To be honest, I really can’t blame the guy for what he did. It reminds me of when I was in high school and as I’m trying to get my work done, some idiot is throwing things at me or flicking my error. Eventually, You Can’t Stands No More!

I have confirmed that Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame will be on Episode 17 of WordPress Weekly on May 23rd 2008 at 9PM EST. Matt will be hanging around for an hour and I have a wide ranging amount of questions for the guy. Here is what I plan on covering with my interview with Ma.tt:

• WordPress Trademark Usage
• Status Updates on all projects under the Automattic umbrella
• The new hire along with the scaling of WordPress
• The future of WordPress
• I’ll have Matt explain how the new 2.5 dashboard design became a reality
• I’ll ask him how the guy who doesn’t know PHP from their ABC can contribute to the development of WordPress

Those are some of the things I plan on getting Matt to cover, the rest of the time during the show will be dedicated to YOU. That means, call in with your questions and get the answer from the horses mouth so to speak.

This is going to be one hell of an episode and I invite all of you who are using or interested in WordPress to stop by and participate in the show. Oh yeah, tell everyone you know about this episode so that I feel like I’m under a bus load of pressure when I go on the air. Thanks!

So, there are a number of articles being published discussing the fact that they would pay for WordPress if it came bundled with a price tag. Most of these articles have been started in response to Ryan’s article entitled 15 Websites / Services I’d Actually Pay For Numerous people have claimed that WordPress is so good, they would pay for it. Would I pay for it? Maybe. But this question comes at a time where we actually have a bit of hindsight in which to make our decision. I liken this to the Butterfly Effect:

The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the ocurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. Of course the butterfly cannot literally cause a tornado. The kinetic energy in a tornado is enormously larger than the energy in the turbulence of a butterfly. The kinetic energy of a tornado is ultimately provided by the sun and the butterfly can only influence certain details of weather events in a chaotic manner.

If the WordPress.org project would of contained a price tag, I can practically guarantee you that the number of themes, plugins, tips and tricks would be far lower than what they are today, simply because of the pricetag. It wouldn’t even matter if the price was as low as $5.00, the bottom line is that their would be a price attached to the product.

I’ll be honest and tell you that WordPress is a great piece of publishing software. And the fact of the matter is, if WordPress in its current stated would switch to a paid platform, I would most likely pay for it. However, let’s not forget that Automattic is a privately held company which recently received a massive amount of funding from large venture firms. This company makes money through something known as WordPress.com. Therefor, if WP.org ended up with a price tag, I think you would see an implosion of the WP.org user base.

I mean, there are so many different avenues we can drive down in terms of what would happen if WP.org became something you have to pay for. The best thing WordPress.org could do is to remain a free, open source community based project. I realize the tone of this article makes it seem like WP.org is coming down the line with a price, but that isn’t true. It’s just that, so many people have claimed that they would pay for the software, it might inspire the folks involved with the project to attach a price tag to the software. but alas, Matt has said in the past that WP.org will remain as an open source project for the foreseeable future.

A post over at ProBlogger.net is asking the following question: “Is syndicating content kosher or not…ie running someone elses content through rss into ones own blog?” And the answer to that varies depending on the circumstances. For starters, I feel that no website should be able to syndicate my full RSS feed while at the same time, displaying some sort of advertising on the page/site. This makes me think the webmaster of the site in question is trying to profit from my work. There is an exception to the rule however.

So you may ask then, what about blog scrapers who simply use an excerpt of the post but usually have the name of the post author switched around. Well, they actually link back to the original post most of the time and I’m not hard pressed to go after those that use an excerpt. Using excerpts is fine, using the full feed is not. I don’t syndicate anyone’s content without permission and it’s very unlikely I’d do so anyways.  However, I am completely fine with sites who syndicate my content, only after they have received my permission to do so. An excellent example of this would be Planet WordPress managed my Ozh. Before syndicating my WordPress related content, Ozh got in touch with me and asked if he could syndicate the WordPress category on my blog in which I gave him permission to do so.

So how do you feel about those who syndicate your full RSS feed without permission? Do you syndicate content from other people on your own site?

