This is the most interesting news I’ve heard in a long time when it comes to blogging platforms, and it’s especially personally because Xanga is the first CMS-based and web-powered blogging system that I ever committed to for any serious amount of time. When I first started blogging back in 2001 it was just uploading via FTP. Later that year I encountered Xanga and I was hooked as this was much easier that uploading individuals HTML files one by one. I was the first to sign up for their “lifetime” account and blogged my heart out for years on the service. […]

It’s a discussion that I’ve had on many occasions and one that popped up this past weekend as Jake from 10up offered some free commentary on the state of WordPress and business with these apparently rhetorical words: https://twitter.com/jakemgold/status/341230138404507650 What ensued was an epic thread of more than just a handful of people who added their proverbial 2 cents into the mix. The question and answer is up for grabs though: Can a 4-man agency command the respect of people (and possible attendees at an event)? How does one define success with WordPress business-making?

Last week we shared a neat and different perspective on the WordPress template and a hierarchy chart that was developed and created by Michelle and there was some great conversations in the comments adding that it was very similar to Chip Bennett‘s, who chimed in and mentioned that it did with a bit of design flavor on top. Well, someone has taken it one step further and put it online: Rami Abraham spent the weekend building together a digital version:

What a week. And, can you actually believe that we’re in the month of June already? 2013 is about half-way done already. So, the question is, have you accomplished everything that you had set out to do in 2013? Are you slacking? Get to it!

Diversification – it’s so important, especially if you’re building a new-ish WordPress business as the first product that you build may not necessarily “hit it out of the park” the very first time. Or, as Gene Hammett shares, there are other opportunities that exist for you to make some addition income with WordPress – just consider adding some more revenue streams with some of his suggestions.

On June 11-13 iThemes will be having free WordPress Design Workshops. This online course, is being taught by Benjamin Bradley, the Professor at WebDesign.com, who will walk through everything you need to know to get a solid foundation for designing and developing with WordPress. You don’t have to be there for all of the elements of the course – you can sign up for the one that’ll give you the most bang for your buck (i.e. time). You can learn:

Just kidding…! …? Apparently a few of the Automatticians challenged each other to “knuckle pushups” – perhaps they were fighting over who would pay the tab that night. But it is a Theme Team tradition – ouch.

This weekend ZippyKid will be celebrating their 3rd year in business. Without question, congratulations on that major milestone. It’s tough enough to start a business let alone keep it viable and sustainable! Vid Luther and his growing team are doing a great job of providing a competitive service to the likes WPEngine and Page.ly as well as Automattic and WordPress.com. Competition is a great thing and it forces businesses to innovate and stay hungry. What’s neat is that Vid Luther shares a lot more of the backstory of how ZippyKid came together including some choice and encouraging words from Matt […]

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jeff Pearce (@Jeffikus) this morning, part of the WooThemes Team and developer of their Sensei plugin, an educational plugin that has the potential to become a serious player in the growing education marketplace. We chatted about his background, the culture of WooThemes, Sensei, and a fun lightning round of questions near the end. A super down-to-earth guy, Jeff is a great win for the WooThemes team! Thanks Jeff for hanging out with me this morning and Matt Cohen for setting things up!

Mike Little, one of the lesser-known founders of WordPress, is getting more and more attention that he rightly deserves with an even public honoring in an upcoming event. And for the WP10 event he joined a few other WordPressers in Manchester, UK with Simon Dickson. Check out this neat interview: