innovative uses of WordPress

McGill University Powered by WordPress

Well, not the entire university, I guess, but a number of online publications use it. The newspaper is featured above, their CIO has a blog, and they’ve started a pilot with WPMU to offer blogging to everybody in the University. » about 100 words

WordPress Uses: Oobject

Oobject‘s galleries of abandoned pools, subway architecture, and revolting gold gadgets, among others, are all built in WordPress. » about 100 words

NFL Powered By WordPress

WordPress.com VIP hosts some high-traffic sites, including Gizmodo’s live coverage of the iPhone 3g introduction. Now that the NFL has selected the service for their blogging we’ll get a chance to see how they handle the Superbowl rush.

Michael Stephens Teaching on WordPress MU

Michael Stephens is now using WordPress MU to host his classes online, and that opening page is really sweet. It’s hardly the first time somebody’s used a blog to host course content, but I like where he’s going with it. We’re significantly expanding our use of WordPress at Plymouth, and using it to replace WebCT/Blackboard […] » about 300 words

Global Voices On WordPress

I hadn’t heard of Global Voices Online, a community generated global group news blog, until Jeremy Clarke spoke of it at WordCamp. And I didn’t think the site, with it’s do-good premise, worked until I actually explored it for a while. But, well, it’s a bit fascinating. Global Voices grew out of a one-day conference […] » about 300 words

Truemors Powered By WordPress

In the “They Did This With WordPress” category (though from about a year ago, sorry) comes Truemors, a Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit clone from Guy Kawasaki.

Calling it a clone might be a backhanded non-compliment, but the truth is that it does a credible job in this increasingly crowded space*. And it’s built on WordPress.

The relevant plugins are WP-PostRatings and Share This. Electric Pulp did the design, and the whole thing apparently went live quickly on a tiny budget.

Anyway, add this to the growing list of sites using WordPress in some rather interesting ways.

My real feeling is that all these sites could probably learn something from MetaFilter, where the inward facing parts are as important or more than the outward facing bits. Have you ever heard of a del.icio.us meetup? MetaFilter has them regularly.

Tibet Open Letter and other innovative uses of WordPress

All Things Digital is interesting. Parents would say My Baby Our Baby.com is a little more important. But Tibet Open Letter is as real as the violence.

Two things to note: all of them are based on WordPress, and those who discuss Tibet probably risk being listed by the Chinese government as a trouble maker.

BuddyPress: The WordPress Of Social Networks?

Andy Peatling, who developed a WordPress MU-based social network and then released the code as BuddyPress has just joined Automattic, where they seem to have big plans for it. I’d been predicting something like this since Automattic acquired Gravatar:

It’s clear that the future is social. Connections are key. WordPress MU is a platform which has shown itself to be able to operate at Internet-scale and with BuddyPress we can make it friendlier. Someday, perhaps, the world will have a truly Free and Open Source alternative to the walled gardens and open-only-in-API platforms that currently dominate our social landscape.

Menu