WordCamp Dallas
March 31, 2008
This weekend I attended WordCamp Dallas, a conference devoted to all things WordPress. WordPress is a free tool for building web sites that I have been using for awhile: I started blogging with it almost four years ago, when version 1.2 came out, and I have been building non-blog web sites with version 2 for over a year now. My friend Ryan came up from Houston for the weekend, and we both had a great time.
The founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, gave the first presentation. He announced the long-awaited release of the new version 2.5, and he talked about the future of the product. Matt stayed throughout the conference, making himself available for questions during the breaks. I never cease to be amazed at the history of WordPress, how Matt turned a free software project into a multi-million dollar company. I asked Matt about all this during lunch on Saturday: he just chuckled and said, “It’s been quite a ride.”
All the speakers I heard were good, but I especially enjoyed Neal and Cali’s presentation about their video blog GeekBrief.TV. They have freed themselves from what they call the “tyranny of the day job” to produce GeekBrief.TV as their primary source of income. (The latest episode, #338, contains an interview with Matt recorded during WordCamp.) The ideas explored during the panel on business blogging were also incredibly interesting. Video from all the presentations at the conference will be posted online in the near future, so check out the WordCamp Dallas site for updates if you are interested.
I plan to upgrade my own installations of WordPress soon to take advantage of the features in the new version, as well as implement some of the new tips I picked up at the conference. I met people using WordPress in creative ways, and I hope to keep in touch and maybe even work with some of them in the future.
Further Reading
- WordCamp: dallas.wordcamp.com
- Matt Mullenweg: ma.tt
- WordPress: wordpress.org
- GeekBrief.TV: Episode 338