According to a study by Pingdom, WordPress is now responsible for powering 48 of the top 100 blogs!
We already know that WordPress powers about 19% of the web, but now we know just how well it fares as a blogging platform in general. Pretty well, that is! Out of the top 100 blogs surveyed, WordPress is just 1 of 12 platforms used, and it’s powering 48 of the them! As a comparison, the next highest result were the 12 blogs running on a custom platform, followed by 8 who declined to comment, and finally 7 running Movable Type.
Yes, you read that right. Of the mainstream blogging platforms used by the top 100, WordPress comes in first with 48, followed by Movable Type with 7. That’s quite a substantial lead!
Matt Mullenweg expects an even higher adoption rate for WordPress next year, and with these numbers, it’s hard to dispute that.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogtoolscollection/UXMP/~4/4mqsiEBQBjw)
by James at April 14, 2012 02:00 PM under stats
Users use the same passwords for multiple services. It’s a fact of life, it’s just so easy to that most people end up having 2-3 passwords they use everywhere, including one “hard” one for financial sites, etc. The downside is your password is only strong as the weakest link of where you’ve used it — when something like the Gawker hack happens there is a huge wave of compromised accounts that follow.
You can ask users not to use the same password, you can even encourage things like 1password (too expensive for many people I recommend it to), but what if there was a way to enforce that people registering for your site hadn’t used the same password elsewhere?
It actually wouldn’t be too hard, if you’re registering with 123@gmail.com and the password “abc” when you register and the site hasn’t encrypted and stored the password yet it could try to log into your Gmail account with those details, and if it works force you to choose a different password. There’s no reason this has to be limited to email logins, you could put it against the APIs of WordPress.com, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, any number of other services that expose simple authentication APIs and see where it works. Any successful logins, tell the user they need to pick something else.
Of course all that work and they’ll probably just put a 1 at the end of it.
by Matt at April 13, 2012 02:07 PM under Ideas
![birdtips](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://weblogtoolscollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/birdtips.jpg)
BirdTIPS is a flexible three-column blog theme.
![lyric](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://weblogtoolscollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/lyric.jpg)
Lyric is a simple, soft, professional, yet lightly colorful theme.
![target](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://weblogtoolscollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/target.jpg)
Target is a very neat and clean black and white business theme.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogtoolscollection/UXMP/~4/SWvUq7WoOGo)
by James at April 13, 2012 02:00 PM under wordpress themes
VaultPress is a cool security service by Automattic, but if you take a look at the pricing and plans, some may think that this is the luxury line of data safekeeping. However, tons of people that have had to utilize the restoration feature of VaultPress say it’s worth every penny. Boles University.com has a non-profit WordPress multi-site installation with about 14 sub-domains under its belt. VaultPress supports multi-site but if the subscription is for the main site, only the main sites files and data will be backed up, sub-sites will be ignored. In order to backup everything, each site within the multi-site installation needs their own individual subscription. As you can imagine, it wouldn’t take long for that to be expensive. As David W Boles points out in his article, it would be nice to see VaultPress come up with some sort of plan that allows non-profits the ability to backup their main site along with their satellite sites for a much more affordable price. I’m not sure how VaultPress would be able to verify whether a multi-site installation is non-profit or not without paperwork validation but it certainly seems like this is a missed oppurtunity market segment for VaultPress.
This is the world of WordPress which means there are alternatives when it comes to safekeeping your data. A relatively new service called BackupPress performs many of the same functions as VaultPress but at a much more affordable price. In fact, taking a look at their comparison page, they support WordPress multi-site at just 25$ per year. At the time of publishing this article, I couldn’t locate any specific text that states restrictions similar to VaultPress in that each sub-domain within a multi-site network would need it’s own subscription. Hopefully, a representative from the service will stop by the comments section and fill us in on the details.
Related posts:
- VaultPress Now Supports WordPress Multisite
- VaultPress Issues First Set Of Invites
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/31ZuSiB32wI)
by Jeffro at April 13, 2012 01:00 PM under vaultpress
WordPress 3.4 Beta 2 has been released. Since the first beta, there have been over 60 bug fixes and adjustments based on testing a feedback.
As before, this is not yet meant for live sites, but please do take a few swings at it on a test installation, especially if you are a plugin or theme developer. If you find any bugs, please report them, and contact the support forums if you need any help.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogtoolscollection/UXMP/~4/Dl7jWegLC8w)
by James at April 12, 2012 02:00 PM under wordpress 3.4
I loved this comment on Hacker News, especially the last paragraph which I’ll quote here:
The question implicit in your comment is: Could we design a system that offers the ease of accessibility of the first few steps of a PHP programmer’s career but, as one climbs the learning curve, eventually blossoms into Python or Ruby or even Lisp? I wish I knew. My best guess as of this morning is that a demigod could design such a system, but it’s very difficult for mortal humans to do so, because once you know how to program it’s hard to avoid overdesigning, putting in things that will eventually be useful in year two but are discouraging in year zero. We make terrible pedagogical mistakes, like turning everything into an object. (Does your ORM seem intuitive to you? That is why PHP is beating your system in the marketplace.)
by Matt at April 12, 2012 01:51 PM under Asides
Howdy, folks! Another week, another beta. Since we released Beta 1 last week, we’ve committed more than 60 bug fixes and feature adjustments based on testing and feedback. If you’ve been testing Beta 1, please update to Beta 2 to make sure things are still working for you. If you are a theme or plugin author and have not yet started testing your code against the 3.4 beta, now’s the perfect time to start. And as always, if you find any bugs, let us know! Full details on testing and bug reporting can be found in last week’s Beta 1 post.
