WordPress News Roundup September 2005: Google Blog Search Launches as WordPress.com Gets a New Dashboard

September 2005 was a quiet month for WordPress releases but a busy one for the services around it. WordPress.com, still invite-only, got a new dashboard and some high-profile users. Google launched a blog search engine. And Matt Mullenweg started quietly recruiting testers for a new anti-spam plugin that would change how WordPress dealt with comment spam.

WordPress Core Updates

No releases came out in September. WordPress 1.5.2 remained the current version while development on 1.6 continued, including the WYSIWYG editor shown in August.

• Hooks reference: An independent database cataloguing every WordPress action and filter hook went online. Mullenweg called it fantastic, and it was useful to plugin authors working with the many hooks added in 1.5.1.

Other WordPress News

• WordPress.com dashboard: Blogs on WordPress.com got a new dashboard that put more emphasis on content from across the WordPress.com community.
• Ubuntu on WordPress.com: Ubuntu’s new blog on WordPress.com thanked the service on September 29. Mullenweg replied that it had persuaded him to install Ubuntu that weekend.
• A new spam plugin in testing: On September 19 Mullenweg asked for bloggers with heavy comment spam to switch off their other defences and try a plugin he had been using for weeks. He soon had enough volunteers. The plugin launched the following month as Akismet.
• Webzine 2005: Mullenweg and other WordPress contributors attended Webzine 2005 in San Francisco, an inexpensive conference focused on independent publishing, where he spoke on two panels.
• Hurricane relief: After Hurricane Katrina, Mullenweg pointed readers to HurricaneHelp, a site set up to help survivors and families find each other.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

No WordPress security advisories were published in September. Spam remained the main concern, which is why a new spam service was being tested.

Industry Trends and Insights

Google launched Google Blog Search in mid-September. Asked how bloggers could get included, a Google representative pointed them to Ping-O-Matic, which Mullenweg happily passed on. On September 16 the developers who had left Mambo released Joomla 1.0, which quickly became one of WordPress’s main open-source rivals as a CMS. On the last day of the month Tim O’Reilly published “What Is Web 2.0”, and Mullenweg would spend October at the Web 2.0 Conference.

Plugin of the Month: Kramer

Kramer, by Mark Jaquith, used Technorati and the blog’s own referrer data to turn incoming links into comment-style entries, so authors could see everyone talking about a post in one place. Mullenweg said he might try it on his own blog or the dev blog after version 0.7 came out on September 5.

Founder of the Month: Christine Davis

Christine Davis wrote Ultimate Tag Warrior, the plugin that brought tagging to WordPress two years before tags arrived in core with version 2.3. It spread quickly through 2005, and support for it was being built into the K2 theme. Tagging was one of the defining features of the Web 2.0 era, and UTW meant WordPress users did not have to wait for it.

Looking Ahead to October 2005

October would bring the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, where Mullenweg was part of a workshop on open-source infrastructure. The anti-spam plugin being tested was getting close to a public launch.