Is it news to anyone else that WordPress, Inc. has ceased to exist?
I was under the impression that six months ago the application had reached a milestone of success that enabled Matt Mullenweg and Jonas Luster to form the corporation WordPress, Inc.
Yesterday, Matt (known to many as photomatt) posted this comment in response to my entry criticizing the lack of design in the WordPress application and online presence:
Pourquoi?
I must admit that I don't follow every step of the WordPress community and after reading Matt's comment I thought I had missed some big announcement but this appears to be new to others as well. In response to Matt's casual announcement, Bradley Sepos writes:
Explain? I'm confused now.
I'm confused too because, as Andy Felder has pointed out, according to the San Jose Mercury News, WordPress.com is the corporate version of the software:
Today is his big day. He's showing off the corporate version of his software, called WordPress.com, for the first time. It will allow companies to host the software on their own or WordPress servers — giving employees the freedom to blog.
I sent this post to Matt to give him the chance to comment. His response: "I don't see what the confusion is."
UPDATE: In response to this inquiry and questions from WordPress users, Matt has setup a Wiki page to help summarize events and answer questions. Nice work.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
My actual response was:
'We obviously have a communication disconnect because I don't see what the confusion is. Maybe we should try AIM or similar? "
I don't appreciated be quoted out of context, I'm not sure what you're trying to show or accomplish. (Or having a private email quoted in general, but I'm not anal about that.)
I hope this comment isn't edited.
C'mon Matt, you can do better than that. Give a proper explanation. I'm sure there is one.
It was news to me, too. And maybe you should try blogs or similar.
Um, it doesn't seem to me like you were quoted out of context. Greg got the gist of your statement and merely stripped it down, although I can see how it could come across as slightly colder than you intended.
And as I said before, I'm more than happy to chat with you. However if WordPress or myself is going to make a major announcement like switching to Ruby on Rails, selling to Six Apart, or me working full-time on it (and not at CNET) trust me, when we're ready we'll sing it from the rafters and there will be *official* announcments on places like wordpress.org. At the 100k party we got ahead of ourselves and what I thought would end up happening then didn't. There wasn't an announcement saying it wasn't happening because there was never an announcement that anything was, so that would be a little odd.
If you want more information on what the Merc called the "corporate version" of WP you should check out WPMU, which is open source and free just like the rest of WordPress. MU is the software behind WordPress.com as well.
I am sooo confused. I have no idea what is going on. The other question is why do we care or need to know?
Finally, if anyone has any questions they'd like me to clarify, AIM me at photomattnet. It's tough to keep up on comment sections with no RSS or email subscriptions but I'll happily answer any questions people have about things.
I also posted 2 comments on the previous entry that aren't showing up, I'd appreciate if those could be put up as well.
For transparency, here is my reply to the other email I received from Greg, his comments are lead with >:
"> The confusion lies with an apparent lack of news from your camp on what WordPress is these days. Last I heard/read, you guys threw a big party, announced the formation of a corporation, and much blog commentary about the future of WordPress Inc. followed, etc.
You read an official announcement on wordpress.org or my blog?
> Now, months later, you've casually thrown out a comment saying that WordPress Inc. never was and that Jonas is no longer a part of WP. I wouldn't think much of it, figuring that I'm out of the loop but now there are plenty of others who are asking questions about the current situation of your company, or whatever it is now.
I still work at CNET. Jonas worked at Technorati, and is now volunteering disaster relief, AFAIK. If you're curious what has been going on between then and now, I suggest reading the dev blog, the Codex, and my blog.
I don't really know who you are, who our common friends are, or anything about you so I'm not terribly comfortable being grilled by you. I also don't know why you seem so belligerent towards WordPress and myself. If you would like to know more my AIM is photomattnet. "
Two people here need to take a chill pill and start over, in my view.
I also posted 2 comments on the previous entry that aren't showing up, I'd appreciate if those could be put up as well.
I don't show any other comments from you. I know there are people who aren't able to post at all, namely Mike Rundle but as your other comments have made it through I'm not sure why they aren't there now. Try posting again.
This is great. It's like watching a battered housewife talk about how they fell down the stairs and how dare you be so rude, etc.
