Commercial Akismet

Akismet, ,

Blog Herald asks about WP plugging a commercial project, namely Akismet. One of the lessons I learned from Ping-O-Matic is that web services like this can grow far beyond what you anticipated, need a lot of attention, and can be expensive to maintain. (Akismet has to be really fast otherwise it bugs people and delays commenting.) You also have a social contract with all of your users to continue to provide a service they’ve all come to rely on. When Akismet first got started, I wasn’t at all worried about the technology — I was using it myself and it worked great. I spent most of my brain cycles planning out how the service could be economically independent and self-sustaining in the future, so it could thrive and provide a great service to the public without relying on charity. I had to balance this with my desire to just give everything away (as I usually do).

I’m happy with where it eventually ended up. The Pro-Blogger limit was set very high and the vast majority (over 99.9%) of people use Akismet at no cost whatsoever. I’m able to justify devoting my time to the service while still putting bread on the table and the larger blogger community can stop dealing with disgusting spam on their blogs. The technology has scaled incredibly well and even before the Yahoo deal Akismet had a bright future. Also the API and the plugin itself is completely open so people could clone the API or modify the plugin if they wanted. The service just hit its first major milestone, has been embraced by the development community, and I’m confident now that it will continue as a public service. I think it’s also providing something pretty valuable, as evidenced by the people who have been buying Pro-blogger licenses just to support it, not because they fall under the commercial terms.

WP2 Thoughts

Asides, WordPress

WordPress 2.0 “Duke” is available! Like 1.5 when it first came out I expect it will take a few months before the full implications of this release are realized. There are some surface changes (see 5 little things I like about WP 2.0) that still need some polish in places, but I think the underlying architectual changes are really rock solid. Interface changes are easy to iterate on in future versions. WordPress.org also has a rocking new design from Matt Thomas, and there will be some more action there in the coming months.

In Cincinnati

Asides

I’m in the Cincinnati airport, and they just announced an emergency. All of the stores have closed and the halls are empty, everyone has proceeded to the nearest exit. Except the people around me. I’m on a flight to New York, and apparently the blinking lights and alarms don’t don’t phase these folks. The desk attendent just announced they’re boarding zones 2 and 3. Okay, they just announced my zone, see you guys on the flip side. Update from Blacberry: Right after I got on the plane they made all those jaded New Yorkers evacuate like everyone else and they’ve stopped people from boarding the plane. Update 2: They seem to have fixed things and people are boarding again. I wonder what the problem was.

WP on Yahoo

Asides, Automattic, WordPress, Yahoo

Check out the new bundling of WordPress with Yahoo Hosting, which is why I was biting my tongue so much last week. 🙂 We’re sitting next to Movable Type on their blog page, but I’m completely comfortable with new users trying out both and making their decision from there. (I often recommend it.) The other part of why this is interesting is the Akismet angle, which I wrote more about here.

Back Online

Asides

Sorry to folks that have had trouble getting to the site or sending me email the past few days, the server that hosts photomatt.net and mullenweg.com (and nothing else) has been down more often than up, and emails are coming in days late. They replaced the RAM which seems to have been the source of the problem. Now I just need to find someplace in NY with universal chargers so I can get my cells working again and I will be back connected to the civilized world. Update: Since the RAM replacement everything has been rock solid again. Knock on wood.

No Guinness

Asides

Been in Ireland since Saturday, and it couldn’t be better. What a lovely country with lovely people. One thing I’ve noticed, at least here in the “real capital” Cork, that “Guinness is for tourists.” Everyone here drinks Murphy’s. Anyway, back to work with Donncha on some WordPress.com goodies.