So Jeff wants to know how WordPress will die. Well, seeing as he asked, I will tell you. WordPress is already dead, its just that no one has noticed yet.
WordPress lives and dies by two things, developers and themers (and in the best of worlds those who are both). Sure users are important, but they will be the last to leave and will mask the process as they each follow development on their own pet feature to platform x until the lights get turned off by the last one out.
There is an element of chicken and egg in this, but on the whole the developers will leave before the users do. They will leave for a few good reasons.
They will find a platform that does things in a way that is familiar but easier. For this to happen a platform needs to exist that has as similar ethos, but with a more planned approach. It needs to offer similar methods but with less code, for example, hooks that don’t require you to connect the function to the filter. It also needs to offer consistency of processes so that once you grok the concept, you grok the platform.
When you look at some of the Wordpress developments, Buddy Press really springs to mind here, you can see one huge avenue out for developers looking to develop their own user driven sites. Find a platform that is similar to WordPress but has been designed from the ground up with modularity in mind and you find a platform that is more extensible. Imagine a blog platform with a strong user access system, a simple way to add new content types, the ability to add any extra to any of the core object types (posts, users, comments), a simple system for adding new rewrite rules, built in form handling, a theming system that either enforces MVC or offers multiple templating systems, and you start to see a blogging system that also offers great potential for expansion. If that system is relatively new and offers developers the chance to become a big fish in a small pond, very quickly you will find developers flocking to it.
Throw in the chance to be heard, which really is lacking within the core WordPress development and you start to ask why anyone would stay with WordPress, not just why someone might leave it.
Of course, so much of this applies to themers as well. I have recently heard people say that WordPress really needs a templating system. A platform that offers multiple ways to build a theme must have an advantage over one that offers only one. Big fish little fish also applies to themes as much as to development. Want to be a big player in the community? find a smaller community and get in there first. produce something that is good enough and the users will come. Take the lessons learned with WordPress and make something better.
A platform that was similar enough to WordPress to be easy to understand, use and theme, but which offered very little in the way of competition, easier development, and possibly most importantly, no GPL, would surely appeal to the best and brightest out there.
WordPress is already dying in my book. Platform X exists already and Wordpress is catering more and more for the beyond mainstream. Not the early adopters, not the ‘ooh a new thing’ fans, not the established bloggers with a little tech savvy, not even the established bloggers with no tech savvy, but the bloggers who a year ago would have pointed toward WordPress.com, or maybe even MSN Spaces (or whatever they are called if they still exist). It is just a matter of time before the cool kids look for something new.
Well I dont think I would switch – at least not easily. Especially not if the new platform is not GPL. I feel comfortable within Wordpress and the functionality that it offers today.
Hehe.. hadn't actually bothered to take a look at habari-fun.co.uk until just now ;) so nr. 1 is a good reasen :)
Concerning reason #2, I am noticing more and more developers starting to move away from Joomla! and Drupal to focus on WordPress and nothing that might indicate developers are turning away.
That said, it's a good point you make and one to be on the lookout for. I for one would care..
No, for two reasons.
1) Have you visited habari-fun.co.uk?
2) While this may seem like one big plug for Habari, I didn't mention the name because it was meant to be one more comment in the ongoing debate about the general philosophy of WordPress. Identifying what other platforms do better and where the losses will come allows use to ask the question, do we care if developers leave WordPress? If they like something else better is it our loss? Are we comfortable that this or that group of users will leave or are they no longer the core market etc. I don't think it would be relevant to write a self-congratulatory post about how Habari is going to steal all the WordPress users, but it is reasonable to point out that WordPress may start to lose some.
Having said all that: good point.
Shouldn't you by now Rebrand this blog to Habari-fun.co.uk? ;)
Great post Andrew.
As you may have noticed, I have taken a break from most things WordPress (okay, all things). This would be the perfect time for me to jump to something new. However, WordPress is what I know best, and I'm hesitant to try new things until they are “forced” upon me.
That's true, I did just describe a lot. Very few of them are even close to being as usable as WordPress. All the fancy goodies in the world matter not a jot if the fundamentals aren't there.
For me the reason WordPress has done so well is because it is quite obvious how things work. It is easy to write plugins and themes for, doesn't require you to learn some excruciating template language; in short it is great for people to learn with. I learned my PHP by learning how to build on WordPress.
That really is the key to any platform that wants to compete. It must be similar enough to WordPress to be quite easy to use, it must take on those accessibility points, while doing all the other things as well. I would go so far as to say that right now, any platform that really wants to compete needs to use similar terminology and ideas to WordPress, for example, they must have hooks, and probably need to call them actions and filters.
A new platform must be WordPress with extras, without sacrificing a significant amount of simplicity, and that isn't an easy thing to do.
Database abstraction, template system, fully OO, MVC enforced, 100% modular — you just described half a dozen platforms that got started about the same time as WordPress, and countless hundreds that have started since.
I don't know the exact reasons why WP has done as well as it has (though timing and luck is definitely part of it) but I think there's something to be said about accessibility vs “what's right” from a stereotypical Reddit/Slashdot/Digg coder's point of view. Worse is better.
Also many times bad code means bad scalability, but WP's simple approach has been shown to scale. We're currently tracking over 2 billion WP-powered pageviews per month, and that's just from people using the stats plugin.
I would switch… but then I'm yet to see a perfect platform that does everything I need it to do. That's why we still have to chose what is the best tool to do the good job for the project we're working on. There's no such thing as a perfect CMS, depending on the project requirements I'm deciding on which CMS would be most suitable.
+1 to the monkey.
That's one of the key drawbacks of WordPress. It's history gives it flight but also drags it down. Something coded now that learns the lessons of WordPress can really improve things.
The important thing about X is whether, if all those features existed in one platform, you would switch?
TBPTSNBN strikes again!
hmm, interesting. I recently attended a seminar called Future of Web Development, there was lots of talk about CMS and what/who they should cater to, etc.
Wordpress definitely has its limitations, but then it hasn't been built as being a sophisticated CMS in the first place.
I'm too curious to find out more about your mysterious 'platform X'. Which of the current platforms is closer to all the things you've mentioned in this post?
Recent events would suggest otherwise.
Platform X is my own platform of choice for the comparison. It doesn't matter what it is so much as it matters that it exists.
A platform that is not GPL would not appeal to the best and brightest. Those people recognize that the GPL has their best interests at heart by ensuring the technology remains open for all forms of learning, experimentation, customization and growth.
What is this mysterious 'platform X' that you mention? I'd love to see it's feature list and a comparison of how it stacks up.