For you tech bloggers out their who consider themselves to be on the “B-List” or maybe even the “Z-List” you’ll appreciate this podcast. Hosted by Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins who is a writer for Mashable.com, the Elite Tech News podcast serves up the best in tech news collected throughout the week by Mark and his panel of guests which include but are not limited to, Steven Hodson of WinExtra.com, Adam Ostrow and Sean P. Aune also of Mashable.com, Art Lindsey of ArtLindsey.com, Louis Gray of LouisGray.com, Frederic of the Lastpodcast.com and Jason Kaneshiro of Webomatica.com

So far, the show has been a blast to listen to, especially once Steven gets on a topic he can rant about. Hearing the *BEEP* when he is on a rant is priceless and downright hilarious. Probably not as funny for Art who acts as the producer of the show and ends up having to edit those parts out.

I’ve really enjoyed their conversation in regards to making money blogging, how Twitter can become a profitable company, and how all of these guys express their independent opinions on various subject matter. I only wish I could call in and participate but my work schedule won’t allow it.

The Elite Tech News podcast has varied on start times but for the past few weeks, the show has aired live at 8:30 PM EST on Sundays. So if you’re looking for an intelligent group of guys that don’t mind having fun while speaking their mind, tune in live to the Elite Tech News podcast. If at all else, I highly suggest subscribing via Itunes as I have done.

If you would like to sample the show, click on the play button to hear their episode from last week.

Ro London of intersmash.com has published quite the icon critique. As a way of studying design, contrast and merely for comparison, Ro collected at least 300 icons from 1800 major websites. These websites consisted of major online retailers, Fortune 1000 companies and well known blogs. The icon groups range from arrows, to posts, to comments.

I found his conclusions of his icon gathering to be rather interesting. For example, we generally associate a comic style bubble to designate a commenting area on a website. In some instances, Ro discovered the icon to denote a quality-assurance feedback form.

For anyone interested in icon design, or wanting to know the type of icons being used on a majority of large websites, definitely check out Ro’s findings. After reading Ro’s post, let me know which aspect you found the most interesting in terms of design or usage.

First off, special thanks to Charles Stricklin for initiating the process of getting WordPress Weekly into the Itunes directory, that was pretty kind of him to do. Secondly, the podcast has been approved and is now located within the Itunes directory. When visiting the Itunes store type WordPress Weekly into the search box. I should be the first result on the page. Clicking on the show icon will launch Itunes and display the description of the podcast, the image associated with the show, an archive of each show that’s been completed thus far and best of all, the subscribe button.

I ask that you please visit the Itunes website/store and visit the WordPress weekly page and write up a review. Unfortunately, you have to have an Itunes user account to actually provide a review. If you do not have an Itunes account, please visit my page on Talkshoe.com and on the right hand side, below the Talkshoe widget, there will be 5 purple icons with a bubble in them. This is the rating system. I ask that you rate the show honestly and if you could, write a comment concerning the show.

Your feedback is appreciated whether it be good or bad. Thank you to whomever goes through the feedback loop.

WPGuy.com, a fairly recent addition to the WordPress community has published an interesting tip that I think many people will find helpful. Styling the people’s name in your comment replies walks you through the steps to add a custom function to your functions.php file, then calling that function via a hook. Last but not least is the styling of the function. Using this tip in conjunction with the following two plugins, Highlight Author Comments and WP_EasyReply will net you some pretty nifty results if you’re creative enough. These three comment enhancements could really spice up that section of your blog.

I don’t know what it is about work spaces that intrigue me so much but I find them to be visually entertaining. Every work space that I have seen is unique in it’s own right. It’s where people end up creating, working, communicating ect. I strongly believe that the workspace can be a good indication into the makeup of a person. Then again, I might be crazy. I have an idea as to what my ideal work space would be like, but because of the constraints of not owning my own home, I really can’t create my ideal workspace and have to deal with the cards that have been dealt.

As I was monitoring my Twitter stream the other day, Steve Rubel passed along a link to WhereWeDoWhatWeDo.com This is a site dedicated to workspaces that have been submitted by user’s across the globe. WWDWWD is a project created by the Subata Corporation which is worked on within their spare time. Honestly, I really like the site’s design as I feel it places plenty of emphasis on the photos located on the front page. Upon clicking on one of the photos, the left hand sidebar gives you photo information with a link to digg the article. Below the photo information box is the comment section, followed by the comment form.

