companies like FireHost to be the standard bearer.

Disclosure: My WordPress blogs are hosted upon FireHost’s servers via Page.ly.

A WordPress Leaderboard?

Although WordPress does recommend a few reputable hosts, it would be great for users to have more criteria as to which hosts they should choose based on security tests and stability reports.

A leaderboard showcasing the best WordPress hosting companies might be enough to inspire the hosting industry (at least those with many WordPress clients) to improve their security and performance in order to improve their place upon the list.

Good Idea Or Bad Idea?

While having a WordPress report card would not please everyone, it may make it easier for users to select a reputable host in order to avoid getting burned in the future (and blaming WordPress for the reason that their blog was hacked).

Is a WordPress report card a good idea or bad idea? Feel free to express your thoughts in the comment section below!

While receiving alerts about users commenting upon your blog will make it easier for users to respond to readers while on the go, here are a few other features the team might consider adding within the next available update.

Push Notifications for Reblogs (WP.com only)

While receiving notifications about comments is great, receiving alerts from users reblogging your content would definitely be a bonus!

In order to prevent blogger’s with popular sites from being overwhelmed, WordPress could design the app to stop alerting you once a post has reached a certain thresh hold (say 50 reblogs).

Although the team is also considering push notifications for likes, users may get annoyed with their iPhone’s buzzing every few minuets (as “liking” a post is much easier and more passive than commenting).

Formatting Tools And Stats Please

A feature long enjoyed by my Android brethren, incorporating formatting tools within the app would make it easier for bloggers to write on the go or (even better) edit a post without having to use the raw HTML codes.

While incorporating the basics would be great (bold, italics, strike through, blockquotes, etc.), it would be great to see if the team could also fancier features such as hyperlinking email addresses.

As far as WP.com Stats goes, hopefully the team will consider adding this feature in the near future as iOS is the only mobile app lacking stats baked in (note: users can download this app to satisfy their stat cravings).

Push Notifications For Updates (Self Hosted Only)

Unless one received word via email, RSS feed or a friend, many bloggers may not have realized that WordPress issued yet another critical security update a couple of days ago.

Instead of finding out the news a month late (or worse when your site gets hacked) it would be great if WordPress could send a push notification whenever their is a critical update for their site.

Note: I would recommend having a weekly push notification sent if a user has not updated their blog, but some readers may object to being constantly reminded that their blog isn’t up to date.

Plugin Management On The Go

As an additional bonus, it would be great if users could enable and disable plugins from their iPhones, and even update select plugins from their device without having to touch their notebook.

Providing a way to delete a plugin should not be included in order to prevent a critical plugin from being accidentally deleted (by you or a friend “borrowing” your iPhone).

Note: Due to the iPhone’s small screen real estate, it might be wiser for the team to make this an iPad feature instead of an iPhone one. However including it on both would be nice.

Password Lock FTW

While this feature probably would not be listed as critical, an in-app password locks might be a great idea for users (especially if one is posting thoughts upon a private blog).

Doing so would prevent others from reading embarrassing content (or even photos) just in case a person is able to access your iPhone before the screen lock has a chance to activate.

WordPress could tie the in-app password lock to one’s WP.com account, enabling users who’ve forgotten their password to regain access via their notebook without having to delete the app and re-add all of their blogs again.

What Other Features Would You Add?

For those of you who use the iPhone on a daily basis, what extra features would you want incorporated within a future iPhone app?

Feel free to share your thoughts with the rest of us below!

Automattic has just announced that bloggers on WordPress.com will now be able to purchase premium themes, a feature that previously was only available for self hosted WordPress blogs.

I am proud to introduce the very first two premium themes on WordPress.com: Headlines and Shelf. [...]

Along with the distinctive features and a gorgeous design purchasing a premium theme like Shelf or Headlines for your WordPress.com site also gives you full access to dedicated support on the WordPress.com forums. The premium themes forum there will be accessible only to site owners who’ve purchased a theme.

We hope to expand the collection of themes on WordPress.com in a big way in 2011. Look for a significant number of both free and premium themes coming your way this year. (Official WordPress.com Blog)

The Headlines and Shelf premium themes were designed by WooThemes and The Theme Foundry, repsectively, with the latter offering users a tumbleblog like experience.

Automattic has not yet publicly revealed the revenue split between WP.com and theme designers, as well as other requirements like whether theme designers have to fully embrace the GPL before selling themes upon WP.com (i.e. no split licensing).

However with WP.com boasting 17 million blogs, Automattic’s market share (which is roughly 50% of all active WordPress blogs) may simply be too large for theme designers to ignore.

(Image Credit: Logic Bomb Labs)

Considered the creative uses of WordPress we have seen in the last two years it is difficult to say that WordPress does squash creativity. Both developers and designers often do push WP to its limit, sadly sometimes a little bit too far even, thinking that WordPress can be used for anything online.

Source: Envato’s Webdesigntuts+, hat tip Bradley Potter