✔ The New York Times (www.nytimes.com/interactive/blogs/directory.html): Newspapers, magazines, and universities use WordPress to manage the blog sections of their websites. Another example is the Harvard Law School blog at http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/.
✔ Microsoft Windows (http://blogs.windows.com): Niche-specific blog networks use WordPress to manage the content they publish through various channels on their website about the Windows software – in multiple languages.
Chapter 2
WordPress Basics
In This Chapter
▶ Considering website types
▶ Finding out what WordPress technology can do for you
▶ Outlining your initial website plan
Alot happens behind the scenes to make your WordPress blog or website function. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to worry about what’s happening on the back end to manage and maintain a WordPress site – unless you really want to. In this chapter, I delve a little bit into the technology behind the WordPress platform, including a brief look at PHP and MySQL, two software components required to run WordPress.
This chapter also covers some of the various technologies that help you on your way to running a successful website, such as the use of comments and RSS feed technology, as well as information about combating spam.
Shining the Spotlight on WordPress
Publishing content and blogging is an evolutionary process, and blogs have evolved beyond personal diaries and journals. Undoubtedly, a blog is a fabulous tool for publishing your personal diary of thoughts and ideas; however, blogs also serve as excellent tools for business, editorial journalism, news, and entertainment. Sometimes, you will find standalone blogs where that is all the website has to offer; other times you will find a full website that contains a blog, but has other offerings as well (products for sale, memberships, newsletters, forums, and so on). Here are some ways that people use blogs and websites powered by WordPress:
✔ Personal: This type of blogger creates a blog as a personal journal or diary. You’re considered a personal blogger if you use your blog mainly to discuss topics that are personal to you or your life – your family, your cats, your children, or your interests (for example, technology, politics, sports, art, or photography). My blog, which you can find at http://lisasabin-wilson.com, is an example of a personal blog.
✔ Business: This type of blogger uses the power of blogs to promote a company’s business services, products on the Internet, or both. Blogs are very effective tools for promotion and marketing, and business blogs usually offer helpful information to readers and consumers, such as tips and product reviews. Business blogs also let readers provide feedback and ideas, which can help a company improve its services. ServerBeach is a good example of a business that keeps a blog on the hosted WordPress.com service at https://serverbeach.wordpress.com.
✔ Media/journalism: More and more popular news outlets, such as Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, have added blogs to their websites to provide information on current events, politics, and news on regional, national, and international levels. These news organizations often have editorial bloggers as well. Reader’s Digest is an example of such a publication – its WordPress-powered site can be found at www.rd.com.
✔ Citizen journalism: The emergence of citizen journalism coincided with the swing from old media to new media. In old media, the journalists and news organizations direct the conversation about news topics.
With the popularity of blogs and the millions of bloggers who exploded onto the Internet, old media felt a change in the wind. Average citizens, using the power of their voices on blogs, changed the direction of the conversation. Citizen journalists often fact-check traditional media news stories and expose inconsistencies, with the intention of keeping the media or local politicians in check. An example of citizen journalism is the Power Line blog at www.powerlineblog.com.
✔ Professional: This category of blogger is growing every day. Professional bloggers are paid to blog for individual companies or websites. Blog networks, such as Scientific American (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com), have a full network of staff blogs. Also, several services match advertisers with bloggers so that the advertisers pay bloggers to make blog posts about their products. Is it possible to make money as a blogger? Yes, and making money at blogging has become common these days. If you’re interested in this type of blogging, check out Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger blog at www.problogger.net. Darren is considered the grandfather of all professional bloggers.
Dipping into WordPress Technologies
The WordPress software is a personal publishing system that uses a PHP and MySQL platform. This platform provides everything you need to create your own website and publish your own content dynamically, without having to know how to program those pages yourself. In short, all your content is stored in a MySQL database in your hosting account.
Every time a visitor goes to your website to read your content, he makes a request that’s sent to a host server. The PHP programming language receives that request, obtains the requested information from the MySQL database, and then presents the requested information to your visitor through his web browser.
In using the term content as it applies to the data that’s stored in the MySQL database, I’m referring to your posts, pages, comments, and options that you set up in the WordPress Dashboard. The theme (design) you choose to use for your website – whether it’s the default theme, one you create for yourself, or one that you have custom designed – isn’t part of the content, or data, stored in the database assigned to your website. Those files are part of the file system and aren’t stored in the database. So create and keep a backup of any theme files that you’re using. See Part IV for further information on WordPress theme management.
Packaged within the WordPress software is the capability to maintain chronological and categorized archives of your publishing history, automatically. WordPress uses PHP and MySQL technology to sort and organize everything you publish in an order that