I thought it was a bit goofy that you have to approve an email that is sent to you before your comment can be displayed on the website, but I suppose that is a good way to deal with spam, considering if the emails are not confirmed, the comment will never make it to the site.

I love checking out every one else’s workspaces. I posted mine back in an archived article entitield What Is Your Blogging WorkSpace? My layout has slightly changed as I now have a new tower for my desktop PC as well as a black HP all in one printer, that sits in the bottom drawer of the notebook desk. Other than that, the workspace has remained the same.

Personally, I think the best workspace showcased on WWDWWD is THIS ONE. What work spaces have you come across that you wish you had? Link to them in the comments section and let’s talk it over.

This week on WordPress Weekly, it was open mic week. However, it didn’t work out as I imagined and thankfully, I had a list of news items to use as a backup plan. It also helped that a couple of regulars who had some free time on their hand showed up to participate in the show. After letting listeners know about the renewal of the domain jeffro2pt0.com for two years, I dove into some feedback that I had received from listeners of the show. After that, introductions were made and then we dove into the news. This panel made one hell of a good show.

GUESTS ON THE SHOW:

Ptah Dunbar of Ptahdunbar.com

Jacob Santos of Santosj.name

Andrew Rickmann of WP-FUN.co.uk

David Peralty Author Of Xfep.com

Charles Stricklin - The host and producer of The WordPress Podcast.

FEEDBACK RECEIVED:

Ed Sutherland of problognews.com wrote in and said:

Hi Jeff, I wanted to drop a line to let you know how impressed I was by your podcast interview of former Blog ing Pro editor Dave Peralty. The questions were informed and you followed-up on the answers. Unlike many other podcast/video interviews of blogging executives, your show was actually informative beyond the tech fan audience.

Be sure to check out Ed’s blog as it reads like a newspaper and he does a great job with it.

Ryan of pixopoint.com wrote in and said:

I just wanted to say thanks for providing the WordPress Weekly podcast. It is the best podcast on WordPress I’ve found. I spent most of the past two days listening to your podcasts while working on my WordPress plugins and themes

Thanks for the kind words Ryan. I’m always trying to improve the show and if the content is worth while, mission is accomplished. Hope you can participate live one day.

NEWS STORIES:

Automattic Turns 21 - Not 21 years old, but that is now the number of people employed by Automattic. Automattic has hired Warwick Poole, former director of systems at Vidavee which was recently acquired by Vignette. According to his job title as “Systemologist” Warwick will be in control of Keeping the barriers to online publishing low, by scaling the infrastructure which runs Wordpress.org, Wordpress.com, Akismet.com and other related projects.

WordPress Training Videos – Kirk of WordPressTraining.com informed us in late April that the site now has training videos for the last two major versions of WordPress, that being 2.3 and 2.5. The videos are large, well authored and most importantly for many of you, they are free. If you are looking for videos that cover a variety of topics, your best bet would be to check out WeblogToolsVideos.com

New admin bar for WP.com users - If you use WordPress.com to blog or have an account with WP.com, you will notice that the admin bar thats at the top of your page has changed from blue, to grey. A minor adjustment to the My Account link now include the WordPress logo. The reason for the change was to allow the admin bar to gain less of your attention.

Farms 100 Big Ones Theme Pack – Yes, that’s correct, the latest theme pack has 100 delicious, 100% WPMU compatible, WordPress themes all for you. They are full of widgets (every theme is widgetized) and customizable headers galore.

Your Favorite BookMarklet? - Matt Mullenweg laid the question out their to the community to receive their feedback on what publishing bookmarklet did they favor the most. Many people including myself vouched for the usefulness of the Tumblr bookmarklet. Some mentioned the WP Quickpost plugin but others were quick to point out that the quickpost plugin lacked features. It would appear as though there may be some development going on into a new bookmarklet, which disappeared with the release of WP 2.5

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:

I made a special announcement during the podcast but I am not going to tell where in the podcast the announcement was made and what the announcement consisted of. That will be saved for a post that is to come shortly.

Again, special thanks to the folks who showed up tonight. I thought this was going to be a tough show to do, but Charles, David and the rest of the regulars really chimed in which made the show fly by! I thought the discussion about the WordPress Trademark was excellent and quite a number of points/counter points were made. I’d be pretty interested to hear your feedback on this weeks show.