Download WordPress 3.4 Beta 2
by Jane Wells at April 12, 2012 03:52 AM under beta
Pingdom writes WordPress completely dominates top 100 blogs. I’m quoted in the article saying that the 49% marketshare we have among top blogs will continue to grow, and I’d like to expand on that a bit because it’s a strong statement.
Typepad and Blogsmith, the two platforms that dropped the most over the past 3 years, are going to disappear either through blogs still using them losing relevance, or their active blogs switching away. Movable Type will likely follow suit, unless its now Japanese-led development makes a pretty drastic change in its product direction. (Consultants focused on Movable Type and Typepad have already started shifting focus to switching their clients to modern platforms to avoid losing the relationship.)
The other big shift will come from the ~22% on custom platforms — this is going to become as niche as writing your own web server instead of using Apache or Nginx. Some organizations like Huffington Post might continue to make the necessary investments of over 40 engineers to maintain a platform at scale, the rest will find better return investing those resources in editorial. Great stories find an audience regardless of their platform.
WordPress’ biggest challenge over the next two years, and where we’re focusing core development, will be around evolving our dashboard to be faster and more accessible, especially on touch devices. Many of our founding assumptions about how, where, and why people publish are shifting, but the flexibility of WordPress as a platform and the tens of thousands of plugins and themes available are hard to match. We might not always be the platform people start with, but we want to be what the best graduate to.
by Matt at April 11, 2012 04:37 PM under Asides
New plugins
Sharexy is a powerful social sharing, bookmarking, and blog monetization tool.
WP Social Feedback allows your users to submit feedback, view what other users have submitted and vote on other feedback submissions.
WP Visited Countries allows you to easily create and publish a map of the countries you have visited and lived in.
Updated plugins
Bulk Delete lets you to delete posts in bulk from selected categories, tags, or custom taxonomies.
Posts 2 Posts allows you to create many-to-many connections between posts of all kinds.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogtoolscollection/UXMP/~4/-TTk7btYNps)
by James at April 11, 2012 02:00 PM under WordPress
WordPress has a reputation of being very portable but after reading a recent article on WPGarage.com, there is a certain condition in which the data in WordPress can become non-portable. It has to do with the serialization of data. However, they offer up a few different ways in which to deal with the problem so that you don’t lose data via a database dump.
No related posts.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/H7lyEQCmo-M)
by Jeffro at April 11, 2012 01:00 PM under serialize
In mid-January Mark Zuckerberg added me as a friend on Instagram (we’re also connected on Facebook), I grabbed this screenshot a few weeks later because I thought it might be interesting at some point:
![IMG_4279](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://s.ma.tt/files/2012/04/IMG_4279.png)
Today the awesome news, for both Facebook and Instagram, comes that the Instagram team and product is being acquired. This is one of the first acquisitions (if not the first?) Facebook has made where they don’t plan to shut down the service, and it’s a testament to what Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger and his team have built. (Friendfeed is still running, but that doesn’t count.) It’s good to see old Pier 38 neighbors doing well.
by Matt at April 09, 2012 07:20 PM under Asides
![shade](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://weblogtoolscollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/shade.jpg)
Shade is a simple theme with a charcoal gray background and an accent color that is available in four color variations: blue, red, green and yellow.
![universalweb](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://weblogtoolscollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/universalweb.jpg)
Universal Web is a universal, modern, and very functional theme with optimized/light code.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogtoolscollection/UXMP/~4/urUUyrFyGZk)
by James at April 09, 2012 02:00 PM under wordpress themes
For the second time in two years, Dan Tynans website, eSarcasm.com has been hacked, this time with code that redirected referrals from Google, Yahoo and other search engines to Viagra ad sites. After conducting a thorough security review with Code Garage.com, an online security scanning website similar to Securi, they discovered that the point of entry was with the zero-day Timthumb vulnerability discovered back in August of 2011.
Last August, a zero-day vulnerability affected TimThumb that allowed hackers to execute their PHP code on any site that was running it. As it turns out, the WordPress theme we bought for the site employs pieces of TimThumb code — including the flaws that were exploited.
Now we have to wait for the spammy search results to evaporate from Google’s cache before everything returns to normal.
Be sure to read the tips that Dan and his security adviser provides on protecting your site. Despite the vulnerability being patched soon after its discovery, sites are still becoming compromised. Because of the long tail effect and so many websites using WordPress these days, who knows when this point of entry will stop being taken advantage of.