Seriously, Matt, while you may think this is all being weird and stuff, your heated responses to "hey, no Wordpress?" and "let's take it private" and "don't discuss my PRIVATE E-MAIL TO YOU"... it's a smell test issue, my friend. Let it out, it's OK, we'll understand.
I wish you good luck in all your endeavors no matter where they take you. You're a great talent and you've changed the world for the better.
Greg, maybe check the spam filter? They had a few links in them.
I set up a wiki page with the story that I probably didn't do a good enough job of communicating (I'm a coder, not a PR person) and people are free to add questions below. Here's the link:
http://codex.wordpress.org/User:Matt/WordPress_Inc_Story
When everyone gets their questions up and I answer them all and maybe turn it into a blog post. I think that's a better way to get everyone's concerns addressed rather than trying to keep up in the comments section and everything is public. Edit away!
I'm mentioned in an Airbag entry. How flattering!
To Matt:
I've actually talked with you on AIM a couple of times, and you are very kind to place yourself in direct communication with us. You are always polite and helpful. I never feel like I am bothering you when we chat... that is a very, very cool thing.
We (Greg, myself, and the rest) just wanted to know some stuff, and if more of this was public info and not "AIM me if you want to know", we wouldn't be in this spot in the first place. I should not have to talk to the WP creator to be well-informed. It makes being objective and factual that much harder.
The more information we are subjected to, the more objective we can be.
That's *can* be.
I've been pretty clear about how I'm just trying to figure out what is going on, and I really think that this is Greg's approach as well. Since when was asking direct questions, with the intent of clearing up real confusion, considered "grilling"?
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Greg you use MT, right? Would you ever like to use WordPress? Just curious what your interests are. I have used WordPress, TextPattern, and MT, but I mostly use WP right now.
I think the lesson learned may be that WordPress needs a better channel to distribute information.
I don't blame Matt for holding some things back. Look at Apple: they release all sorts of stuff without as much as a hint as to what is coming. It's great for their business, and it also ensures they deliver and do not break promises.
But what happens as a result? Rumor sites. And that's why in the case of WordPress, we're all reading the Mercury News and whatnot.
I use the codex and read many of the items that come up on my WP dashboard, but even with WP news right in front of me every time I login to my site, I still feel out of the loop.
I consider myself one of those people that's actually up to speed with what's going on with WP. When I heard about wp inc I thought, hey cool that means that Matt might be devoting all his attention to wp, as a full time job. After a while with no further announcements and with Jonas leaving, I knew something didn't work out, but honestly that doesn't change anything to me. Doesn't really effect my use of WP and honestly it's none of my business.
I'm not privy to everything that Matt does, and then again why should I be? Why does Matt owe you or me anything? It's us that owe him lots.
Just a side note Greg, just got thinking (I know brain takes a while to fire up), as an MT user, why do you feel the need to know ANYTHING at all about WP. You've made your decision not to use the software, and therefore not contribute to it in anyway, why feel the need to find out about the inner workings of the software?
I don't care what the Drupal guys are up to for example; so why do you care about WP? Are you planning on coming over, therefore your post about the user admin? Just wondering is all, because then it would make sense, you wanting to understand the community and whatnot. Honestly, the community around WP, is what makes it superior to MT and all other blogging software.
Greg you use MT, right? Would you ever like to use WordPress?
I have considered it, briefly. Like I said in my previous post, I think WP has a lot going for it technically...
...why do you feel the need to know ANYTHING at all about WP.
I produce websites — have done so for ten years — and I try to keep tabs on just about everything related to web design and development. That includes the future of Wordpress as a publishing platform.
Greg, these two posts about WordPress have a strangely hostile tone. You are trying to be constructively critical... right?
As a designer that's worked with making custom templates for both WordPress and MovableType, I've got to say that the original post seemed to be pretty much ill-informed flame bait. The second seems to be... pretty pointless. Wow, something said by someone in the tech business was overly optimistic, or didn't pan out -- shocking!
WP's interface may not be full of eye candy, but it's fast, functional and inoffensive. I've tried the Tiger interface plugin and thought it was sort of overdesigned. MT's interface is o.k., but it's sort of cramped and...anal retentive (try it with the text size bumped slghtly larger.) Both are a pain in the ass to create custom templates for, but either can be made to do some pretty incredible things with a little effort.
