Wordpress.org is operated under a company named Automattic, Inc. Besides Wordpress, there are several big projects which are gaining a lot of popularity.
bbPress – a forum software with a twist
BuddyPress – a suite of WordPress plugins and themes aim to let members interact socially.
Wordpress.com – a hosted and completely maintained Wordpress platform

In my search for the Wordpress resources, I have yet to see a site which includes ALL the projects under the Automattic umbrella until I stumbled upon Wptavern.com. It looks interesting to me so I decided to find out more about this site.

Checking the archive and the “About” page is a good way to get an overview of a blog. The first article was posted on Jan 23, 2009. It seems that Jeff, the owner of this site, has a clear vision about what to do with the site. He bought the domain from Wphacks.com and aims to make this site a central community for Wordpress users.

Let’s take a look at the site structure of Wptavern. Since this site discusses everything about the Automattic projects, it is good to create different categories for the projects. Wptavern only has categories for big projects like bbPress, BuddyPress and WPMU. There is no designated place for the smaller projects yet. I think having a category listing all the articles relating to the smaller projects would help users to find what they want.

One limitation in fostering good relationship with the readers using the blog comment system is that the interaction interface is not as friendly as the forum. That’s why Wptavern installed a forum and used that as the main communication channel instead of the blog comment system.

I am wondering since bbPress is a forum software developed by the Automattic team, why doesn’t Jeff use it instead of the vBulletin. bbPress may be less functional than the well-developed vBullentin, but wouldn’t it be exciting to install it in the first place and witness the improvement of this software made along the way?

There is another innovative way that Jeff promotes his site. Every week, a new podcast is posted (in fact, more than 1 podcast is posted weekly). Anyone can participate in the podcasts discussing a wide range of topics about Wordpress. You can even find podcast interview with Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Wordpress.

Instead of being a fanatic follower of Wordpress, Jeff looks at the projects undergoing in Automattic in a critical way. He doesn’t always agree with the decision made within the team. One of his posts foresees 6 ways in which Wordpress could die. I cannot be more agreeable with the article.

Just as I am committed to making my themes a success in the Wordpress community, I can see that Jeff is also committed to making his site a prime location for Wordpress users to hang around.

Having been with Hostgator for about a year, I am very happy with their service so far. Indeed, finding a good host is not easy especially if your site/blog is getting a lot of traffic.

I want to find out besides Hostgator, what other hosts stand out from the crowd. So I did a search for the keyword “web hosting” on Google and took one of the top 10 site, Webhostingsearch.com and decided to do a review on this site.

Web Hosting Search is a web hosting directory listing different types of web hosting services from basic hosting like shared and php hosting to advanced hosting like dedicated and coldfusion hosting. I like the way they group the hosting services.

Every host listed on the site has its own review by both the Webhostingsearch’s editor and the users. The editor rates a host base on a few factors: support response time, support quality, server uptime, server response time, features and control panel usability. The users, on the other hand, can participate in the review process by rating the host based on the score from 1 to 10 on the host review page. They can also input their comments about the host.

I think this type of the review process involving both the editor and the users are less biased. However, there are only a few input from the users. I am hoping to see more reviews from the users to get better judgment about the quality of the hosts. With that said, generally, I think the hosting providers found on Webhostingsearch.com are of high quality because some of my sites are hosted by Bluehost and Lunarpages (and of course, Hostgator) having no big issues so far.

You can also do a specific search for a web hosting plan using their advance search feature. It is such a powerful feature that you can refine your search by web hosting type, control panel and even easy-install forum programs. You can also find a list of hosts with built-in Wordpress program for easy installation. Simply select “Wordpress” under the “Easy-install Blogs”.

This site also has a knowledge base section about web hosting and design. I particularly like the video tutorials. The tutorials are presented in a step-by-step manner and in a simple but professional way. It is so well-presented that I include the Wordpress installation tutorial in this post. I hope the webmaster will later add a video tutorial detailing the steps of installing Wordpress theme. I have made the proposal. Hope they’ll consider it

For those who are seriously into WordPress, the latest news is that WordPress 2.8 Beta version is up and running. As in the previous cases, it would be best to try this latest version under a trial setup, rather that applying it on a live blog or Website. It is safer to wait until the release candidates before using it on a live site.

Here are a few of the major features of Wordpress 2.8 Beta 1 version:

• The new version comes with a new Theme Installer routines
• The Plugin and Theme editors has been added with CodePress syntax highlighting
• Allows the use of Custom Header for the menu text and revise Default theme to indicate the changes
• It does not require confirmation when marking comment as spam
• It features Autosave page and post when the Command+S/Control is pressed
• Upgraded installer that assist users entering erroneous email addresses
• Displays absolute dates instead of the relative ones for the scheduled posts
• Displays the Tools menu for all users allowing them to use Turbo
• Requires a unique email address to Add/Edit users
• Handles more than one gallery in a single page.
• Provides for per page option for plugins
• Has case insensitive logins option

After releasing my theme, how do I promote them? One way is to submit them to the sites which accept Wordpress themes. In this post, I show you list of the theme directories and forums that I submit my themes to.

See the full list