I’ve noticed WordPress downloads and newsletter subscriptions are about 60% above the daily average the last few days. Maybe people are making new year resolutions to switch?
I’ve noticed WordPress downloads and newsletter subscriptions are about 60% above the daily average the last few days. Maybe people are making new year resolutions to switch?
Couldn’t these just be 1.2.2 upgraders?
No the 1.2.2 release spike had already calmed down.
Something similar happened with my game/program Othello Master. My estimation has been that people get bored during the holidays and download more games/entertainment. Web surfing is more dominantly ‘work-related’.
It’s funny that you say “switch” instead of “try out WordPress” or “take up blogging”. Why is that?
I think Jay has a point in saying that WP is now among the leading first-choice blogging tools. May this be the year of world domination 😉
Domination of what? Is there a war on? A competition?
Who told you! 😉
Ah not what I meant at all. I wish I could say every word I wrote had some sort of deeper meaning that should be probed and analyzed but if I did that I’d hardly have any time to write anything. For me 99% of blogging is just capturing a thought or idea before I forget them, not a lot of filtering and hidden agendas. To answer your question though, I probably used the word “switch” because while browsing PubSub today I saw several posts to that effect, though that is a biased sample because people who don’t already have blogs can’t going to blog about WordPress. I wasn’t thinking of that conciously, but while we’re deconstructing I suppose I may have been influenced by the fact that I estimate about 85% of WP users used something else before, including myself. I guess we’re not much of a gateway blog system. “Try out WordPress” could have worked but “take up blogging” wouldn’t really because I doubt many people start with WP. I suppose the word “switch” isn’t the most politically correct that could have been used but I blame my editor, the insensitive clod. Should I edit the entry, or has the damage already been done?
No, no damage done and I understand the joys of unedited personal commentary. I was just pointing that your language here was inconcistent with the feelings you’ve expressed to me personally in the past. And let’s be honest, although this is your personal site, because of the open-source nature of WordPress and your stewardship over it, this is essentially a WordPress blog and everything you say here has a ripple effect on the WP community.
In my role as Product Manager for MT, I have had to very quickly become accustomed to the fact that thousands of people now take every word I say and either pull it apart for hidden meanings or subconsciously use that same language when they talk about the product. I’ve had to get used to, for the first time, really editing my words to say precisely what I mean. I hate it, but it’s a necessary evil because regardless of whether I did so or not my words have that same ripple effect on the MT community.
For that reason (among others), you’ll never hear us denigrate WordPress or tell people they should switch because — besides being completely unprofessional and undigified — we believe that each system has its benefits and it’s a personal choice for the user. We would never want to convince anyone to switch only to find out later that they really should have stayed. We want MT users who want to be MT users and there are more than enough people who fit that mold to keep us running at full speed. The same is true of WordPress.
Anyway, if I thought that you didn’t care or that you *did* think this was a competition or a war, I would remain silent and wouldn’t even bother reading your site, but that’s not what you’ve expressed to me personally, so I thought I would just point it out for future reference. 🙂
Fair enough. 🙂 Hopefully these comments have clarified the issue for anyone who was mislead by the wording in the post.
Jay,
To make it clear, I was just kidding, as evidenced by the ” 😉 ” after the world domination sentence. MT was my first blogging tool, and I love it dearly, as I do others. You seem to have take affront at my comment, it wasn’t the intended effect.