ARTICLES FOR WEBMASTERS 
 A Complete Profile of WordPress, Past and Present
WordPress is
commonly used by bloggers, and in recent years its
user-friendly interface has led to widespread creation of entire,
fully-functional websites. While the platform is synonymous with
“Web 2.0” interactivity—supporting comments, easy linking, and social
networking—it did not start this way.
WordPress’ beginnings date back to a niche blogging platform called
“b2/cafelog” according to WPCandy.com, a site dedicated to “everything
WordPress.” The platform, commonly shortened to simply “b2,” was
launched in 2001 and enjoyed a two-year run. In 2003, when it was
announced that the b2 blogging platform would cease operations, Matt
Wullenweg decided he would use the openly available b2 codebase as the
groundwork for a new blogging platform to be called WordPress.
Shortly after announcing his plans to build on the b2 code, Matt
Wullenweg was contacted by Mike Little and a partnership emerged.
A little later in the development WordPress, Michael Valdrighi, the
original creator of b2, also stepped in to work on the project.
Created by this powerhouse team of bloggers and coders, a functional
beta version of WordPress was quickly created and made available in May
of 2003 according to WordPressThemesMarket.com. While this beta version
was praised as highly functional and relatively bug-free, it still took
until 2004 for a fully released alpha version to become available.
Over the years, WordPress has been upgraded from its initial b2
roots. With its 2004 alpha release, WordPress became more
functional, complete with easier link capabilities and intuitive
comment features to encourage networking and collaboration between
bloggers. In 2007, the system received a facelift, featuring a
newly designed interface and increased editing user-friendliness.
In 2008 the platform saw another interface upgrade, revamping the
administrative tools to better suit Web 2.0 blogging needs and even
more increased user-friendly functionality.
With its current version, similar in appearance to the 2008 release,
WordPress offers users the ability to manage blog postings as well as
page updates from a user-friendly, point-and-click “dashboard.”
The dashboard centralizes WordPress administrative tasks in one area,
with several collapsible menus appearing on the side of the
screen. Users can navigate through different screens for content
uploading and editing content, as well as comprehensive tagging,
linking, and comment moderation. The WordPress dashboard also
features a built-in traffic counter with detailed statistics.
Bloggers using the WordPress platform are thereby able to see how many
visitors they receive in a day, month, or year, as well as what
clickable sources refer the most visitors.
While WordPress was initially developed as a blogging platform, its
advanced features have rendered it usable for full-fledged website
creation. RSS blog feeds are still a standard feature on many
websites created by WordPress, but the “pages” function allows users to
also create static pages utilizing the same editing tools commonly used
during blog “post” creation. Users are able to seamlessly work
between pages and posts using the same interface on the WordPress
dashboard, adding website text, graphics, sound, and even videos at the
click of a button.
Fortunately, the overall shift from simple blogging to more complex,
holistic web design has not compromised WordPress’ easy
customization. With WordPress’ so-called “intelligent text
formatting,” text and images inserted into the WordPress dashboard do
not need to be reformatted if the website owner decides to change the
WordPress template. Users are able to continually upgrade page
aesthetics and content without compromising past work, making the
platform ideal for rapidly growing, ever-changing businesses or
personal websites.
Those interested in using this popular platform, taking advantage of
its functionality and ever-growing list of features, can do so for
free. WordPress.com allows users to create free blogs and pages
within the WordPress.com domain; however, you’re not limited to using
the WordPress.com URL. If you have your own domain name and
reliable web hosting, you can use the open source WordPress platform on
your page. You can add the WordPress platform to any webpage
using PHP 4.3 or greater or MySQL 4.0 or greater. Many popular
web hosting companies offer one-click WordPress platform installation,
and many others can add the platform with just a little administrative
technical assistance.
Overall, the platform’s rich history of continual upgrading, open
blogger collaboration, and increased user-friendless has led WordPress
to become “the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on
millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day”
according to WordPress.org. It is widely used for its many
positive features, and it will likely remain a dominant force in the
blog marketplace for years to come.
References:
About WordPress
Features
Requirements
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