This is the follow-up interview realized by my friend Christian Aubry with WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. In this second segment – a third is coming – Matt Mullenweg talked about how he started WordPress and how the open source community swelled the popularity of WordPress. It is a case where the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.

Over and over at WordCamp Montreal last weekend, people talked about the fact that WordPress, WordPress MU and BuddyPress are platforms, an infrastructure of which you can build upon. The added values emerged from what you can do with it. WordPress is used to achieve different objectives, to suit an infinite number of markets and is applied in many creative ways. You benefit from not reinventing the wheel. Instead, you concentrate on how you can serve your community. In fact, this is the main reason why I migrated At Home to WordPress.

Matt also talked about the importance of helping each others. If you think about the unconference movement and about blogging, it is mostly people sharing their expertise for the good of others. At the end of the day, it makes a better world where we feel empowered. Be prepared to be inspired.

You see in the background, a group of partcipants at WordCamp Montreal. A third part of this interview is coming soon. If you are looking for a guy to hire for your video reportage, put Christian Aubry on your short list. He has many years of experience.

You might also like these posts

• A Quick Recap of My Experience at WordCamp Montreal 2009
• My Blogging Tips Sessions at PodCamp Montreal 2009
• Sharing My Top Blogging Tips at PodCamp Montreal 2009
• Measuring Your Social Media Influence is Key | Webcom 2009 Wrap-Up
• Official Blogger at Webcom Montreal 2009

I had a great time this weekend at WordCamp Montreal. The conversation with the founder of WordPress Matt Mullenweg was inspiring and calming. Matt was really zen while he answered questions from the crowd. In the after-talk, many people pointed out to me his soothing voice. Amongst other things, Matt shares the core value of his company. To give you an idea, check out this short interviewed realized by my friend Christian Aubry.

About Our Presentation

I like going to this type of conference because you always get back from them with some ideas. Several talks gave me food for thought. Plus there is the fact that being a speaker forced me to reflect on my blog design and features. Jerome Paradis and I talked about my migration from subText to Wordpress.

We devised the presentation to highlight the perspective of the blogger and the preoccupations of the developer. I am happy because people seemed to appreciate that duality. I made the envy of a few bloggers to have free access to such a talented developer. Without Jerome, I would have never been able to have made this transition as perfectly as he did.

Now that I migrated to WordPress, I can envision the future. What to do next? I started by increasing the width of the pictures on posts. A lot is more to come. And I think it will be exciting for you.

I cannot recall the name of the caterer but the food was excellent. It is the best food I ate in an inconference in Montreal. Thank you to the organizators and the participants for making it a success.

PHOTO CREDITS:
Except for the laptop image, all the images were taken by the extremely talented Eva Blue. I invite you to see her WordCamp Montreal 2009 photo set, you will not regret it.

You might also like these posts

• Matt Mullenweg Talked about His Open Source Story to Christian Aubry
• My Blogging Tips Sessions at PodCamp Montreal 2009
• Sharing My Top Blogging Tips at PodCamp Montreal 2009
• Adding BackType Connect to Your WordPress Blogs
• How to Add a Related Posts Section for each Post

This was a team effort: Jean-Marc worked as the graphic designer, Jerome as the database developer/Wordpress specialist and myself in the role of the client and creative director.

Three reasons led to this move:

1. subText has a poor publisher user interface that is particularly inefficient if you publish lots of photos. Since I use a Mac, I needed to run a Microsoft desktop application to publish my post with a more efficient blogging tool. The process added time and was unnecessarily complicated. Ever since I moved to Mac, I was looking for a quicker solution. Migrating to Wordpress solved that problem.
2. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to host the full range of 300-pixels wide IAB ad units on my sidebar. These ads are more popular with advertisers; therefore they bring more money. I also thought my blog could be more clean. I felt the old layout did not put enough focus on the content.
3. As I worked on the mock-up, it became clear that many features would have to be programmed on subText to make me happy. It sounds like a waste of time and energy since many of the features I wanted already existed as plugins or standard features on Wordpress.

After considering all these facts, Jerome and I decided to migrate my blog to Wordpress. Since Wordpress is also open source, Jerome will be able to improve on existing features if they do not work as I want them to be.

The Conclusion

I now benefit from a blog platform that is more flexible and that I can grow with. Making the switch to Wordpress was a sound business move. Already the new design improves the page views by almost 1 page per visit.

Jerome wrote his side of the story. He talked about the challenges and the added features of the revamped blog. I invite you to read his post on Paradivision’s blog.

