Today is the Unofficial International WordPress Day, Where WP Candy is asking everyone to blog about WordPress in order to show their appreciation. For me, I think this blog says enough, so I want to talk about loyaly, or lack thereof.
Are you a WordPress fan boy? Do you own the t-shirt, pen and mug? Do you answer every blog post that relates to a blogging problem with the words: ‘If you used WordPress you wouldn’t be having that problem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’?
If so you probably don’t need to answer the question I am going to ask; we already have the answer. For everyone else though I think it is a reasonable question.
My question to you is: Where do your loyalties lie? or to put it another way: what would make you switch away from WordPress?
For me the answer is simple: If something better came along.
I’ve been blogging about WordPress for 9 months. In that time (and the few weeks prior) I have learned how to write plugins, how to produce themes, how to write patches for the core (and submitted a new feature which may one day see the light of day), it really isn’t a big problem to do that again with something else.
Whether I would get up the enthusiasm for it that I have, and have had, for WordPress is doubtful, but of course a new project brings the chance to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond and there are advantages to that. How many blogs are dedicated to Habari? How many podcasts?
The WordPress community is fantastic, but as it becomes more and more ‘premium’ it also gets less and less interesting. I love the idea of a tavern full of WordPressers quaffing ale together after a hard days work but I’m not so keen on a square full of stall holders who are more concerned with getting the best spot to sell their wares.
The fact of the matter is that WordPress holds my interest because I believe it is the best platform with the best community, but for all the plugins I have written, the blog posts I have commented on, and the podcasts I have occasionally managed to stay up for, it is self-interest, or rather that I am interested in doing these things at the moment, that keeps me coming back and when these are gone, then so am I.
So what is it about WordPress that keeps me here now? Simplicity and ease of use.
What would turn me away? If WordPress becomes the Flock of the blogging world, if it becomes a tool for technicians, if it becomes to bulky, if it uses new technology for the sake of it, or fails to keep up with new technology that can be a benefit. and of course if it changes its name to WrdPrss to be all 2.0.
What about you? Are you loyal or would you switch away without looking back? And if so what would make you walk away?
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I might walk away for a system with a decent online editor. It’s the main interface that a blogger uses, yet it gets the least attention. It is incredibly ironic to me that in this age where people are considering moveing their desktop apps online, we are foreced to move what should be an online app to the desktop. You can edit a word processing doc or spreadsheet on google but you have to edit you blog with MarsEdit or whatever. Weird.
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I’m not sure I can say what would make me walk away from WordPress but I know what makes me stay: trying out various CMS systems what don’t even come close to WPs ease of use, if I can’t figure out how to add a page to the menu of a site I wouldn’t expect customers to use it. I recently had to update a clients TypePad based blog, I found the admin to be a chaotic mess and changing a template seemed to require republishing the entire site. It felt like software that had grown without direction. I like WPs admin, it’s simple and it makes sense, if it ever stopped making sense then I’d leave.