The Martha Blog, the official blog of Martha Stewart, has announced a blog upgrade.. and they’re moving to WordPress!

The new blog, now live, is hosted at The Martha Blog - at www.themarthablog.com.

Martha writes:

In order to have a blog, you need to enlist a blogging platform, which supplies all the necessary tools for getting your photos and text onto the Internet. As my blog has grown in popularity, we realized we were ready to switch to a platform offering more programming options. After careful research, that new platform will be WordPress, which we hope to launch tomorrow with an exciting photo gallery from my most recent trip to Mexico. With this new program, you will notice additions, such as a search engine within my blog and more robust photo galleries.

Prior to this change, Martha Stewart was using Typepad.

Take a look at the comment below, caught by Akismet and held for moderation on a client blog I have access to, but not automatically marked as spam and removed when clicking the Check for Spam button. Why do I have to see it? What in this comment makes it even remotely possible to be a valid one?

Don’t get me wrong, Akismet is a great service, and it saves me a lot of time, as it does numerous others, but sometimes it amazes me what it lets through. And I’m not only thinking about the porn spam that litters most blogs’ moderation queues (or comment areas) should they have obtained some degree of traffic. read more

Magazine style blog themes seem to be all the rage right now - with sites like TechCrunch moving to more of a magazine/newspaper style approach for their main blog pages.

Even Chris Pearson has a new magazine style theme coming out soon to complement his successful Thesis Theme.

So when is the right time to use a Magazine style blog theme?

Smashing Magazine took a look earlier this week and offered some advice along with some key descriptors of what makes up a Magazine-style theme: read more

For those of you who belong to the WordPress faith, you may be surprised to hear that there is a second iPhone App on Apple’s favorite phone.

Called BlogWriter, this iPhone app was developed by VirtueSoft, who charges everyone a steep $10 in order to be privileged to use it.

But with WordPress providing a free alternative, the question remains: is BlogWriter worth it? read more

WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco videos should be out any time. Lots of WordCamp News including last weekend’s WordCamp South Africa and upcoming WordCamps in Portland, Hawaii, Birmingham, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, Utah, Philippines, and more. Jeffro asks you to stop blaming WordPress. Crazyhorse shakes the WordPress 2.7 trunk. How to switch from TypePad to WordPress with only a little stress. And more WordPress news.

WordPress News

Stop Blaming WordPress: In a daring post, Jeffro asks you to stop blaming the WordPress team for problems they have no control over, specifically, WordPress Plugins. I’ve written on this subject before and I agree. WordPress is an ongoing product in constant development and will undergo changes. For the most part, they are very good about announcing changes in code that will impact Plugins and Themes, and getting better all the time. If you support a WordPress Theme or Plugin, it’s your resonsibiilty to keep it updated. Thanks for reminding us, Jeffro.

Bleeding Edge Interface for WordPress 2.7: Ryan Boren announced that the new user interface from the Crazyhorse experimental version of WordPress 2.7 (we hope) is in the trunk. It is usable, but it will bite back, so only use it on your alfa testing blogs where it can do little harm.

Considering Switching from TypePad to WordPress: The never-ending battle between Lloyd Budd of Automattic and TypePad continues with his latest rant against TypePad, The TypePad Trap. Rant or not, this is a great article with tips you need to know about if you want to switch from TypePad to WordPress. read more

Smashing Apps has a rundown of 21 Wordpress Themes that not only are great themes - but they’re also free!

I’m still reeling and processing all the exciting events associated with WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco. Saturday was packed with so many of the best speakers - the best of the best in blogging, SEO, WordPress, PHP, Theme and Plugin development - it was blogging and WordPress overload.

Today’s conferences and events are true definitions of information overload and blogs and social media play important roles in the over-abundance of input. They are also part of the new online social networking surge, allowing attendees to share their experience of the event with the world through various media and social networks.

While attending the conference and afterward, there was so much information being shared on different services - it was difficult to keep up. Many were live blogging the WordCamp event on their blogs while others were using Twitter, Tumblr, and other microblog services to share the event. Many were also discussing the event on Twitter, Pounce, Plurk, and other social services.

It used to be that event coordinators would put most of their energies into the event specifics, corrdinating speakers, attendees, social functions, and logistics. Today’s events must also prepare and monitor the online world to help coordinate and track discussions, news, and feedback before, during, and after the event.

Here are some of the coverage from different services about WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco, a mere sampling of all the coverage.
read more

WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco was a hit! The WordPress Scavenger Hunt fundraiser was great fun. WordPress hosts the US Government, as well as Britain. WordPress 2.6.1 released. The first WordPress Plugin API for a WordPress Plugin announced. Want to copy, cut, and paste in your iPhone with WordPress? How about a beautiful comment count chicklet added to your blog? Could be a new competition. How many comments do you have? Super Cache WordPress Plugin updated. WordCamp South Africa this weekend.

WordPress News

US Government Agencies Using WordPress: Attendees at WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco were stunned when Matt put up a list of US Government agencies using WordPress for their blogs, CMS, and intrasite networks. Mark Jaquith has published the list which includes the US Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Goard, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State, Department of Treasury, DEA, FBI, CIA, SNA, and more. Matt’s point was that if they are using it, WordPress must be doing something write with security - especially with these security concious agencies helping the WordPress community.

WordPress 2.6.1 Released: WordPress 2.6.1 has been released. They cleaned up the problems with the right-to-left languages and fixed over 60 things needing fixing. Ajay of Techtites has released a WordPress 2.6 to 2.6.1 Upgrade File to make the process of updating your blog easier.

Ozh Offers the First WordPress Plugin API for the Admin Drop Down Menu WordPress Plugin: Planet Ozh updated the popular Admin Drop Down Menu WordPress Plugin with localization, fun icons, and an API that will allow others to hook into the Plugin with their Plugins. This is the first time a Plugin has had its own API that I know of. Think of the possibilities!

Sticky Posts in the Future: Lester Chan reports that WordPress 2.7 will incorporate a simplified version of his popular WP-Sticky WordPress Plugin into the core of WordPress, allowing users to “stick” a post to the front page of their blog. read more

Mark Jaquith reveals a list of 16 US agencies that are confirmed to be using WordPress, either internally or publicly. Among those are the Air Force, Army, the NSA, and the DEA. Full list here, released on WordCamp San Francisco 2008.

First of all, WordPress 2.6.1 was released last Friday, which is probably what a lot of bloggers were waiting for before adapting to the 2.6 branch. I used to wait for the .1 release myself, but stopped doing that with 2.6 actually, and I’m glad I did:

If you’re happy with 2.6, however, keep on using it. You need not upgrade to 2.6.1 if 2.6 is getting the job done.

This is a first from the WordPress developers, telling you to nab the new version if you feel like it, but if you don’t think you need it then you don’t need to bother! Will you update your blog to 2.6.1?