Whether there's an Inc. attached to name is of no interest to me. What is the BFD?
Greg, I don't understand where you're going with any of this. Some of your posts are way out in left field, some are heart warming and some are bang on commentaries about anything and everything. That's what makes airbag great. That's why some of us keep comin' back again and agin. You're all over the place. But this... this isn't one thing or the other. It's just... pointless.
What are you up to? You're cookin' something up aren't ya? This is one of them there marketing strat-e-gies ain't it? airbag.com may be allot of things but it's never been inconsequential.
I'm still waiting for Matt to send me my free keyboard that he promised a couple of years ago for being the first person to switch to the Dvorak keyboard layout.
Actually, I don't really want the keyboard anymore, but whenever I see Matt's name mentioned, I'm always (very very mildly) disappointed that I never got that promised keyboard. Maybe I wasn't the first one after all, but I was under the impression that I had it clinched.
http://photomatt.net/2003/08/31/on-the-dvorak-keyboard-layout/trackback/#comment-2682
Anyway, I like WordPress, but I always thought Matt took himself too seriously. Id
these two posts about WordPress have a strangely hostile tone. You are trying to be constructively critical... right?
Zota, I wasn't going for hostile in tone, a slight tad annoyed maybe but not hostile. I'll have to stop using so much Burnt Sienna in my tone.
What are you up to? You're cookin' something up aren't ya? This is one of them there marketing strat-e-gies ain't it? airbag.com may be allot of things but it's never been inconsequential.
In this case there was no evil plot or strategery behind it other than when I asked my peers about this the answer was the same, it was breaking news to them. A few suggested I write about this, so I did. I don't see this as pointless, a little over the top maybe (see above) but not pointless.
Wow, small world! Bryce, the keyboard actually went to someone in Houston, but if you're still using Dvorak I'll be happy to send you one, if just for reading me in 2003 when no one else did. :) Add one to your Amazon wishlist and send me a link.
"I should not have to talk to the WP creator to be well-informed. It makes being objective and factual that much harder."
Very true. Hopefully the wiki page can clear up any further questions people have, though there's only been one directly added to it so far, the rest came through AIM which I added to the page. Greg, perhaps you could update the article with a link to the wiki page that answers the questions you pose?
I'm throwing the "myself" abuse flag. It's me, people, notmyself. ;)
In French (fr-fr), you need a non-breaking space before ? ! : ; and inside «».
Pourquoi ? ;-)
Psh, Matt, I was reading you in 2003... :) (don't send me any keyboards, please).
I've never heard of airbag before (should I?), but I know Wordpress. I've read the post and the comments, and I'm feeling pretty sympathetic to Matt. What's the point of having a field day at the expense of someone providing a wonderful, free product. I'm satisfied with his response. An apology from airbag wouldn't be a bad idea.
Hmm, looking below, does this suggestion make me an "asshat" (or would suggesting airbag has been acting like a 12 year old be a "knee jerk comment?").
Re: Marketing Strategies — In the analog world it's called selling papers. In the digital world, it's boosting traffic, getting people who have never before heard of Airbag here (see above) and being the featured article at 9 Rules. None of that's bad. Come on people, don't be such gull-a-bulls (as Bugs Bunny would say).
Matt,
Thanks for the followup on the keyboard giveaway. I really don't need a keyboard anymore, but thanks for the generous offer. Mostly I'm glad the air is cleared.
And yes, I'm still using Dvorak.
--bryce
Re: Re: Marketing Strategies
Hey Tom. Really? Really and for true? Honest to golly-gee goodness?
Hey, you asked.
Asked Greg. Besides, it was rhetorical. I was giving him the benefit of the.... aaagh never mind.
Hey take it easy, the both of you, or I'm going to turn this site around and head straight home!
This post seemed to come with an extra helping of 'tude — I was just answering a question and quoting Bugs Bunny. :)
Ya... sure Bugs Bunny. Porky always gets passed over.
Abadee, abadee, abadee...
Tha tha tha that's all folks!
Well, this was a great read.... (for me to poop on)