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WordPress 3.0: No more JPEG Support

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Beware, April Fool!

Of course WordPress will continue to “support” the JPEG format; after all, image rendering is the browser's job, the CMS is not involved when it comes to the actual rendering of images. This is my first April fool on my English blog. :saint: I've been doing this for a while on my German blog datenschmutz. Have you spotted any april fool postings on your favorite blogs? Please leave a comment, I'm curious!

Last Week Matt Mullenweg announced on his blog, that the upcoming WordPress 3.0 version drop the support for the JPEG file format. Increasing license costs and Microsoft's announcement to include SVG support in Internet Explorer 9 were the main reasons for this decision:

With the upcoming Internet Explorer 9 there is no more need for jpg – Microsoft finally embraces the SVG standard, thus helping to make the web a much more open place. JPEG does have some advantages, but they are simply out-weighed by the license costs.

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Mr. Tweet: find those like-minded folks

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mtbannerOf all twitter add-on services, Mr. Tweet has surprised me most during the last week. That basic aim of the service is to let you find folks in whose tweets you might be interested in. Since twitter is still growing so rapidly, topic-specific selection becomes more and more inevitable. Yet while I'm quite sure that in the long run the retweet-rate will act as twitter's “backlink factor”, Mr. Tweet introduces a well thought-through recommendation system.

Basically, Mr. Tweet is one of those services you have to trust enough to hand over your twitter account data – that's the one thing I don't quite like about it, yet still the surplus value is great. On each twitter users profile page a number of statistical data presents an overview of the type of twitter who's at work here: Updates per day, percentage of conversations, posted links plus additional notes (like “usually follows back”) give a better impression about the realness/spammyness of any account:

mrtweet

And there's more: the service regularly provides very interesting twitter tutorials as well as suggestions for new follows – and these work really well in comparison to what Twitter itself has to offer:

Twitter's suggestions for me include a grocery store, the microblog of an online shoe store CEO and a mommy blogger. On the other hand, Mr. Tweet has actually recommended people I have met or at least know professionally.

The founders of the company refer to their service as a personal networking agent, yet while this label sounds a bit exaggerated, some truly juicy candy is hidden inside the recommendation system: Mr. Tweet encourages its users to ask for recommendations by other users and to issue these to their own favorites users. Such recommendations are tweets which look like this:

#MrTweet I recommend @username because [insert reason here]

Not only do these messages raise awareness for ones account, their overall number is also used by Mr. Tweet's follower algorithm which determines the follow-suggestions. Besides, you get to know some nice bits and pieces about other tweepers – so in other words: please go to Mr. Tweet and recommend me! :mrgreen:

Since I really like the service and the idea, I'll recommend one of my favorite twitter friends each day for the next two weeks. Using Tweetlater, that's a breeze – even the scheduling option of the free version are great, but to harness the full power of pre-tweeting, I highly recommend the pro version, which enables you to schedule replies and direct messages.

Want some recommendation love? Since I'm a big fan of reciprocal network building, of course I'll gladly return to favor if you write a recommendation for me!

WordPress.tv: Automattic goes television

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WordPress.tvOne week ago, Automattic launched a brand-new WordPress-centered video site: WordPress.tv features various screen casts, presentations and tutorial videos on the world's leading blog content management system. The available clips are bound to water the mouths of beginners and pros, as they range from basic explanations like “How to post a blog entry” to all the advanced presentations held during last year's WordCamp.

Keeping Automattic's mission statement in mind, this launch is a huge step in my opinion – videos and screen casts are extremely helpful when it comes to understanding the potential of WordPress:

Blogging is too hard. Through WordPress we?ve enabled millions of people to effortlessly publish to the web. Now we want to enable millions more.

Some of my friends didn't have any programming in mind when they started their blogs. But it seems that sooner or later almost everyone feels the strong urge to start tinkering with his theme, installing new plugins and so on. So since the technology is a part of blogging, ease of access is the way to go. Now I'm fully aware of the fact that competitors like Typepad take a totally different approach, but to me fading out the underlying scripts doesn't make too much sense in the long run, and this is why I'm very excited about the new video repository, especially since there's much more goodness to come:

On WordPress.tv, you'll find tutorials for both WordPress self-installs and WordPress.com to help you get blogging fast and hassle-free. We?ve kicked things off with the basics ? now you can shape what comes next. Just drop us a line and let us know what you?d like to see added.

There's a contact form for entering your own videos (just take a look at the guidelines) and a commenting function. Personally, I would like to see two new features added in the near future: a basic editorial “rating” (beginner, advanced pro) and a user rating (WP-Rating might do a great job on that). Once again, congrats to Matt and his team – I'm positive that during the next month a couple of online enterprises are going to copy WP's idea and open their own niche-Youtubes. Here's an interview with Matt on the way Auttomatic operates – quite interesting stuff: