I started using WordPress more than 3 years ago and have been using it since version 1.5. Prior to using WordPress, I was using Joomla. Joomla is a great platform no doubt, but it was a bit complicated for my liking.
After several perusals from my friends, I finally switched to WordPress. It was not easy though as I had to write a custom script to import the Joomla database to WordPress (I still have that script, but it is a bit outdated am working on it for a plugin).
My first reaction on switching to WordPress was, "Oh My God, I did not know that blogging was so easy" and I seriously enjoyed it a lot. I even went out and wrote several WordPress plugins, few of which I released, and few of which are yet to be.
From 1.5 to 2.9 it has been a very interesting journey. I have learnt so many things in between and have been able to apply all of those learning’s to create plugins or optimize my own site, help others with their problems and more.
However, for me it was really important to have that first reaction of "OOPS!! Why didn’t I use this earlier". That changed everything.
What has been your first reaction on using WordPress? How have you grown into it? I would love if you share your own experiences here to see how it has shaped blogging for you.
Back in the day (we’re talking over 10 years ago) I started with a basic static HTML site and had a blog on Blogger. Then I started to play around with various content management systems like Mambo/Joomla, Drupal etc but didn’t particularly like any of them. I don’t even recall how I discovered WordPress but there was no turning back once I did.
I was using PHP-Nuke, then I got hacked. I saw WordPress and never looked back.
It´s this easy to publish content? WOW!
Is basically my first reaction.
Oh I wonder how they made that? – while visiting other people´s blogs.
SO that is how you do that! – when I encountered the plugin used.
I started using WP about 2 years ago and I´ve enjoyed every part of it. Now I´ve gotten more used to coding, starting to take a deeper look at the templates and how to create your own design. So far it´s only editing existing themes. But slowly I´m getting where I want.
Later on I´ve taking quick fast looks at plattforms like Joomla and boy is it hard in comparison to WordPress. So for as far as I can I´ll keep on using WordPress.
It´s fun, easy to use and if you can´t code it yourself there are a lot of plugins to help you.
Started with WordPress on 2007 with the version 2.3.2 when someone recommended it to me on irc. I was having problems setting up Joomla, but when i finished installing WP on a free hosting:
>> It´s this easy to publish content? WOW!
That was my first impression too.
That blog doesn’t exists anymore, but with the experience i gained with it i have started 2 other blogs and want to start a 3rd this year. All of them using WordPress, of course.
I was using pLog (now LifeType) at the time. It was a pretty good piece of software, but I needed something a little more robust. My hosting company offered automatic installs of only two blog platforms. WordPress (1.0-something) was my second choice. One upgrade after another, it became my first choice – then I became a big fan. I’m still a big fan.
Started out with static HTML sites, moved to PHP-Nuke, then on to Joomla! and now primarily use WordPress (since before 1.5). While I still use Joomla! on rare occasion (find it better for multilingual sites, thanks to Joomfish).
I feel a lot better turning over a site to a client when it is a WordPress site. So much easier and more intuitive. The one thing that still bugs me about WordPress, though, is that there is no good calendar plugins. I can find everything else I need, but still no good calendar plugin for WordPress. Til then, I’ll just keep embedding Google calendars.
Matt
I have just started using WP Events Calendar (V6.6 beta) on one of my sites and have no problems with it so far. Perhaps it would help for you too?
I tried that one a couple of months ago, but it is still buggy and hasn’t been updated in 5 months. Not something I’d trust on a client site.
I started out in July 2004 (according to the Wayback Machine) with static HTML. I moved very quickly (By January 2005) to an application called pMachine. I used that for around 12 months and then heard about this WordPress thingy. Being a little dissatisfied with pMachine (now called Expression Engine), it being a little difficult to use at the time, I scrapped the blog and installed WordPress. Like others I had that “oh my god” moment, where everything was just sooooo easy!
Since then I have tried others (I’ll mention no African names) on subdomains but the main blog has always been WordPress.
