WordPress is one of the most recognized and popular tools for blogging and website development today. However, they didn’t rise to the top of the pack overnight. In fact, the history of how WordPress developed and became an internet sensation is an interesting story in its own right.

WordPress originally appeared on the scene in 2003 as a collaboration between Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg, two software developers from Houston, TX. Mullenweg first came up with the idea of WordPress as an updated version of the recently abandoned b2/cafelog blogging project. At the time he set out to do this Mullenweg was only 19 years old and a freshman at the University of Texas. Today he is recognized as one of the pioneers of blogging software and a major force in the IT world.

When a major WordPress competitor, MoveableType started charging for their…

When it comes to running a WordPress blog or website, one of the first things you will want to do is setup a way to track your web traffic. Without this, you will have no idea how many visitors you are getting or where they are coming from.

Google Analytics is a great option and happens to be free of charge. Once installed, you can access your dashboard where you can see all sorts of data such as unique visitors, top content, and the top search queries that brought traffic to your site. You can even see your visitors on a map overlay and get a feel of where your visitors are in the world.

To set it up, here’s a great tutorial that walks you through the process of setting up Google Analytics on a self-hosted WordPress blog:

One of the most common questions we get from our clients and readers is which version of WordPress is best for them: the free WordPress.com version or the self-hosted WordPress.org version? There are many reasons why you might benefit from using one version over the other and it mainly comes down to your goals and what features you need to utilize.

Here’s a great video from the Montreal WordCamp that talks about the various differences and why one version might be better than the other for your website or blog:

For even more information on the differences, check out the official comparison page.

Quick summary of the two versions:

WordPress.com

The free version of WordPress is a breeze to setup and requires no investment on your part. The hosting is provided free of charge, along with a URL to your blog. You…

Now that WordPress 3.0 has been released, many people are wondering what to expect next. Here’s a great video that touches base on some of the things we can expect from WordPress in the near future:

After you have found cheap WordPress hosting and you have launched your WordPress blog, one vital step you must never skip is to protect your WordPress blog from getting hacked. If you are new to WordPress security and Web security in general, you might hope that there is a thick book, which lists, in detail, everything you need to do in order to protect your WordPress blog from getting hacked and then you have the safest WordPress blog on Earth.

WordPress is now available for Android powered devices. That way you can upload new posts and manage your blog or website even while you are away from your computer. Best of all, it is free for download.

Here’s a video with a brief overview of all the features:

As many of you know, we love WordCamps. They are a great place to learn new things about WordPress and get a glimpse of what’s happening on the development side. Plus they’re a great venue to meet local bloggers, developers, and WordPress fanatics.

Here’s some details about a few upcoming WordCamps:

WordCamp Boston

January 23
Boston, Massachusetts

WordCamp Indonesia

January 30
Jakarta, Indonesia

WordCamp Greece

January 30
Greece

WordCamp Miami

February 20
Miami, FL

WordCamp Fukuoka

February 27
Fukuoka, Japan

To see more details along with a list of all the upcoming WordCamps, check out the official WordCamp website.

When WordPress version 2.9 was released, it added a few new features that some people didn’t notice. Here’s a quick video that goes through all the new features and demonstrates how to use them:

Our personal favorite is the new photo editing tool. It makes cropping, rotating, and editing images a lot easier now that you can do it directly in WordPress. Awesome!

If you didn’t noticed, the guys over at WordPress released version 2.9.1 yesterday. It contains a few small fixes, as well as fixed the scheduling issue that a lot of people were having. We’re glad to see that this one of the problems they fixed, as we’ve heard from a few people that they were having issues scheduling their blog posts.

If you haven’t updated your WordPress website yet, we highly recommend doing it as soon as possible. Just go to the tools section and choose upgrade.

If you haven’t noticed, we have relaunched our WordPress Crash Course and now offer two different packages. One of them is the online course while the other one includes a 3 disc DVD set. So far, we’ve had a lot of success with the course and hope to see it continue.

One of our customers emailed us asking if they could promote the course in exchange for a commission. Unfortunately, we did not have an affiliate program setup when we launched the course. However, we have since decided that it would be a great idea to add one.

Our New Affiliate Program

We’ve gone ahead and listed our online WordPress Crash Course in the Clickbank marketplace. Now you can promote our course on your website or blog. We’ll pay you a 40% commission every time you make a sale through your affiliate link.

To become…