RSS FeedWordCamp:Las Vegas is only $20 for 2 days!
I know I’ve talked about it before and my long time readers have probably heard about it a bunch, but, I have a few hundred new followers on Twitter who may be hearing this for the first time, so please pardon me if you’ve read this before.
If you are interested in learning more about WordPress, blogging, monetization, personal branding, or building up interest for your personal or business blog/website, I invite you to join us for WordCamp:Las Vegas.
You can find all the details about who’s speaking at the event, the agenda, who’s sponsoring and everything else there is to know about it at LasVegasWordCamp.com, but here are the basics:
When: January 10-11, 2009 (8am-5pm, both days)
Where: Palace Station Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Cost: $20.00
Where to Register: EventBrite.com
For your $20 you’ll get a t-shirt plus 2 full days of learning and networking. You’ll have a hard time finding a better deal!
See you there.
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WordPress 2.7 - A few of my favorite things
Today WordPress 2.7 Release Candidate 2 was released. For those that don’t speak geek, a release candidate, or RC for short, is a version of software that, assuming nobody finds any bugs, what you see is what you get for the final released version. Though I have been testing out the beta versions since they first started being released, I had been waiting for a second RC version prior to updating several of the blogs I manage. Tonight was that night and the upgrades were flying!
Since I have been staring at the interface for the past 3 hours, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite aspects of the new WordPress release.
The Dashboard
The dashboard has matured in to a page that provides information and quick navigation rather than in previous versions where it was simply a page you stopped on for a second before immediately looking for a way to leave. Inside the dashboard alone there are several new features to be found before you even leave the page.
- The “Right Now” section is an “At a Glance” look at your website as a whole. It tells you how many posts, pages, categories, etc.. you have on your site. Best of all, you can click the number next to each item and it will take you directly to the “manage” page for the selected section.
- The “QuickPress” section allows you to write a blog post directly from the dashboard. It is a stripped down version of the new blog post page, but I’m sure there are thousands of bloggers who need nothing more than what is available.
- The “Screen Options” menu is tucked away in the top right hand corner. Click on it and you’ll get a fly-out menu showing you a list of each section of the dashboard available to you. Simply click the checkbox next to a section’s name and that section is removed from the dashboard. This will unclutter your dashboard and make sure you are only seeing the sections you want/need to see.
- This last feature is something that I’m sure is going to be missed by most users. The drag and drop organization of the dashboard may be one of my favorite features. I didn’t want to remove any of the sections from the main page, but, for me, I didn’t need to see my inbound links “above the fold” as they say. So, I simply drug that section to the bottom of the left hand column. Now, it’s there any time I want to see it, I only need to scroll down to get to it.
The Navigation
The only thing more deserving of an overhaul than the dashboard was the navigation. I’d say they really hit it out of the park with the new layout. There are several key ingredients that went in to making a better nav system.
- Left hand nav Vs. Top nav. It seems like such a small thing, but really it’s not. When the menu was along the top, it would take up valuable North/South screen real estate. Plus, with the new left hand nav, you now have access to all the menu items at once (if you choose) rather than being forced to be on the plugins page to click the link to edit settings for a specific plugin. Now you only need to open the settings menu section and you have instant access to the config page for any active plugin.
- In 2.7 you now have access to all the menu items and sub-menu items from any page you are on. For some, this may be information overload. For those people they have introduced the collapsible menu. First you can expand/collapse any specific section and it’s options. If that’s not enough, you can collapse the entire menu. Doing this will leave you with icons for each individual section. Hovering over those icons will give you the same access you had before for each individual section.
- Instant Access to Everything!! Assuming you have expanded all the menus (like I have), you now have direct access to just about every page in your WordPress install. This means no more clicking two or three times to get to a specific page. This may sound trivial, but since WordPress loads up a new page from your server every time you click a page, you are now saving 5-30 seconds each time you log in to WordPress.
What is your favorite part of the new WordPress?