Like Keith I have used Joomla 1.5, although much more recently, for a Scouting website and have given up as I just find it too darned complicated. I have installed WP 2.9.1 and am just setting up the last couple of plugins for functionality, testing the theme and getting approval from the organisation before releasing it to the public.
I had to do a project recently, where a web designer did use WP as a CMS. I don’t know if it is WP or the webdesigner. But the structure of the backend was horrible! All templates were put into php files… If this is the usual way WP works – that’s nothing for me…
That doesn’t sound right to me. Although the template files are PHP files, they are really simple to follow (if you understand a little programming). I assume by “backend” you mean the file structure rather than the admin panel?
I started with Lotus Notes exporting to html around 1998. Then I switched to PHP-Nuke around 1999. Then I moved to a weird Perl small script I found on an opensource site in 2001. Then I switched to Moveable Type aorund 2003 and changed to WordPress in 2006.
I love WP. It was at first a little cumbersome in 2003 but since has grown nicely and now powers some very big sites for us and our clients. My first reaction I think was “This is a bit odd GUI”, but I quickly adapted and the GUI for admins has become much, much better.
I like WP so much I have given money to have my company sponsor a WordCamp and I regularly donate to various plugin authors.
I would like to see more streamlining of processes within WP so that CPU/MySQl is better cached and utilized.
I was using MT and Cafelog’s b2 before and I was sort of “compelled” to make the move due to MT turning not free and b2 being discontinued. My first impression was: “this is nothing like b2 it’s far more complicated and I don’t get anything!” But I eventually got used to it and the amount of comment spam I was getting was easier to moderate. Of course, everything has been getting better over the years.
WordPress saved my life! Well, my internet life… I have been building websites for many years for myself and friends. Fun work but after a while it got old and I got tired because it was a bitch to update these websites. Everything was build in HTML or even flash (no CMS).
When I discovered WordPress it was like WOW! So easy to install and maintain. Also the huge amount of cool themes was awesome. With my very limit ‘programming knowledge’, it was easy for me to change/alter themes to my own liking.
In a few words: “I LOVE IT!”.
In 2006, I got started with Joomla but never got stuck with it. Discovered Drupal along the way and then WordPress.
Love WP for its simplicity and abundance of nice looking free themes. Not forgetting those cool plugins too. One plugin that’s on my top list is Virtual Multi Blog http://bit.ly/8FmJ2S. I just keep one set of WP codes no matter how many sites I have. Updating and upgrading is a breeze.
I still go for Drupal on some sites where I need more “finer controls” but theme wise Drupal is light years behind WP.
I started on the web when you really could create websites with a text editor creating static html. As the technology advanced and more complicated options became available, I steered away from them and toward simpler alternatives such as WISIWYG editors, Blogger, and the like. I was scared of WP, because I thought it would be too complicated for a non-programmer like me.
After years of intimidating myself, I got up my nerve to try hosted wordpress and was blown away by how easy it was to use. Now, I want to learn more tech skills, but for the fun of it, not because I’m compelled to.
I’d been hand-coding my static html pages for over a decade. In 2006 I wrote my own blogging software and it worked ok. Then I heard about WordPress through my sister, and while helping her to get it set up, I started to see what it could do.
When I realized it could be both a blog and a full CMS too, I was impressed, and dove straight in. Approximately a year ago, I replaced all my static pages (over 60 of them) and my home-made blog software with a wordpress powered site. I’ve since made my own theme and a handful of plugins and widgets to make my site fully personalized and unique. I’ve also converted two other sites I maintain to WordPress, and helped a friend convert her site to WordPress.
So I guess my ‘first reaction’ was to dive in headfirst.
Cheers!
When I first looked into WordPress I saw the default theme and thought how bland. Then some time later i looked into it farther and realized that there were so many themes and they all looked awesome! I uploaded it to my server and never looked back since. I love they way I can make a site and have it look totally different to the public and the dash looks the same for them all! I dont have to learn a new systemfor each site! I have set up many installs for friends and some I dont even know and they all love WordPress too. Thanks guys/gals of WordPress! =)
I started using WordPress about two years ago. Prior I only knew a friend who used it for his radio station and loved it. I used PHPNuke, Subdreamer, tried Drupal and Joomla … honestly, my friend reaction was more of “eh, I’m underwhelmed” .. until I really started using it.
