past

Will I Be Able To Stay Relevant With WordPress?

As I was writing an article for the Tavern containing my thoughts on a few of the topics I’d like to see new sites dedicated to WordPress cover, I wondered if WordPress has passed me up. Five to six years ago, I felt like I had a good handle on what WordPress was doing and where it was going. Now, not so much.

Not only do I not know where it’s going, I’m personally not interested in some of the topics that WordPress users today want to know about. eCommerce, the business of WordPress, enterprise, and application development. These things sound cool, but hurt my head just thinking about them.

I have no idea how to be relevant with these topics since I’ve never operated a WordPress business, have no experience with enterprise, never operated an eCommerce store using WordPress, or know anything about product development or pricing. Some of those topics scream BORING to me and the best content is based on real life experience.

I’ve always written about WordPress from a user point of view as I’ve primarily used WordPress for publishing and managing content. Every now and then, checking out new plugins and themes. Over the years, I’ve become less of a tinkerer and have become comfortable with the way the Tavern operates. I don’t experiment as much as I used to.

If I’m not already, at some point, I think people like me who use WordPress just for blogging and managing content are going to be considered old school. Using it as a foundation for applications, frameworks, eCommerce, or powerful solutions to problems is going to be the cool, shiny way to use WordPress. I’m wondering when/if what I have to offer the WordPress community in terms of information, experience, etc will just be irrelevant to the trends, topics, and use cases of WordPress in the near future.

I don’t think it will be any time soon considering the huge user base of novice-intermediate users who are always looking for the next cool theme or efficient plugin to handle tasks. But it is something I’ve been thinking about and will continue to think about in the foreseeable future.

 

Back To The Beginning – Then And Now

Then And NowLife sucks without the Internet. So to kill time, I’ve been going through my backup files to figure out which ones I feel I can definitely live without. While organizing my backup files, I came across a text file which contains all of my posts from my blogging venture over at EFx2.com. What an interesting read. What I call my very first blog post in 2004 contained an abundant amount of typos with no regard to grammar. As a trip back in time and for archival purposes, here is what my very first blog post looked like.

General: Something Fresh
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 05:52 PM

Well I’m pretty new to the blog scene when it comes to having my own. I have read over the years about blogging, and I have seen many many weblogs that just end because well I guess they get boring and people don’t want to update them anymore.

I will try not to let that happen here. I am currently pretty involved with Photoshop and graphics design. Recently I have developed some skills related to Cinema4d, a 3D rendering program. Using this program allows me to create some cool renders that I have been using for some of my abstract wallpapers.

I hope to see you around and go ahead and leave a comment in the shoutbox. I will be at work turning this blogging site into a spiffy graphical wonder in the next few weeks or at least see where my limits are with this system.

General is the category while Something Fresh was the name of the post. You know, I think I remember that day in November when I hit the publish button for the first time. So what have I learned since then?

  • Spell checking is a godsend.
  • I’m a much better writer, now that I have blogged for such a long period of time. I’m getting better with each post.
  • Blogging is still fun when you write about the things that interest you.
  • Comments are still one of the best things I love about blogging.
  • The friendships I have made over the years through blogging have been wonderful.

Back in 2004, there was no Web 2.0. It seemed like blogging was much simpler just four years ago. Now a days, you have videos, screencasts, podcasts, audio posts, images, galleries, massive interaction, and everywhere you look, there is something embeddable. I may sound like an old fart reminiscing the good ole days, but I’m simply comparing two different time periods of blogging. I’m sure those who started blogging back in 2000 have much more to say in regards to then and now.

What I’m interested in, is hearing your history of blogging. Create a blog post and link back to this one if you must or simply leave a comment. When did you start blogging? What changes have you noticed between then and now? If you feel a little daring, you can also share your thoughts on the future of blogging.