Amanda Rush

This talk was given as part of a series of lightning talks at WordCamp San Francisco. Lightning talks were grouped in threes, and dealt with a particular topic, with each presenter spending five minutes elaborating on the theme that tied the session together. The above talk was given by Jennifer Bourn, who has also provided the slides and some deeper thoughts to go along with them.

Most of what’s covered here applies just as much to developers and implementers as it does to designers. We have to approach it a little differently, (we as developers, for example, can’t just tell our clients that this is bad code and shouldn’t be used, even though that is a factor), but these are still good principles to use when communicating with clients so that projects go smoothly and everybody is satisfied with the final outcome.

Code For The People is a six-person WordPress development agency based in the UK, known for their great service and the enterprise tools they’ve created. Automattic has acquired them and will be winding down the consulting part of their business as they join the WordPress.com VIP team to continue building the best tools and services for enterprises using WordPress.

Code for the People brings some unique qualities to the Automattic table, like developing WordPress solutions for government agencies and doing a lot of work on the multilingual front. They’re responsible for the development of Babbel.

Code For The People is coming to Automattic with a strong enterprise track record: it has already helped to build out sites for companies like IPC Media, which runs some 30 publications on WordPress; the Rolling Stones, and government agencies. The co-founders have a long history themselves of working not just in WordPress but also enterprises. Before starting Code For The People they cut their teeth at a range of businesses, including government organizations, to help them build sites. That expertise, and familiarity with the community of people working in those kinds of businesses today, will come in handy as this becomes an increasing focus for Automattic as it looks to grow its revenues.

“We have the largest and deepest audience profiles on the web.” — David Fleck, general manager of advertising at Disqus. Translation: We’re tracking everyone who visits a website with Disqus enabled and building a profile of them based on the content of the sites they visit and any comments they leave. “Deeper” than Facebook.

“So I’m particularly excited to announce that we’re bringing our native advertising product, Sponsored Comments, to the world of programmatic and we’re doing it on a global basis. […] Starting today, Xaxis clients, which include some of the best brands in the world, will buy and place Sponsored Comments advertising across much of the Disqus network.” Translation: It’s not comment spam if we’re getting paid for it.

The only thing that’s surprising about this is how long it took for sponsored comments to happen. One more reminder that if a service is free, you are not the customer, you are the product.

Via Matt

I was talking to my Mom while I was at WordCamp San Francisco, trying to explain what WordCamp and WordPress are in non-technical terms. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that not everybody’s a nerd. Here’s a non-tech wrap-up of what WordCamp is, and what WordPress is. This recap focuses more on the blogging track that took place on Sunday but gives a good overview of the whole thing.

I can’t say enough good things about WP Engine. I host all my sites with them, as well as some clients, and they’ve provided excellent customer service and support, even at the worst of times, not to mention doing an excellent job at providing everything they advertise. While I was at WordCamp San Francisco this weekend, they even helped with some support queries I had while they were manning their swag table and hosting a special episode of the Dradcast. They did this without my asking. I was speaking to a rep while walking around networking. The subject of how I like the service came up, and when I mentioned that I needed to file some tickets to get some issues looked into, the rep offered to let the table know I would be coming by later to get some help with support, and the table delivered on that offer promptly when I showed up.

Now, WP Engine is rolling out a new service: a new disaster-recovery option for automatically sending web traffic to an alternative data center in the event of a catastrophe at the data center they primarily use.

What this means is that if their servers go down, your site gets automatically routed to a backup copy with no more than a few minutes downtime so that your readers can still get to your content. It also means that maintenance can be performed when it’s needed, instead of having issues pile up until you get to the scheduled time for maintenance.

If you’re using your site to make money in any way, this is a feature you’ll definitely want to have at your disposal. It can mean the difference between gained versus lost clients. I hope my site never goes down, but this is the internet, and nothing can guarantee that your servers will be up all the time. Disasters also have a funny way of effecting things. Like a hurricane hits where your site’s hosted,knocks out the power, and poof, everything goes down. Or hardware fails in the server your site’s hosted on, and it goes down.So if it’s important to you that your content is reachable to your readers, and you don’t want to, (or can’t) manage your servers yourself, then give WP Engine a try. You have sixty days to get a complete refund if you’re not satisfied for any reason ith their services, or even if you find that their services are not for you.

The second day of WordCamp San Francisco was focused on two things: Blogging and contributing to WordPress. As part of the blogging track, Chris Lema gave a talk on how to build your brand with a blog. He’s shared the slides on his site, (which, if you’re not reading, you should be), and he’s also provided an accessible, text-only summary of the slides that made up his presentation. It’s some of the best blogging advice you’ll read when it comes to using your blog to further your business goals.

I was pleasantly surprised to watch as Chris did a sound check before his talk. I think his might have been the only talk before which that happened. That demonstrates attention to detail and is a real mark of professionalism.