A company I worked for previously was a WordPres only company. They used it for their corporate, sub-sites, etc … so I had to learn how to code and design for it. Didnt take long for me “meh” reaction to be a “HOLY CRAP AWESOME!” reaction.
Now I work for a new company, we’re building product specific sites using WordPress. We build a shopping cart to work with WordPres (no WP backend or plug). We built a large pet product site using WP. We’re now working on a WordPresMU site for our parent company. It’s a staple in our daily work – and we’d never use anything BUT WordPress.
My first reaction is that how easy exactly to create a web site. I always thought that really difficult to create web site back then.
For me… it was … OK it works! But, then that was back in 2003 in the 0.6 or something version of WP. We sure have come a long long way!
Beautiful!
Before WP, I’d had my blog up on Blogger *shudder* and on another platform that was fairly good, BlogCity. They both had things to offer but it was nowhere near the ease that I had on WP. WP, right out of the box, was great, and when I could start to tinker, it was even better.
I started with Blogger but quickly grew frustrated by its lack of flexibility. (Unfortunately, nothing has changed over there.) Today I am an absolute WP evangelist. Gotta love it!
First reaction? Horrible default theme (that classic one, not kubrick); horrible admin panel! Immediately, I installed MT. And then I’m not sure why I went back to WP shortly after. Most likely because I felt the need to hack around my blog and thought PHP was easier to handle.
It took me a while to get into it. I prefer the way Movable Type handles templates. Once I got my head around that, I slowly fell in love with it. Now, you couldn’t pay me to go back.
I was first introduced at my last job. After playing with it for a few hours I decided I loved it. Later I realized that so few WordPress sites got hacked in comparison to Joomla & osCommerce. The few WordPress sites that were hacked was because of either an outdated version or a major security hole in a plugin or theme.
Later my brother-in-law came up with an idea for a website & after much debate I decided to write a plugin for WordPress to do what he needs for the site.
When I started suing WordPress in October 2008, my immediate reaction was “This makes LiveJournal look like a toy.” It was even more striking since I was (and still am) using a free account on WordPress.com which had far more functionality than a LiveJournal paid account.
The gulf has only widened since.
using* ! Last time I checked, I had never attempted to sue WordPress.
Heh! Now that’s funny! 😆
I can’t even remember but I think everything started with E107 and before that LiveJournal. Today I can’t think of using anything else than WP. I never stop learning new things with WP and always find great new ways to extend the use of it. WP Rocks!
I didn’t want to make the switch to wordpress for a long time before I decided to finally give it a try.
I got started in blogging after watching “The Screen Saves” on what was then TechTV. Now its G4TV, with a name change not for the better.
Back in those days, I used Moveable Type from Six Apart, because thats what everyone else seemed to be using. You weren’t anyone if you didn’t have a MT blog.. Then after MT 3 was released, alot of people switched to WordPress because they simply didn’t like Six Apart’s new business model. I thought that was a STUPID reason to switch platforms! especially since MT 4 and 5 are still FREE for personal use, and who gives a crap if the software is written in CGI, PHP or whatever, but those were the biggest complaints everyone else had, so I kept loyal to MT long after everyone else switched platforms.
I don’t know what made me finally switch to wordpress. For one thing, I got tired of running the reload scripts every time you made a small change to your template, or blog content. I decided to give WordPress I try after a hosting provider took my site down. I wasn’t too impressed with WordPress at first, Movable Type still seemed far superiorly written with a much larger feature set at first.
When 2.0 was released, thats when I finally walked away from MT and never looked back…
My brother in-law and I still bicker over which platform is better to work with, wordpress or MT. I now say WP is far superior, but my bro in-law remains loyal to MT to this day even.
About the only thing MT has that WP doesn’t, is its CMS functionality, that was until bbpress came out, so I think both companies continue to fight against each other in terms of feature set, kinda like Mozilla and IE will always be rivals.
2 first times I tried to use it I wasn’t able to install it.
