Gmail invites. The only thing I get on my Gmail account (mmmmmm@gmail.com) are people begging for invites, which has gotten very old very fast. It’s almost as bad as the people who stumble across my old Orkut entry and feel it’s my duty to invite them. I’ve given out one account so far, and it was to Simon.
Art Direction Plugin
WordPress “Art Direction” Plugin, from Automattician Noel Jackson. Basically allows you to do what Jason Santa Maria does for his blog without all the custom code and template hacking, just a simple plugin.
Stop Spam Better
Got enough testers for now. Thanks! I’m looking for a few people who do (or used to) get a lot of comment spam who are willing to turn off all of their other spam prevention methods and try a new plugin I’m testing out. Drop me a note on my contact page with details about your blog and how much spam you get. I’ve been dogfooding it for the past few weeks and it’s been working great.
Joseph Rosensteel has an outsider but savvy perspective on the updates and technology around Apple TV. Definitely a worthwhile read. I’ve experienced a lot of this frustration myself — I have a large library of things bought through iTunes, I like the interface of the Apple TV (though I liked the old one a little better), and Airplay is handy, so I want to love the Apple TV. The market is so bad right now that most review sites like Wirecutter recommend Roku, which for me came with a branded remote button for a service that is out of business (Rdio) and has an interface that feels DOS-like.
For small business owners, WordPress is a well-trusted company, Yelp is a brand in trouble, and Facebook is on a downward path. Those are some of the findings out today from a survey of 6,000 small business owners from the second half of 2015 conducted by Alignable.
You can see the whole thing here. WordPress came in with a NPS of 73, Shopify at 29, Godaddy at 26, Squarespace at 11, Wix at -7, Weebly at -13, Web.com at -61, and Yelp at -66. Here’s how a Net Promoter Score works.
Catching up on March
March is almost over, but email-wise I’m just getting started. Between the travel, conferences like SxSW and WordCamp, the 2.5 release, and the wisdom tooth stuff I’ve got stuff backed up even from Febuary. I’m back home this week so I’ll be doing as much catch-up as possible. If you get a response to an old email from me, that’s why.
New bbPress
Live from WordCamp
It's a bright and early morning here in San Francisco, I'm at the Swedish American hall for WordCamp 2006. The first of our brilliant volunteers are here and the wifi is strong. Life is good. See you guys on the other side of this crazy event.
WP in Jakarta
My Dad is in Jakarta and has signed up for the WordPress Meetup there. The world is so small.
BarCampTexas
I’m going to be in Austin this weekend for BarCampTexas. I’ll bring lots of WordPress stickers, so find me if you want one. Anyone else going to be in Austin?
Apple HDCP
Blogging from Space
The Day Has Come, Anousheh Ansari Space Blog. This is the last post before the first woman space tourist heads into space. Is there wifi up there? This Xprize blog is part of our upcoming VIP program on WordPress.com. Update: This BBC article says “Ms Ansari says she will write the first blog from space.” I never would have guessed WP would be used from space!
The app that changed my life is Simplenote, linked to Notational Velocity. I have Simplenote on my phone and Notational Velocity on my computer, and I’m obsessed with to-do lists and lists about my to-do lists. It allows me to have my lists on my phone and my lists on my computer, and they sync… if you are a list freak, with lists of lists, it will change your life.
— Lena Dunham
From a talk with Kara Swisher on Re/code. Listen to the whole podcast, Simplenote comes up at the 48-minute mark. Hat tip: Toni Schneider.
Open Proxy Checker
Check if comments come from an open proxy, an excellent way to stop the recent spam attacks some have been experiencing.
House and Baby
Some snaps around my apartment with Lea, Hege, and her beautiful new baby.
The economic uncertainty surrounding basic income is huge, and the politics of bringing such a program about on a large scale are daunting. But something makes this radical proposal so exciting that people and governments are increasingly willing to try it. Basic income challenges our notions of the social safety net, the relationship between work and income, and how to adapt to technological change. That makes it one of the most audacious social policy experiments in modern history. It could fail disastrously, or it could change everything for the better.
From FiveThirtyEight, What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money?
TB Quickmove
James Lee sent me a link to TB Quickmove, an extension for Firefox Thunderbird which lets you move messages into folders with hotkeys, which is what I really really needed. I only wish I could map regular letters.
Mike Hearn has a great and thought-provoking post on why he thinks Bitcoin is at a developer-caused impasse, and he’s ending his participation. I ended up selling most of my Bitcoin last year, but if I hadn’t this would definitely make me reconsider.
Doors in Barcelona
As I walked around Barcelona after everything was closed, I was really taken with the graffiti on the roll-down doors. Here’s a gallery of a few snaps.
On Stage and Flickr SxSW
A photo of me during the Blog Showdown presentation, Hat tip: Joe Clark. I’ve had a couple of people ask how best to tag me in a photo, I’ve seen some use “mullenweg” or “matt” or “mattmullenweg” but the best bet (and the one I watch) is “photomatt“. (Also, my happiest moment ever.)