One driving force in the popularity of blogs is in the simplicity of the newest software designed specifically for blogging.

In the early days of web hosting, if you wanted to keep an online journal, you simply purchased a standard shared web hosting account and used an html editor to create your journal entries one by one. Fast forward to today, and the act of creating an online journal or blogging has become immensely popular. One driving force in the popularity of blogs is in the simplicity of the newest software designed specifically for blogging. These types of software packages take all of the mundane tasks out of the online journal - and leave the essence: writing the blog entries and creating the tags and topics.

One blog software package that has grown enormously in the past couple of years is WordPress. WordPress blogging software was created in 2003 as a joint effort between developers Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. The open source system was written in PHP and uses a SQL database. What makes WordPress so powerful and attractive is its ease of use.

Here is a true story to illustrate that point. Several years ago I was working together with George Roberts on the web hosting industry’s biggest trade show, HostingCon. As we met at the venue a day or two before the event started, George suggested that I assist the show attendees (and those who couldn’t attend) by keeping a web log (blog) of the activities at the show. I agreed that this was a great idea. I quickly learned that George wanted me to use a new and unfamiliar publishing tool to create the blog entries - WordPress. Being a veteran editor and publisher I wasn’t really worried about learning a new publishing software, but I suspected that I would need a good tutorial to get going on it. George was completely swamped with the details of the show and when it came time for him to explain WordPress to me, our conversation went something like this:

Derek: ”So George, how do I log in to…”

George (in a HUGE hurry): ”Log in like this. Your titles go here - the body goes there. Remember to add tags that make sense.”

Derek: ”What about linking and html code and…”

George (interrupting): ”Click the link button - here. Okay, I gotta go. Thanks!”

Derek (yelling after George as he’s running out the door): ”But what if I have any questions?”

George: ”You’ll figure it out!”

That was it. My first tutorial on WordPress lasted, hmmmm, about 1 minute 30 seconds. So, of course I was horrified. There was no need to panic at all. After a couple of very minor oversights, I was whipping blog entries out as fast as I could conjure them up. The learning curve was basically nil. Therein lies the benefit of WordPress to any web publisher (especially a novice).

I caught up with George to get his take on WordPress now that he’s been using it for over three years. Here’s what George had to say about why he selected WordPress for his blogging needs, ”When we were seeking out software to run the HostingCon and Easy Antispam blogs, we looked for something that was written in PHP, since that is our language of choice, something that was also flexible and looked to have a good community around it. WordPress seemed to lead the pack in these criteria.”