When I started really using it, I imported my blogspot posts and felt it damn hard to surpass what only many months later I discovered to be wpautop. It was a pain to write text without being able to jump paragraphs!
My first reaction?
“Whadda Piece of (BLEEP!)” 😯
I Kid…I Kid! 😛 😀 😉
Seriously. I started out waaaaaaaaaay back in 2006; you know, when most of you in here, were still diapers? *RimShot*
Anyhow, When I first stumbled onto Blogging, I was still running a website, that was created with….do I dare admit this?…. Microsoft Frontpage 2000. (So…totally old school!) It was a Christian site, that has sense gone the way of the wagon wheel. Anyhow, I stumbled over blogging, I thought it to be a fad, like everything else on the ‘Net.
Anyhow, I checked out WordPress. Although, I didn’t think much of it. I actually thought Matt to be a bit of an verdammtes Arschloch at the time. This was further enforced with a comment he made on my Blog. So, I ended up going over to Blogger. You see, I was not happy with not being able to advertise on WordPress.com. I also did not like the idea of my categories being ported through out the WordPress.com community.
Anyhow, I went to blogger for a few years, and finally one day, I got my own hosting. Got a domain and I was set, well, for a while anyhow. One day I had this idiotic idiot of putting Drupal in the main directory and running WordPress in a sub-directory.
One word: D’oh!
I got my crap hacked to heck and back…
So, I killed that domain and got much better hosting, got another domain and here I am. WordPress it is, until doomsday. For the record, I’ve since learned that Matt is not that bad of a person. He’s a good kid, but don’t tell him I said that, his head might swell up and he’ll never get outta that building he lives in. 😉
I guess my first reaction was “wow, this is way more complicated than I thought”!
I had been on Blogger for a year beforehand and I was making the big move to self-hosted WP. It was way above my skills though and I hated the way people in the WP forum replied. It seemed like according to them, only idiots didn’t know how to install WP and manage PHPMyAdmin. 😆
This was a long time ago… I love WP for its flexibility.
I still use blogger because of it´s cost/benefit, but frequently i found myself in need of some functionality that is already present on wordpress, natively or by plugin. Let´s see what´s google can do about that in the following years, but for something more serious wordpress is the platform.
At first look I found it unuseful, when I started using I looked at it as a little hard and strange system.
Now I say – great, just check my main website based on… WordPress.
Congratulations!
My first blog was using Joomla about 2 years ago. In 2009 i’ve tried WordPress for the first time, and my first reaction was “Wooww it’s so simple and easy..”
I started with Pivot and switched around 2004. They were pretty equal at that stage, but WordPress offered more themes and plugins, plus had a MySQL database.
I hoped Pivot would progress, but it hasn’t really. Might make an interesting study to examine why WordPress went ahead and others didn’t.
Mine is a pretty long journey!
Newspro(Perl) => Movable Type (Perl) => b2 (precursor to WordPress) => b2Evolution (a b2 fork) => WordPress – and this is for keeps!
S.K
I tried tinkering with Joomla but just didn’t get it. I was surprised how easy WordPress is to use. Much more user friendly to the novice. Actually yesterday I published a blog with a comparison of Joomla and WordPress, no doubt in my mind WordPress comes out on top.
Once upon a time I used MSN Spaces (nowadays renamed to “Windows Live Spaces) and moved over to Blogger/Blogspot. The difference between these two services was pretty use and, quite satisfied, I stayed with Blogger/Blogspot for a while. Sure, I tried other free services but never found anything that was as good. But after a while I wanted my own domain name and server space to play around with. Blogger/Blogspot didn’t suit my needs for that.
WordPress was the most famous blogging tool around so I decided to try it out. (Not the WordPress.com version, mind you.) And..? It simply blew me away! It had great options, had theme customization possibilities, had great admin interface and was quick. And that was before I saw all the great plug-ins, which made it even better. Since then I haven’t thought about trying anything else at all.
I came across WordPress via my job first actually.
