Our regular notion when we see or hear the WordPress word is all about a site in the web that mainly offers blogging services. Well, you’re right about it, but WordPress offers reliable services that go beyond just a mere open source blogging software. WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System) with a cross-platform that is built on PHP and MySQL. It opened its services in 2003 with few resources of code that enhance the artistic typography, and during those years, WP has only a few users.
Who’s behind WP?
WP was created on 27th of May 2003; that is thirteen years ago by a joint effort between Matt Mullenweg (also the founder of a Web Development Corporation, Automattic) and Mike Little, as a Project fork of the blogging tool b2/cafelog. The name itself ‘WordPress’ was suggested by Matt’s friend Christine Selleck. There are a number of people working hand-in-hand in developing this amazing advancement of typographic technology; namely, Helen Hou-Sandi, Dion Hulse, Mark Jaquith, Matt Mullenweg, Andrew Ozz, and Andrew Nacin.
Current WP stats that will blow you away!
Today, WP celebrates its success with more than 23.3 of the top 10 million websites that are actively using the software. Added that as of February this year, WP is used by 59.1% among other CMS websites, soaring to a total of 25.8% of all websites. Isn’t is impressive?
Trivia, trivia, trivia
Just so you know, after the release of WordPress 1.0, the succeeding releases are codenamed after prominent jazz musicians and presently we are now using the WP platform 4.5 named Coleman (Ornette Coleman) with upgraded tools like inline linking, live responsive previews, formatting shortcuts, etc.
What are the chic features offered by WP ever since they began?
As the most popular blogging system being used on the web, WP did their foundation on mainly 3 indispensable features: Themes, Plugins, and the newly added mainstream feature – Mobile.
WP Theme Power
An important ingredient in good blogging is the theme. Theme entices and conditions the mind about the topic or the nature of the blog, and it helps set up the mood for the reader for them to absorb the content better. WP has a huge number of themes– from the basics of solid colors to the synchronized play of colors in cool techno. Not to mention the themes crafted for celebratory occasions and those that soothe and express the blogger’s personality.
What about the Plugins?
With over 40,501 within-the-reach plugin architectures, who can underestimate the supremacy that WP can do to maximize the functionality and lengthen the features of a website or blog? You can see the versatility of WP with its plugins and various customizations that cover from optimization for search engines to tracking and displaying information to logged in users in the client’s portal. Other accessible plugins of WP includes some useful widgets and navigation bars.
Mobile
Did I mention earlier about Automattic? As smartphones rapidly evolve, so do WP mobile proficiencies. The supporting company, Automattic, designed applications that are already existent for WebOS, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. These applications created by Automattic allow adding new blog posts and pages, commenting, moderating comments, and replying to comments.
Other Important Features
Have you wondered how blogs and articles in WP got sorted? WP supports Trackback and Pingback features and is equipped with automatic filters. With the assistance of integrated link management like search-engine and permalink structure, the user can be able to direct their search to multiple categories of articles as well as tagging of posts and articles that simplify all the complexities for convenience.
WP was then a one-blog-per-installation system before the release of version 3. During these periods WP has also created a fork for a Multi-user and multi-blogging system (WordPress MU), under a centralized moderator, which permits multiple blogs to exist within a single installation. In this matter, it is easy for other websites to source their own blogging empire and operate all blogs in a unified dashboard. And as WordPress 3 came out, WPMU was merged with WordPress.
Drastic Developments
Same as other successful software companies that encountered fixes for virtual improvements, WP also encountered their own. In 2009, Secunia, a company under Flexera Software that probes the vulnerability of software products, rated WP “Less Critical” and found out that WP had 7 out of 32 divergences in security advisories. In 2007 because of some slight glitch in the outdated software, 98% of blogs became vulnerable to the attacks from exploits, yet WP was able to release a “one click” automated route in version 2.7 that was then released in 2008. The most recent incident of software vulnerability was reported in March last year about WP plugin SEO by Yoast which is used by more than 14 million users around the globe. They quickly introduced an updated version 1.7.4 of WP plugin SEO by Yoast to fix the problem which turns to be another central and laudable step taken by WP to protect their clients.
Latest media reports stated that co-founder Matt Mullenweg planted the seed that we will be looking forward to seeing WordPress as an Application Platform and out in Social as well as a Mobile trend in the nearest future!