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Messing around with WordPress 2.7 Beta
As I’m getting ready for our WordPress Meetup tomorrow night, I’ve installed the latest build of the WordPress 2.7 Beta. I have to say that the new admin section is a really big step in the right direction.
Before I go on, remember that this is still a Beta version of the software. The screenshots to follow may not match exactly that of the final release version.
For starters, here’s the new dashboard
(click images for a larger view)
It’s hard for me to decide which features of the new dashboard I like the most.
- Left-side collapsible navigation that allows you to get to the feature you want without having to load a secondary page first. For example, no need to click settings, wait for the page to load and then click “permalinks”. Just click the dropdown arrow next to settings and click the permalinks link. Depending on your server speed, this can be a 30-60 second time savings.
- “Right Now” stats showing you number of posts, pages, categories, tags, comments (approved, spam and awaiting moderation)
- Quick Press which lets you write a post directly from the dashboard (or save as a draft)
- Screen options (not shown in photo) where you can decide which elements of the dashboard are shown/hidden.
There is a lot more information being shown, but yet it doesn’t feel cluttered. It seems way better suited to getting the information you need and getting on with your day.
The Plugin Installer
This may be my favorite feature. No longer do you need to go to wordpress.org, download the plugin, FTP it to your server, go to the plugin page and activate it. Instead, simply go to the install plugins page, find the plugin you want and click the install button. It will do the rest for you. When done you only need to click the activate button. This is a HUGE time saver and is amazingly convenient when you don’t always have your FTP username/password with you. You could now install plugins while sitting at the airport or in Starbucks. I’ll bet you could even do it from your iphone without much trouble.
Media Library
The library itself hasn’t changed a lot, but, from the left-side menu you can now go add images to the library rather than needing to be in the write window. This is a big plus for me as I have had many instances where I wanted to store an image for use in a post later, but may not want to start the post and create a draft. Now I can just upload whatever and get to it when I get to it.
Custom Characters
Want to add a copyright, infinity or Yen symbol but don’t know the HTML code for it? In the post writing form there’s a link for custom characters that brings up a fly-out menu with 200 symbols that you can click on to instantly add to your post. I can now add that funky upside down question mark to my posts whenever I want! ¿ Ha!
I’m probably just scratching the surface of the cool features yet to be found in the new version of WordPress, but these are the features that jumped out at my after my first quick glance. I’m looking forward to the final release so I can upgrade my blogs to it right away.
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Blog Tip: Clean Your Blog
I just set a reminder in my phone to repeat every 2 months. It says 3 simple words; CLEAN YOUR BLOG!
I logged in to the admin section of JohnHawkinsUnrated the other night and was checking the plugin page when I realized I had to scroll down a page and a half to get to the plugin I was looking for. I then scrolled back up slowly and realized that there are quite a few plugins that I have installed that I just don’t use/need any longer. I went through and deactivated at least 7 plugins that were no longer being used. I’m sure there are more that I can remove, but was trying not to go overboard on my first pass.
Wigets, this is another area that I need to be careful with. They are so easy to install, but you really need to evaluate their value to your site. Are they worth the space they are taking up on your site? Are they worth the extra load time it puts on your blog? If not, kill ‘em.
Take 5 minutes and go through your WordPress plugin page and remove any plugins that aren’t being used and then remove any widgets that are taking up space on your blog and are not adding value to your readers. Your blog should be lean and mean. There is no bonus for having the most plugins running at once.
Remember, lean and mean.
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Blog World Expo 2008 - Day 1 Recap
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since the last Blog World Expo. I have been looking forward to this event for quite a while and I’m glad to say that at the end of day 1, I was not disappointed.
The day started off with the “State of the Blogosphere Adress” & Opening Keynote. Richard Jalichandra from Technorati started out by giving some really interesting numbers related to blogging and how blogs are changing the face of media. For example:
- 4 of the top 10 entertainment sites are blogs (OMG, TMZ, Asylum, Perez Hilton)
- 7.4 million blogs posted in the last 120 days
- 1.5 million in the last 30 days
- 2/3 of bloggers are male
- 50% of bloggers are 18/34
- 70% have college degrees
- 72% of blogs publish in English
There is a bunch more and Technorati is set to release the results of a huge study they’ve been doing. Be sure to check out their site on Monday for the full update.
