Remember when making a website was hard? Once upon a time,
before you even thought about web development, you'd probably want to read
three or four books on coding. And maybe take a course in web development.
Heck, with all that in the way of a website, you'd probably end up just hiring
someone!
But, like most areas of tech, web development has recently
been undergoing something of a transition. Companies like SquareSpace have
sprung up all over the place, promising easy website creation (for a small
fee). It almost harkens back to the glory days of the internet, when Geo-Cities
was pioneering easy, drag and drop web development.
But Geo-Cities is dead-killed by the march of internet
progress. WordPress has emerged as its likely successor, but to see it as a
Geo-Cities copy-cat would be a bit of a misunderstanding.
WordPress has a reputation of being "the website that
teenagers use to blog about their feelings." That's Tubmlr, my friends!
WordPress is actually a fairly flexible platform, and it's growing in
popularity. Something around 394 people use a WordPress website a month, most
without knowing it. TED, CNN, the NFL and even the Ottawa Citizen all use
WordPress as a backbone for their blogging system. More and more, it's becoming
clear that WordPress is a dominant force in web development.
So what does that mean for you? Well, it means that you have
an excellent open-source development utility at your disposal, should you ever
feel the need to start a website. But the popularity means something else. Like
phone platforms, web development platforms are essentially as good as they are
popular. More popularity means more "plugins," a software add-on that
adds functionality.
Plugins in WordPress are so plentiful and easy to come by
that it almost seems like cheating. You can get plugins that create simple
forms for your clients to fill out, emailing you the results of the forms on
the fly. You can get plugins that monitor user activity, and even some that
install ads that you can make money off.
Not to mention the hundreds, maybe thousands of free themes
available. Themes basically take care of the nitty gritty aspects of web
development. They allow you to outsource the look of the website to someone
else. And if you want your website to have a unique flavour, most themes allow
plenty of customization, so you can stick that photo of your cats in the
background. Yeah! Cats!
But what really makes WordPress appealing is its ease of
use. If you've ever used Outlook, or even Gmail, you'll have a pretty good idea
of how to use WordPress. It's not exactly drag-and-drop (there's really nothing
to drag), but it's almost easier than that. Creating a post in WordPress feels
like sending an email. Granted, this is an email that potentially millions of
people might read, but you get the idea.
For more updates, visit http://octaspectrum.com.
