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WordPress creator pulls in $29.5 million
Automattic, the company best-known for blog publishing software WordPress, has raked in $29.5 million in Series B funding. Originally reported on several blogs, the funding round was confirmed by Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg in his personal blog Tuesday evening.
The most notable of the investors is the New York Times Co., which joins existing Automattic investors Polaris Ventures, True Ventures, and Radar Ventures. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Automattic turned down an acquisition offer several months ago from a "larger Internet company." Mullenweg's only apparent reference to this in his blog post was his … Read more
Yahoo Shortcuts: It's everywhere you want to blog
Yahoo recently launched an interesting tool for Wordpress bloggers: Yahoo Shortcuts. It's important, not so much for what it does but for the trend it indicates.
But first, here is what it does: It's a plugin that people running Wordpress blogs can install for free. When it's installed on a Wordpress server, it monitors what the blog's author is writing, and lets the writer know that it has related links it can automatically insert. Locations get links to maps, products get links to prices, public companies get links to stock prices, and so on. For each … Read more
IPKarma adds karma to your comments
Correction: IPKarma does use e-mail addresses instead of IP addresses to track users. The namesake is a "recursive acronym." More over at the FAQ.
IPKarma is a new karma system to help track users who comment on your blog. The twist is it doesn't just track them for you, but also for any other blog owner who has the plug-in installed. It tracks each user by their IP address (not their username or e-mail address) and automatically creates a user profile for them when they leave a comment. Similar to SezWho (coverage), other users can then click … Read more
Odiogo does really cool text-to-speech for blogs
Here's a neat service for blog owners who want to add another layer of distribution for their content. It's called Odiogo, and it will take any written blog entries and turn them into spoken word. It uses an integrated player that sticks itself on top of every blog post, and lets readers listen to any post in lieu of reading.
I came across the service while reading a post on UNEASYsilence about hacking the new eeePCs to run a hacked version OS X Leopard (which apparently runs about as well as it can on the aged processor), and … Read more
OneClick your way to a shapelier blog
We don't often give a lot of attention to WordPress (for Windows or Mac), Movable Type and other self-publishing blogging systems. They often require a bit more determination than merely creating a Blogger or Livejournal username, password, and some pithy-kitschy title to show the world how witty you truly are.
WordPress has two very strong aspects: The installation really does take about 5 minutes, and it's highly customizable with plug-ins that absolve the user of having to be a CSS expert. OneClick is a two-part plug-in for WordPress and Firefox that simplifies the plug-in experience even further.
CNET Live - Episode 24 - Show Notes
Watch the show on CNET TV.
Things we Crave
Battle of the non-violent robots
Gold and diamond-plated MacBook
First Look
Guest Matt Mullenweg from WordPress. Download of the Week
Insider Secrets
Upgrade a Sony PS3 hard drive.
Your calls
Alex Osborne's Linux on Palm LifeDrive project.
Transfer files to Motorola Razr V3c from MacBook by Bluetooth from About.com.
More steps for using the iPhone … Read more
Apple's iWeb gets tight Google integration, widgets
Apple's iWeb, one part of the iLife consumer apps suite, has received an interesting update this morning. iWeb is Apple's consumer-level Web site creation tool, and it gives users a simple way to drag and drop various Web site elements as well as fill in the included templates. The latest version is getting integration with two of Google's services: AdSense and Google Maps. iWeb users can now sign up for AdSense right inside the application, and pick how they want it to show up on their site. From the looks of the screenshots, it's much easier … Read more
Highlights from WordCamp 2007
This weekend, hundreds of bloggers and Web developers gathered at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco for the second-annual WordCamp conference.
Day 1 was dedicated to the content producers, and offered advice on how to be a better writer. We heard from John C. Dvorak, Om Malik, and Matt Cutts from Google.
Day 2 focused on the development and future of WordPress. Matt Mullenweg wrapped up the conference with the State of the Word address, describing how far WordPress has come in just a year, as well as a sneak preview of the newly designed Admin section.
I covered … Read more
