The Register is reporting that Al Gore’s climate change site hacked. I looked at his WordPress blog and it’s running version 2.0.4, which was released in July of 2006, about 16 months ago. I wonder if these people want to upgrade but just need help, and if there’s something as a community we could do to assist them? Like install4free but for upgrades. What’s unfortunate is that people see this as an indicator of WP security, they’re judging us by bugs that have been fixed for more than a year.
TechCrunch’s Social Responsibility
Mike Arrington on TechCrunch did an interesting thing a few days ago, he asked their readers if they should accept advertising from PayPerPost/Izea. Their readers made the right decision and voted that it would be disingenuous to accept advertising from a company that, in Michael’s words, pollutes the blogosphere. He also notes that TechCrunch is being held to a higher standard than most mainstream media would:
The comments that are most interesting to me are the ones that say we’re selling out if we take their advertising. I understand that we are held to a certain standard (and we hold ourselves to that standard), but it’s interesting that we supposed to do things that would never be asked of MSM.
While I’m sure there’s mainstream media which turn away advertisers because of social reasons, the point that we should hold flagship blogs to high standards is a good one.
On that point, I would encourage the crew at TechCrunch to re-examine their advertising and implicit endorsement of Text Link Ads, which pollutes the blogosphere in the same way PayPerPost does, by selling links with the intention of gaming Google. Just as PayPerPost “posties” were recently penalized by Google and Pagerank was one of the criteria that advertisers looked for when choosing which bloggers to give money to, Text Link Ads has been doing the same thing for years, they’ve just been more explicit about it. (And their corporate site has been penalized in Google for a long time.)
I should also note that if TechCrunch decides that the same reasons it decided to not accept advertising from Izea also apply to Text Link Ads, it’ll be operating at a higher standard than Google itself, who even though its business is directly impacted by the search engine spamming both of these companies practice allows both TLA and PPP to advertise via Adwords and Adsense.
Why Give to Wikimedia?
Why Give to Wikimedia? is a new fundraiser blog for the Wikimedia Foundation that is actually quite good. (And powered by WordPress.)
Random Bits Podcast
Bloggers’ Union Strike
WordPress for Dummies Book Review
WordPress for Dummies Book Review. Happy Thanksgiving! I’m stuffed.
Grand Canyon
Barry and I did a road trip from San Francisco to Texas, partly just to see the Grand Canyon. Here it is. We ended up taking a helicoptor ride with just us and the pilot due to lucky scheduling.
Road Trip
Yesterday started a road trip from San Francisco to Houston. Barry has the details on his blog. Today is the long day — Pismo Beach, CA to Flagstaff, AZ. Wish us luck!
Pelican Point
On the epic road trip, we stopped at some random hotel near Pelican Point, this was the view in the morning. Foggy and a million birds.
Fruit Bowl
WordPress founder to use million-dollar trumpet as fruit bowl. Ah, the internet. If you thought this was real, don’t feel too bad, I got a call from my mother about it. 🙂
SF Weekly Article
WordPress Stands for Open Source, Morals, Democracy… and apple pie. Tyler Callister had an interesting take on some of the recent press we’ve gotten and our conversation.
NewTeeVee Party
Some photos of my uncle for his real estate business and the NewTeeVee party at the Pier.
Comment Moderation Notifier
The WordPress Comment Moderation Notifier puts a little thing in your Windows mini-icon tray that let’s you know when you have a new comment, much like Outlook or Thunderbird do with email. Cool! Now we just need a Mac version, maybe using Growl? Update: There is now a Mac version.
WebProNews Video Interview
Citizen Wausau
Citizen Wausau is a Site About Life in Wausau Wisconsin, and a nice-looking citizen journalism site built on WordPress.
Blogworld Expo Meetup
I’m in Las Vegas for the Blogworld Expo. As I announced from the stage this morning, there will be a WordPress Meetup before the official Blog Expo party. We’ll be meeting at “Lucky’s” in the Hard Rock Casino at 6:30, and I’ll have a limited supply of 20 or so t-shirts for the people who get there first. The guys from Mindtouch will also be there and are rumored to be buying a round. There was some confusion about the venue earlier, so please spread the word.
Gallery: 11-4-2007
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Marketplace Followup
Alex Jones has some good thoughts on the marketplace. As some stats, our themes page on .com got 2.4 million pageviews last month and someone previews a theme about once every 1.74 seconds. I can’t say how many people have purchased upgrades on .com, but even with our limited selection of products it’s a meaningful percentage, and that’s one of the reasons we think this idea has legs. It’s still impossible to know for certain, though, and I appreciate that our launch partners are taking a risk that they might create a theme and not sell a single one, and the whole thing might tank. If it goes well, though, I fully expect there to be thousands of themes in the system by this time next year, and the people in early will have a significant advantage, much like app developers did on Facebook.
Gallery: 11-3-2007
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Gallery: 11-2-2007
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