It’s no secret that I love WordPress. A lot. I use WordPress as the Content Management System (CMS) for the sites I develop, including this site. It’s stable, easy to use, and very flexible. Plus, with all the developers working on adding functionality to the system, there’s plugins for just about any business. I just love WordPress!
Starting today, I’ve decided to do a weekly feature about WordPress. I’ll discuss anything related to WordPress – general features, how to maximize your marketing using WordPress, interesting new plugins, and case studies of how other local businesses are using WordPress to power their web presence. I’m going to call it “WordPress Wednesday” and I hope you enjoy digesting the content as much as I enjoy generating it.
To start off, I wanted to talk about the latest version of WordPress, version 2.9, that just came out on December 19th. You can view a short video of what’s included in this update here:
There’s some great new features in WordPress 2.9, but here are my favorites:
- Batch Upgrade: Now, you can upgrade all of your plugins at one time, instead of one at a time. When you have a number of WordPress sites (I currently manage at least 13), upgrading individual plugins can be a time-consuming task. Now it’s as simple as selecting all and clicking the Upgrade button. It also checks the compatibility with the latest version of WordPress.
- Easier Video Embedding: WordPress has developed new functionality that lets you simply copy a link to a video into the WordPress editing window, and it automatically embed the video from popular video services like YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release). Very simple and easy.
- Built-In Image Editor: Adding images to a WordPress post or page just got easier with the new built-in image editor. When you insert an image into the WordPress editor, you’ll now get the option to crop, edit, rotate, flip, or scale the image. I’ve been adding images to most of my posts, and this will be a huge timesaver.
WordPress 2.9 is a tremendous continuation of the wonderful work that the folks at WordPress.org, and all the third-party developers, have been doing over the years. Continual improvement and the ability to extend the software has made WordPress a top-notch website solution for any local business (or large business for that matter). Keep up the good work Matt, and thanks!