After Richard, Chris Aldren and Anil Dash from Six Apart took the stage. They spoke about the power of blogs and where blogging is headed and they asked the question what should blogging 2.0 be? They spent a lot of time talking about the products available from Six Apart (Movable Type, Type Pad, Vox, Blogs.com, BlogIt, etc.) which didn’t go over really well with the people I was sitting near (myself included.) Though, I will say that I’m quite interested in checking out BlogIt which is a tool for managing your blog from your iPhone. If it works better than the WordPress iPhone app, I’ll definitely switch to using it until the WP app catches up.
The first breakout session I went to was Making Money Online with a Blog. This panel contained John Chow, Brian Clark, Zac Johnson, Darren Rowse and Jeremy Schoemaker and was moderated by Jim Kukral. In this session they talked about which forms of advertising made them the most money (direct ad sales being #1, affiliate links being #2 and google adwords being #3, except in the case of CopyBlogger where he makes his money by selling information products and subscriptions), they talked about tools they use for selling ads automatically and the biggest point they tried to drive home is that you need to be passionate about what you blog about. If not, it’s going to show in your content and you’ll likely never make any real money.
During the session they had people come up to the mic and tell them their URL. They would pull it up on the screen and they’d take turns telling the person ways to improve their site in order to make money. Even though I didn’t go to the mic, I was still able to apply the things being said to my own site. There are changes coming soon.
After lunch I went to the Power Widgets to Amp Your Blog session. As a breakout session, I’m on the fence about it still. But, that being said, I got a fantastic look at Lijit and am glad I got to see it. Sure, I could have gone for a demo on the show floor, but I’m stubborn and thought I already knew what Lijit had to offer. The other presenters were WidgetBox, OutBrain and PicApp. All of which had something cool to offer. Widgetbox has 135,000 widgets for you to use on your site. They can also create a widget of your blog content that can then be added to other sites. I especially liked the idea of creating a content mashup widget. I’ll have to research that a bit more this week. OutBrain is a widget that creates a “you might like:” section at the bottom of each of your posts and links to other posts that have similar content. You can have it pull in content from the web, from a selection of sites you provide, or you can lock it down to just your own blog. And finally PicApp. This app gives bloggers access to photos from sites like Getty Images without having to purchase them. Instead, they add a box underneath each image that they monetize for the photographer who took the shot. The nice part is, you can have access to high quality images without running the risk of getting sued for using unlicensed content.
The final session of the day for me was Creating Customer Loyalty with Social Media. This was, by far, the best attended session. Every seat was filled and there were people standing along the back and both side walls. The panel consisted of Toby Bloomberg, Tony Hsieh, Brian Solis and Frank Eliason and moderated by Becky Carroll. The main point being that people build relationships with people, not with companies. Companies that try to control all the messaging that is put out by the company are doing there customers, and themselves a great disservice by acting in this way. Comcast’s policy for web content is this:
- disclose that you work for comcast
- if you have access to private information, don’t make it public
- use your best judgement
Tony from Zappos expanded on that by saying that your company culture has to revolve around proving good customer service. By not letting your employees have an online voice, you’re basically saying that you don’t trust your employees. (I’m also happy to say that after seeing this post about Tony giving Bunny Ears to people like Bill Gates, Serena Williams and Penn Jillett, I now have my very own bunny ears shot with Tony!)
Aside from the sessions, I made several great connections with people who I’ve been looking forward to meeting in person. I think I may have secured another couple of speakers for WordCamp:Las Vegas in January and have laid the ground work with a few companies who may sponsor a portion of the event as well. More on that in the coming weeks.
Tomorrow I’ll write about my experience in the expo hall and a recap of day 2. Stay tuned.
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