Blogging Makes You Smarter
Correction: In this post I claimed that the new version of Wordpress does not have a rich-text editor. It was pointed out in the comments, however, that there is such an option of a rich-text editor in the new version of Wordpress. I do not feel that this changes the validity of my original point. See My Comment below.
Mitch Joel over at Twist Image has this theory about how being online has made us smarter consumers. Well, it looks like Web 2.0 is making us smarter users as well, and Wordpress is doing their part to further that trend. They recently released Ella, Wordpress Version 2.1 which is named for Jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. The changes, for the most part, were pretty cool, even if they did cause some of us a headache--don't worry Vlad, I felt your pain. What was most interesting, however, is how the back-end user interface is now configured.
This was Wordpress before the upgrade. Notice how it featured a rich-text editor. This way, users could basically blog without any knowledge of html.
The latest version, however, doesn't offer so much a WYSIWYG interface. Granted, there are buttons there to do all the work for you, but if you have absolutely no knowledge of HTML, you'll probably have a little bit of trouble using the text-editor for the first week or so. But that's just it: after a week or so, you'll be up to par.
On the one hand, it's as though Wordpress is assuming that bloggers have already upped their standard, basic level of geek knowledge. On the other hand, for those that missed the HTML bus, wordpress has set things up in a way they'll be able to catch up to it pretty quick.
All in all, I've found the latest version much more superior to the previous one. Now that it enables you to upload image files directly to your server, I'd even say that it is superior to any other alternative platform that I've dealt with.
Even though I have some basic geek knowledge such as CSS and HTML, I picked it up using Wordpress. So it would seem that Mitch Joel's assertion that social media is making us more savvy consumers goes well beyond
Comments
Wordpress 2.1 does have WYSIWYG - in fact, it how has tabbed posting, so you can seamlessly switch between WYSIWYG and html modes of writing your blog.
For example, type your post in the text editor and if you want to embed a youtube video, click on the html tab, paste the code, and volia! . It's a huge improvement over 2.0
Posted by: Pranav | January 29, 2007 7:21 PM
Chris,
Thanks for mentioniing my blog. I have not be able to loginto the wordpress.com blogs yet but if you run a WordPress on a privately hosted accoutn the WYSIWYG is still available.
Great blog! Just added you to my RSS reader! Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Vlad | January 29, 2007 8:52 PM
You have to enable the Rich Text Editor under your User Profile.
Once you do that, you will have a Visual and a Code tab in the Write Post page.
Posted by: Victor | January 29, 2007 10:26 PM
Okay, so I was wrong about the HTML editor. I guess I just hadn't taken the time to explore its feature or read about them on the Wordpress site. I still think it is interesting, though, that the default setting is an HTML editor instead of a rich-text on. It says something about what Wordpress thinks about the blogging community at large.
Posted by: Chris M | January 30, 2007 12:25 PM