Wordpress developer lauds RP blogging community

By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines – A Wordpress lead developer has described the Philippine blogging community as “impressive and very organized,” admitting WordCamp Philippines is one of the biggest Wordcamp he has attended

About 400 Filipino bloggers attended the WordCamp Philippines 2008 on September 6 at the College of St. Benilde, which is considered a landmark event for the country since it was the first WordCamp in Southeast Asia.

Visiting the Philippines, Matthew Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress, said the Philippine version was comparable to WordCamp events in San Francisco.

WordCamp is an annual event where users of the widely popular, open-source blogging system Wordpress, talk about the latest technical aspects of Wordpress and the global blogging community.

During the Wordcamp Philippines, Mullenweg gave the local community a preview of the Wordpress 2.7, codenamed “Crazy Horse.”

Visiting the Philippines for the first time, Mullenweg said he has been learning more about the Filipino blogging community. “I’m here to see the Philippines. I’ve always wanted to go here,” he said.

Aside from the Philippines, Mullenweg said he will be flying to Beijing and Shanghai in China to attend other Wordcamps being organized. Japan is also in his sights and hopefully an event there will happen before the end of the year.

Mullenweg admitted that he did not expect Wordpress to become a huge hit among bloggers and open source software users worldwide.

He believed that Wordpress’ user-friendly graphical interface and ability to integrate third-party applications attracted users worldwide.

Mullenweg said it is the active development community of Wordpress users that will ensure the application’s future.

“I get suggestions from people everyday on how to improve Wordpress. It’s community driven. I synthesize [suggestions] and erect communities for Wordpress future releases,” he said.

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