CyberFootprint

WordPress has gone off the chain. According to yesterday’s official statement, the project has launched a beta version 3.0 and announced merging the regular .ORG mutation with WordPress MU. Reasons for that are more or less obvious. I would assume the WP MU didn’t manage to get out of the professional community and reach the masses. Even though more complex sites like TheNextWeb are running it as a primary engine, the MU platform probably didn’t get as much attention as its creators were hoping for.

Instead of beating a dead horse and trying to revive the MU, the programmers integrated a multiple blogs management system into the regular version. This feature, still in the state of development and testing, helps the content creators to centralise and simplify their blog management.

Another modification for the better is a new default theme bundled with the WordPress package. The developers have decided to use Twenty Ten. Looks neat, doesn’t it?

The next revolutionary change is creating Custom Post Type function that will turn WP into a more user-friendly content management system. By using templates for each post type, you can only focus on the content you want to share instead of the publishing itself. Once you define the type template, you are set. It looks so subtle, so what is so revolutionary about it?

Let’s say that WordPress has been regarded as a blogging platform. Some users utilised its full potential and used it as a full-fledged CMS to power their e-shops or vlogs but most people did not. Now, as the option has been added to the basic interface, we will see the increase of more versatile web sites and e-shops powered by WordPress. This move has positioned Matt’s product a step closer to a universal content management system.

Rolling out one feature after another, WordPress is still going strong, even though the critics are foretelling the doom of blogging and the shift of the audience towards social networks. The million dollar question is whether WordPress is rolling out features because it is popular software or because the amount of people blogging is declining.

Image credit: herzogbr