Everyone who knows me, knows that I’m a passionate fan of 3 things.
Manchester United.
AC/DC.
and WordPress!!
WordPress, that awesome blogging platform that powers everything in the world and gives you that warm gooey feeling everytime you see it, turns 9 today. That’s 9 years of internet awesome-ness.
It’s time to take a step back and contemplate the meaning of wordpress, this is an immensely popular blogging platforms that powers nearly every blog on the planet (and a lot of non-blogs as well) was created by Matt Mullenweg on May 27th 2003 as a ‘project’ , and now wordpress powers 15% of the web–for FREE!!
That’s right, wordpress is just one of many free software you can download, with absolutely no restrictions. Usually wordpress would run on and Apache Web server. If you thought powering 15% of all websites was impressive, Apache is estimated to power nearly 57% of all websites, meaning that for every website you visit it’s more likely powered by Apache than anything else.
So what’s up with free software?
Free software isn’t just free, in most cases its open source and community driven, its definitely not a new way to look at things, but it is different from what we usually see, where millions of people line outside Apple Stores to buy the latest iPhone or iPod, or where millions spend hundreds of dollars buying Diablo3.
WordPress runs on it’s own juice, it seeks to power the web not profit from it and it’s doing an awesome job.
By the Way, Matt Mullenweg owns Automaticc which provides services like buddypress, polldaddy and akismet. So he’s making money off wordpress but not from it, and by the way you can host an awesome blog with wordpress without spending a single cent on additional software.
So Happy Birthday WordPress!! Have an awesome year ahead!
In case you’re wondering most of Malaysias most popular blogs are powered by wordpress, including:
1) 1Malaysia.com.my (the official website of Prime Minister Najib Razak)
2) Chedet.cc (Mahathirs website)
3) Paultan.org (the de facto point for automotive news in Malaysia)
4) anilnetto.com (citizen journalist and all around good guy)
5) hongkiat.com (great local website on web design and graphics)
6) blog.limkitsiang.com (Malaysian opposition party leader Lim Kit Siang)
7) RafiziRamli.com (up and coming Malaysian Opposition leader)
8) Anwar Ibrahim (Top Dog himself Anwar Ibrahim also runs his blog on wordpress)
9) Raymond.cc (another popular tech blog)
10) keithrozario.com (cause for me–only wordpress would do)
Which of course brings us to the question…who doesn’t host their blog using wordpress. Well if you’re one of those blogging on some other platform, guess whose company you’d be in– rembau.net.my
For those of you who don’t know…well Rembau.net.my belongs to ‘formerly’ up and coming Pemuda Umno Chief Khairy Jamaludin. So while a former Prime Minister, Current Prime Minister and –for all accounts at least– future prime minister have their blogs hosted on WordPress, Khairy chose not to.
Isn’t it a wonder he’s not going anywher? Switch your blogging platform Khairy!!
[…] runs the blogs of many NGOs and even politicians–except Khairys. Even Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s website runs on […]
[…] Of course this begs the question, with these new revelations should the Malaysian Government or any other non-US government look for alternatives Operating Systems for their staff to use? Open Source versions of Linux like Ubuntu are community driven and publish their full source code online–minimizing the risk that certain governments have the upper hand when it comes to bugs and exploits. A similar situation exist for Microsoft Office alternatives in the form of Open Office and Libre Office, and nearly every closed software suite has a opensource alternative, which are good if not better than their commercial sold-for-profit cousins. Apache springs to mind. […]