I am the head of the digital department of a traditional publisher and when I got the job, all the websites were built in EpiServer, – a Swedish proprietary .Net platform. It was pretty obvious we needed a new system and open source was the obvious answer as we had seen the downside of being locked-in with a proprietary, small system not really scalable for large traffic numbers without getting stuck in paying high license fees and high consultancy costs.
Also, the web editors were complaining like crazy about it being slow and difficult to work with and when we chose WordPress as one of the open source systems to go ahead with, it was like going from hell to heaven.
Development time went down hysterically, costs as well. The web editors loved it and it was easy to educate them. Above all, the flexibility and extendability of WordPress with plugins is just amazing, so are the more advanced frameworks being developed now.
With the merge of WPMU and WP in 3.0 I think WordPress will be even more suitable as a light-weight CMS that is definitely enough for most needs if you are into publishing content.
Amazing system and really a game changer!
Abandoned B2 when WordPress was at the version 1.2 …haven’t looked back ever since. 🙂
I used GeoCities pre-Yahoo absorption and then eventually used Blogger for years. As my blog evolved and my visions for what I wanted out of it matured, I looked for an alternative…and found WordPress.
I wasn’t the most tech-savvy person when it comes to this sort of thing (hence using Blogger), but I wanted more control over my content and extensibility. I used the offering of having a WordPress volunteer install WP for free for me.
Once it was done, I found WP a little intimidating, so I defaulted back to Blogger. After WP 2.0 was out, I kept an eye on its development and last year upgraded my installation and gave it another go. It was like a whole new world opened up for me and I have gleefully not looked back since.
Very interesting discussion. I have an interesting story with wordpress.
I had been using this software called xsitepro prior to using it. It’s earlier versions were some resource intensive so one day my PC just hang using it. I switched to Dreamweaver and this on my Laptop and again some problems with my laptop. Well that was when I really felt need of a web based wysiwyg stuff- I wanted a CMS and blogs/blogging was something I used to think I would be the last person in the world to do.I loved static html sites. OK so, I gave it a thought and researched a lot and came across several CMS solutions and finally discovered there is nothing comparable to wpress – just nothing especially when it comes to ease and flexibility. And it can be made to look like a static site. That day and now – I can’t believe myself without using wordpress.
I’m a list person so here’s “10 ways that WordPress has changed my life”…
1) It’s the last thing I think about before going to sleep and the 1st thing on my mind when I wake up of a morning.
2) My sleeping patterns (or non sleeping patterns) have changed drastically – I now have to force myself to go to bed of an evening (or early morning) but getting out of bed has never been easier! (See #1).
2) WP has given me the tools to extend and expand the way that I share my uniqueness as a human being and individuality with the world.
3) I have lost interest in going to the rugby on Sundays and would much rather stay home and “Wordpress”. (Papua New Guinea Rugby is a must by the way).
4) It’s the highest my ISP and phone bill have ever been. (In Papua New Guinea dialup and timed calls remain the primary means of connecting to the Internet.
5) WordPress has allowed me to create websites using a blogging framework. (See website for Goroka General Hospital at http://www.ggh.org.pg).
6) Unfortunately, I have lost interest in sex. (My partner is starting to wander what the heck is going on and thinks I might be seeing another woman!).
7) I have started to learn CSS and PHP allowing me to further customise and enhance the experience of the reader/visitor.
8) I used to think that SEO was an acronym for a company executive.
9) It’s now only a matter of time before I develop my 1st WP plugin or WP theme (need to learn some more CSS and PHP first) and have started to question why we only have 24 hours in a day!
10) Have started to experience envy towards folks with easy access to WordCamp gatherings. I thought of perhaps organising a Papua New Guinea WordCamp but to the best of my knowledge there are no other self hosted WordPress bloggers in this part of the Pacific.
Warmest regards to other WordPress aficionados all the way from Goroka in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.
R
Haha, priceless. I love it. Great list!
Haha, that is a pretty neat list, very impressed 🙂
I was using blogger.com back then and I was “kinda” satisfied, but when I saw WordPress I literally said “Omg…wow” I could still remember the feeling and every wordpress release feels like that one. 🙂
I love WP
I started to use WordPress one year ago and I was blown away especially by the use of Plugins. I had been using osCommerce for many years as well as developing Dreamweaver Template sites. WordPress is now my platform of choice… I wrote more about this in a post called The WordPress Advantage.
I was using blogger and got a little flustered at first but I love it now…5 years or whatever it is later 🙂
I was blogging on myspace! I didn’t really care about audience or if I would ever show up on Google at the time. Then they started censoring all my links and I was just linking to political stuff about George Bush that maybe had cuss words. The hell with that. So I bought a domain and loaded WordPress and was blown away. I’m still using a crappy old theme but I’m learning more every day about WP potential.
I used to use Blogger, but I realized that the blog you build on someone elses domain is never a real asset. For whatever reason they can take it away from you, or charge you money for using it. So I switched to a self hosted WP blog, gives me more peace of mind (and more functionality too).
I’ve been running the SimplyDV website since 2002. It started as a static html site built in Adobe GoLive 4.0. I then migrated it page by page, image by image, to RapidWeaver for Mac (a sort of semi-dynamic pagebuilder that’s actually very good) but as 2009 was coming to an end I decided to switch the whole lot into WordPress and I’m so glad I did. I use a third-party theme (Mystique) and I’ve never known web publishing to be so easy!
The number of plugins means there’s one for just about anything you care to mention and the functionality makes WP ideal for the complete newbie to get up and running in an instant, whether self-hosting or WP hosting.
I’ve even managed to pursuade a die-hard Dreamweaver site-builder to switch!
I still use RapidWeaver with a third party RapidBlog plugin, but also observe a steady flow of former RapidWeaver users to WordPress, so my guess is WordPress is going to be my next and probably only logical step after RW.
I’ve not used any other blogging software so have no comparison, but there’s nothing about WordPress that would make me switch; it’s just so user friendly and the interface is simplistic.
Like many others, I started with a straight up html site and used page templates with the help of FrontPage, it was… relatively easy to maintain my websites, again like many others, I switched to php-Nuke, which was really super awesome. I played around with a lot of tools and my webhosting came with fantastico and simple scripts and I’ve played with many installations of drupal, joomla, nucleus, and wordpress. I’ve been on WordPress for 2 years now and I really love it. Though I have a paid Google Apps Premier account, I’ve even tried to compare the ‘Sites’ to WordPress, but alas, WordPress just won my heart. I think its the ease of use and the many people behind it that comforts me.
Great Post!
Back in 2008 was my first time using wordpress, I love it since then. Having so many cool plugins which can be integrated there, and the nice free themes available onlines are some of my reasons. The greatest thing is WordPress is so good in term of improving my traffic from time to time. So I still use it until now.
Back to 2005 i started a personal blog based on Microsoft software (ASP, ASP.NET, Internet Information Server, Windows servers, etc.). I didn’t jump to Linux box and I knew nothing about that environment.
My first experience was from DotNetNuke and Community Server. At that times they were an OUTSTANDING PIECE OF CRAP. Incredibly bad software , painful installation, complex configuration and lot , lot of problems. And I won’t dig about programming in such systems, it was simply awful. Also, you had to find your own way to migrate the data from version to version.
The things didn’t change a bit in the following years until 2007 I decided to learn some of Linux and give a try another options.
That’s was when I discover WordPress.
The first time I installed I remember saying to myself: ‘Installation in two minutes! Impossible, something has to be wrong!….’
I just simply can’t believe that a software could be configured and running in such amount of time. I was looking around the code , I saw PHP code and I was saying to my self ‘PHP looks like crap language (no much object oriented at that time) but IT WORKS! How can it be?’
That was the day when I learned something who many people should know. Many software from Windows evolves from version to version trashing the previous version and ‘starting from scratch’ to build another new one. The user/developer has to pay a high price for such decision, translated in trashing knowledge/learn a WHOLE new things, also a new universe of bugs coming along fromo version to version.
WordPress (as many Linux software) EVOLVES from version to version. It translates in ‘reuse what you know, and learn something more’. That’s the way I like it. That’s the reason I love WordPress.