Disclaimer: I own shares in Paradivision. If you are on the market for a blog on Wordpress, know that Paradivision offers this service to businesses.

You might also like these posts

• Matt Mullenweg Talked about His Open Source Story to Christian Aubry
• A Quick Recap of My Experience at WordCamp Montreal 2009
• Top 3 Tips for a Blog Design Makeover
• A New Adventure in Blogging 101
• Adding BackType Connect to Your WordPress Blogs

What are Your Goals?

Whether you do it yourself or outsource your blog integration, the first thing you need to do is to write a program that clearly expresses:

1. the mood you wish to create, the style you aim for
2. where you wish to bring your brand (a blog is brand). I believe that you must design for the future, not the past
3. and to define your needs and the features you wish to have. Do not forget to specify the maximum width of your layout and other technical issues.

This long and hard process is crucial. While reading the comments I received about the new AHWKV look, I was proud that my readers spot my goals as something they like about the new design. It proves that we were successful. To stay focus the entire time, we considered my program over the whole design and implementation stages.

What Design Problems Do You Wish to Solve?

This is more and less a part of the mock-up step. I include it separately as people often get hooked on the problems. I have 15 years of quality software assurance to support this claim. Writing them down permit you to pass to something else.

For At Home with Kim Vallee, I wanted to solve the fact that my sidebar could not fit the Medium Rectangle ads (300×250 IMU). It was the trigger point for the new layout. But many other factors led to the fact that I switched to a 2-column layout.

Start with a Mock-Up

Illustrating your need with a mock-up is more efficient than writing everything down. You indicate what goes where. You validate and must take into account usability from a reader’s point of view.

If you are an interior designer, imagine this step as your initial space planning. You must take into account the actual size of things. Therefore, use Photoshop or a paper montage where you put what plugins and in what order do they will appear on your sidebar.

If it easy to be carried away with all the Wordpress plugins that exist. Doing this exercise, allow you to validate their purpose. I always asked myself if a plugin adds value to my readers.

You might also like these posts

• Matt Mullenweg Talked about His Open Source Story to Christian Aubry
• A Quick Recap of My Experience at WordCamp Montreal 2009
• Why Did I Migrate My Main Blog to Wordpress?
• Simple Way to Add a Background Image to a Wordpress Blog
• A New Adventure in Blogging 101

What do you need technically to start a blog that can easily grow once your blog takes off?

The must-have list have been compiled considering time and money. I did it on a tiny budget. I also want you to avoid pricey mistakes if you are serious about blogging.

I tried to go with what the no-frill  free Wordpress.com (hosted by Wordpress) but it would have meant that sooner than later I would need to migrate my blog to a self-hosted solution. I wish to eliminate that step.

The problem with Wordpress.com and Blogger is that they lack on flexibility. Their true advantage is that you can open your blog in a manner of minutes and do not have to worry about the technical stuff. Their most important showstoppers are:

• you cannot monetize your blog
• you cannot import theme nor plugins on Wordpress.com

Must-Have List Before Your Start Your Blog

1. Buy your own Domain Name right away. It does not cost a lot. For less than $20 USD, you can register your domain name at GoDaddy.com and keep your name and address information private. This is the domain name register I used.
2. If you opt for the self-hosted Wordpress solution, you will need to find a hosting company to host your blog. It can be as low as $10 a month. Make sure to ask around before selecting a hosting company.
3. Then, you are ready to configure your blog. You will need technical assistance for this step.
4. Choose a theme. The easiest way is to select a theme from the Wordpress Theme Directory by you can also use Google to find one. I selected zindi 1.7 by Fado from the Theme Directory. Pay attention to the shown functions and the navigation. You may need help or instructions to upload the theme to Wordpress. Hiring someone or asking a friend that knows CSS helps you fine tune your theme. I kept the changes to the minimal for this experiment. I simply did a few basic modifications to the CSS to change some paragraph styles.
5. Add the widgets you like. I added Recents posts and Recents comments.
6. Write the text for the About page. Add your favorite blogs to the blogroll (Links in the Wordpress admin interface).
7. And then, you are ready to write your first post.

If you wish to know more about the mission of On the Web with Kim Vallee, I invite you to read the About page.

You might also like these posts

• Matt Mullenweg Talked about His Open Source Story to Christian Aubry
• A Quick Recap of My Experience at WordCamp Montreal 2009
• How to Add a Related Posts Section for each Post
• Why Did I Migrate My Main Blog to Wordpress?
• Top 3 Tips for a Blog Design Makeover