Automattic Lounge
WordCamp San Francisco was a total hoot! I met up with a bunch of old friends, made a few new ones, had some good food, drank a few brews, hung out with a whole lot of cool people and all the while, I was surrounded by WordPress goodness.
Thank you to all the organizers, volunteers and participants!
A few bits of interesting statistics and news from WordCamp San Francisco “State of the Word”:
- WordPress.org downloads were nearly twice as many as last year
- There are twice as many WordPress.org blogs on the web this as compared to last year
- Akismet caught just as many spam comments this year as last (count grew very little)
- There is a Blackberry version of the WordPress management app coming soon, iPhone version will see an upgrade
- There will be a GPL paid themes page on the WordPress Extend to encourage the business model
- At some point in the future, the WordPress and WPMU codebase will be merged
- WordPress 2.8 is very close to being released
- WordPress 2.9 will focus on stuff under the hood
I listened to a bunch of the presentations this year (for a change) and I found them all very interesting. Chris Pirillo is a blast on stage and his talk on building communities was insightful and slightly disturbing at the same time. You should see him emulate Venn Diagrams on stage with his hands going around in circles! John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, was fantastic. His slides are on slideshare but if you are into building communities and believe in Open Source philosophies and care even slightly about Mozilla, you should wait for the video and watch it.
The WordCamp Report has live blogs of all the speakers and the videos will soon be on WordPress.tv. My WordCamp San Francisco pictures are on Flickr and I took a bunch of others while I was walking around to the various meetups. I am planning on attending WordCamp Chicago next week.
Oh man, the blackberry app news makes my day. YES!
I was there and we didn’t get a chance to meet in person? Hmm.. was too busy running around meeting a ton a others. Maybe you’ll consider coming down for WordCampLA I am organizing?
Great meeting you too Mark, it was a pleasure, finally being able to meet you and Lorelle, and of course tons of other interesting people.
Had a real blast, will be back soon and definitely look forward to meeting you again.
WordCamp was great and lunch was amazing. It was a blast to meet up with a bunch of virtual friends. Community really is in the heart as Chris said in his presentation and WordPress and BuddyPress are great tools for building these communities.
I was hoping WP and BBPress would be merged soon. Be a great way to get more people onboard with BBPress.
As for twice as many WordPress.org blogs on the web, that is great news! WP is getting stronger and better as time goes on. 2.7 was a big move forward for WP.
Great overview Mark. I’ve already slated next year to be the year I attend WordCamp San Francisco. Also impressed yet again with your photos. What the heck kind of camera do you use?
Will you be in Chicago before Friday evening? I’m staying at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza and going for pizza around 8PM or so for dinner. Let me know if you want the details and I’ll send you an email.
Thanks Jeff, SF is always fun. I use a Nikon D90 with a variety of lenses but I don’t think I am that good with photography!
As for Chicago, I will show up on Sunday morning and leave in the evening. I will be coming in by train. I have to attend a Saturday event at Wooster.
Great News! I was hoping to hear sth for bbPress too. However I am longing to attend a WordCamp.
I’m glad to hear that those who attended had a good time.
But I’m kinda ticked off… I went to register for the event a few days beforehand and was greeted by a page telling me that registration was closed because the event was full. (Registering sooner wasn’t an option… I tried the same day I first heard about the event.)
I’m sure I’m not the only one who was disappointed. The WordCamp guys need to pick a bigger venue next time around. You should always have enough room to accomodate people signing up at the last minute or just showing up on the day of the event.
it was indeed ggrrreeaaattt 🙂
looking forward to LA wordcamp.
See you again in Chicago. 🙂
Sorry to be noisy, but can you say anything more about the 2.9 changes and if 3.0 will mark the code merge for WP and WPMU? It would be nice to know at least a bit about it. 🙂
Nice photos.
Also, can I have code for this neat comment counter thing? Or be directed at the plugin? *puppy eyes*
I use: http://money.bigbucksblogger.c.....-spammers/
The plans for the code merge are just that, plans. I could get nothing concrete out of the developers. Thanks for the photo complement.
Thanks for both things. And I guess the plans become reality at some point, either way.
I had no idea that plugin with such a name would have additional functions to display comment count next to someone’s name, but oh well, I learn new stuff every day. 🙂