No related posts.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/cqu36nohqNM)
by Jeffro at April 09, 2012 01:00 PM under security timthumb
Make Waves is on its way to enlist 500 people to give back to WordPress in 2012, and if you’re curious about how you can be a part of that, don’t miss How to Give Back to WordPress from Automattic‘s own Jane Wells on Tuesday, April 10 from 2 to 3 PM CDT.
The webinar will cover ways for any WordPress user to help make WordPress the greatest blogging platform of all time. This isn’t just for developers. Even if you only blog with WordPress, there are plenty of ways that you could give back to WordPress, and Jane Wells will cover them all.
If you’re ready to give back to WordPress, take the Make Waves 2012 Pledge now!
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogtoolscollection/UXMP/~4/PJrxV4299sg)
by James at April 08, 2012 02:00 PM under webinar
A good example showcasing the is_plugin_active conditional statement that saved Peter from a whole lot of donkey work. All it took was 12 lines of code.
No related posts.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/BvjHk0eiLdU)
by Jeffro at April 06, 2012 05:00 PM under statements
WordPress 3.4 Beta 1 has been released. As always, this is still in development and not meant for use on live sites, but the team is planning for a final release in May if all goes as planned.
This beta includes a few notable additions over the current stable release, including a new theme customizer and previewer, the ability to select header and background images from the library, support for flexible custom header image sizes, and a much improved theme browser with the ability to install child themes from the official directory.
This is not yet meant for live sites, but please do take a few swings at it on a test installation. If you find any bugs, please report them, and contact the support forums if you need any help.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogtoolscollection/UXMP/~4/Alzthss6Bj0)
by James at April 05, 2012 09:45 PM under wordpress 3.4
In what seems like forever since the last major release of WordPress, 3.4 Beta 1 has been released. You should know the routine by now. Don’t run beta software in a production environment. Instead, set up a local install or a mirrored copy somewhere else for testing. If you encounter a situation that you think is a bug, you can use the methods described within this Codex article to report it.
If you decide to give WordPress 3.4 Beta 1 a whirl, here are a couple of things to take a closer look at.
- Theme Customizer with Previewer
- Flexible Custom Header Sizes
- Selecting Custom Header and Background Images from Media Library
- Better experience searching for and choosing a theme
If you noticed that these all appear to be improvements around themes, there is a reason for that. Back in early January when the scope for WordPress 3.4 was being discussed, the overall theme (pardon the pun) for this release centered around the sites appearance.
The idea is that a combination of front-end features, dashboard features, and under-the-hood improvements all tied to managing your site’s appearance will be the focus of 3.4. It will also include smaller things that don’t live in the appearance section but are related to the overarching goal, such as making it possible to have links in image captions.
Speaking of links within image captions, this functionality should be in 3.4 beta 1 and is something I, and many others have wanted within WordPress for a long time. This little addition will make it a breeze to add attribution to images when performing an image only post. There are under the hood improvements as well but what I’ve covered here should be a good start.
No related posts.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~4/NqpNZ8jbZ78)
by Jeffro at April 05, 2012 04:49 PM under themes scope
![ascetica](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://weblogtoolscollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ascetica.png)
Ascetica is a simple portfolio and blog theme with a responsive layout, sticky posts slider, and a widget for presenting your work.
![reno](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://weblogtoolscollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/reno.png)
Reno has a color scheme usually associated with building trades and a leather texture background.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120415010659im_/http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogtoolscollection/UXMP/~4/wdStZ19PAkM)
by James at April 05, 2012 03:30 PM under wordpress themes
WordPress 3.4 is ready for beta testers!
As always, this is software still in development and we don’t recommend that you run it on a production site — set up a test site just to play with the new version. If you break it (find a bug), please report it, and if you’re a developer, try to help us fix it.
If all goes well, we hope to release WordPress 3.4 in May. The more help we get with testing and fixing bugs, the sooner we will be able to release the final version. If you want to be a beta tester, you should check out the Codex article on how to report bugs.
Here’s some of what’s new:
- Theme Customizer with Previewer
- Flexible Custom Header Sizes
- Selecting Custom Header and Background Images from Media Library
- Better experience searching for and choosing a theme
And some of the under-the-hood changes:
- New XML-RPC API for external and mobile applications
- New API for registering theme support for custom headers and backgrounds
- Performance improvements to WP_Query by splitting the query (Please test!)
- Internationalization improvements (improved performance and locale support)
- Performance and API improvements when working with lists of installed themes
- Support for installing child themes from the WordPress Themes Directory
Remember, if you find something you think is a bug, report it! You can bring it up in the alpha/beta forum, you can email it to the wp-testers list, or if you’ve confirmed that other people are experiencing the same bug, you can report it on the WordPress Core Trac. (We recommend starting in the forum or on the mailing list.)
Theme and plugin authors, if you haven’t been following the 3.4 development cycle, please start now so that you can update your themes and plugins to be compatible with the newest version of WordPress.
Download WordPress 3.4 Beta 1
by Jane Wells at April 05, 2012 02:07 AM under Releases
WordCamp San Francisco 2012 will be on August 4, 2012. The location is the same as the last few years, the Mission Bay Conference Center.
by Joseph Scott at April 04, 2012 08:15 PM under wordpress