Lunchtime Links: What To Expect From The New WordPress

The blogging platform WordPress recently made the claim that its sites make up nearly 20 percent of the internet. That’s huge. Does your association blog run on WordPress?

Soon-to-come updates to the popular blogging platform, and more, in today’s Lunchtime Links:

Power of the WordPress: Speaking at a recent WordCamp Conference in San Francisco, WordPress creator and Automattic Founder Matt Mullenweg talked about the strides his flagship blogging platform has made since it launched in 2005. Writing for TNW, reporter Ken Yeung chronicles Mullenweg’s hour-long speech  (opens in a new tab), which includes news of a program update (version 3.6) and a soon-to-come developer resource that could eventually help you build, manage, and update your association or personal blog via the help of advanced mobile apps. Yeung also shares a number of eye-opening stats about the success of WordPress, including the assertion that nearly 20 percent of the sites on the internet use the platform. There were more than 46 million downloads of the program this year alone. If your association uses WordPress to power its blog, it’s obviously not alone.

Times change: Perhaps it’s time your conference changed? Writing for BizBash, Mitra Sorrells lists 11 things you don’t need at your next conference.  (opens in a new tab) For instance, if most of your attendees have mobile devices, you can cut down on the amount of paper you use by introducing a custom mobile app that attendees can access on their smartphones. “You can share all of this information via a mobile app or mobile-optimized website,” Sorrells suggests. “You may choose to keep a small supply of printed materials in case you have attendees without a smart device or if your site goes down.” How have you breathed new life into your conferences?

Passion project: After a few public and controversial missteps, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told shareholders recently that the resurgent streaming video service has repositioned itself as a “passion brand.” Netflix did what a lot of companies and organizations often fail to do after a mistake: be aware of its impact and pinpoint its competition,  (opens in a new tab)The Build Network staff writes for Inc.com. “We don’t and can’t compete on breadth with Comcast, Sky, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, or Google,” Hastings told shareholders in a letter.  (opens in a new tab) “We are not a generic ‘video’ company that streams all types of video such as news, user-generated, sports, music video, or reality. We are a movie and TV series network.” Hastings goes on to mention his competition by name. “The network that we think likely to be our biggest long-term competitor-for-content is HBO,” he said. How does your association position itself?

What’s on your reading list today? Share your links in the comment section below.

(naokomc/Flickr)