Over the weekend I had the opportunity to attend Blogworld Expo as well as WordCamp Las Vegas. Blogworld was pretty huge, but WordCamp Las Vegas was a much smaller conference within the main conference. I had the chance to talk with some really great WordPress users and developers. I really got a good sense of what’s going on in the WordPress world. Unfortunately, Automattic decided to call a last minute pow-wow in Ottowa (if I remember correctly), so there was no official representation from the main developer of WordPress. I valued the opportunity to meet both Matt and Beau at previous WordCamps, so it was a little disappointing not having an Automattician there.

8 Meaningful Takeaways

1. Accessibility counts for something. Glenda Watson Hyatt laid out some ground rules for making your website POUR (Perceivable Operable Understandable Robust). I’m not going to give it all away, but you can download the ebook from her site: http://blogaccessibility.com/
2. John P says that using URL shortening services like bit.ly, su.pr and TinyUrl is a detriment to your search engine reach. Instead of putting links to your website out in the wild to build some authority, you send out these other services’ links and boost up their popularity in the search engines. Pretty Link Pro by Blair Williams will likely replace two or three of your existing WordPress plugins and solve this exact problem for you. It will allow you to create short links for twitter and other sharing right on your own domain. This will help you keep all the Google juice that you deserve. I could probably have gotten Blair to give me a copy of the plugin after palling around all weekend, but as soon as I got home, I turned on my computer and bought the sucker. Check out the feature video for details: http://think-press.com/prettylink/
3. Go meet people in person at conferences. It’s nice to have a billion friends/followers online, but I bet having just five of those billion friends be actual real-life friends is more motivating, profitable and fun. Just make sure there’s no overlap, otherwise you’ll never have anything to talk about…hehe. Oh, and one more thing. Go to conferences alone. It will force you to interact with people that you wouldn’t otherwise approach.
4. Go where the people are. Chris Pirillo is an Internet giant, yet he comes to where the people hang out online instead of forcing them to come to him. This means that getting your content syndicated in as many places as possible is super important.
5. Care. Don’t care so much about the money you’re hoping to make, just care about why you’re doing it. If you put your heart into it, the money will come.
6. It’s not good enough to just install the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin. You have to use it. When you’re posting to your website, scroll all the way down and fill in the meta box. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with your results.
7. Never say no to a free show ticket. That’s kind of obvious, I know.
8. Take your laptop with you.

If you want the short version, stop reading here. Otherwise, block out a good twenty minutes and read the rest of my ramblings about the weekend.

Day 1 (Friday)

I woke up at 3am in Orange County so that I could get some client work finished before heading to Vegas. I backed out of my driveway at 5:32 am and by 9:15 I had arrived in Vegas and checked into my hotel room. I walked around the back only to see a sliding glass door on the first floor with a shattered window (I later read about poor Eduardo’s story).

I popped in to the convention and watched a bit of the opening keynote before coming back to the exhibit floor. I wandered the booths for a little while before WordCamp Las Vegas started and talked with some of the exhibitors, but nothing really jumped out at me. I met up with Drew and Jen of Jestro and took a seat at the packed house that was WordCamp Las Vegas…or, not.

Because of the way the venue was laid out, WordCamp didn’t get a lot of foot traffic and as a result it sorely lacked in the attendee department. However, what it lacked in attendees, it made up for with amazing networking opportunities. During the first day, here’s a rundown of all of the awesome people I mingled with:

1. The Dudes from Headway Themes (http://headwaythemes.com) – I didn’t catch their names, but I won one of their themes from WPCoder.com last month. If you use the code hwBWE09 before Oct. 24th you can get 20% off Headway, an amazingly configurable WordPress theme.
2. John Hawkins (http://johnhawkinsunrated.com) – John is the long time organizer of WordCamp Las Vegas and WordPress plugin developer. John is not only a great developer, but an amazing personality. I’ve met him on a couple of occasions and was always impressed with his willingness to offer guidance and support.
3. Scott Porad (http://icanhascheezburger.com) – CTO of the Cheezburger network. I Can Has Cheezburger is kind of a staple at WordCamps. I’ve seen Bun Huh and Scott Pora (twice) present about their business model and I still can’t believe how simple it is. "Make people laugh for 5 minutes a day". That’s it. The first time I saw Scott present was at WordCamp San Francisco back in May. I think the presentation was lost on me due to the sheer number of people that were at that conference. In Las Vegas, we literally sat down in a semi-circle and introduced ourselves to him. It was a very intimate setting and I got a lot out of it.
4. Angelo Mandato (http://pluginspodcast.com) – Lead developer of the Blubrry Podcasting plugin and host of The WordPress Plugins Podcast. Angelo’s presentation covered how to set up WordPress with Blubrry to make a Podcast. I had a brief opportunity to talk with him before the presentation about the plugin podcast and potentially speaking at our WordCamp.
5. John Pozadzidas (http://woopra.com) – CEO of Woopra, statistics for the real-time web. I love John’s personality. He’s funny and brutally honest. He started off his presentation “Win or Die” by reminding us all that he is our competition. It’s true and we all have to remember that while being social is fine and dandy, the business of becoming an authority on the web is a fierce battle. John’s presentation was my favorite of day one.
6. Blair Williams (http://blairwilliams.com) – creator of the outstanding Pretty Link Pro WordPress plugin (http://think-press.com/prettylink). Blair was sitting next to me during John P’s talk. The only reason I even met him was because John P mentioned Pretty Link Pro in his presentation. If I didn’t meet blair, I probably would have had a boring and uneventful weekend (more on that in a bit).
7. Darin Hardy (http://inmotionhosting.com) – Marketing Manager for InMotion hosting, sponsor of WordCamp Los Angeles (and hopefully for WordCamp Orange County). I recognized Darin from a previous WordCamp that I had been to. I knew that InMotion had sponsored WordCamp Los Angeles, so when we talked it was all business. I’m hoping ot bring them on as a sponsor for Orange County WordCamp.
8. Cali Lewis (http://geekbrief.tv) – Host of Geek Brief TV. Cali is a big personality in the geek universe. I saw her present in San Francisco, and I was hoping to talk her in to speaking at OC WordCamp about video. I dropped the seed, let’s see if it grows into a better opportunity.
9. Austin Passy (http://austinpassy.com) – organizer of WordCamp LA, WordPress designer/developer. I originall met Austin at WordCamp LA. He’s been another great resource for us in our own planning of OC WordCamp, and he’s a hellofa nice guy too.

As I said before, my weekend probably would have been pretty lazy (due to my lack of sleep) if it wasn’t for Blair. Blair scored some tickets to the Blue Man Group at the Venetian and asked Drew, Jen and I if we wanted to join him. He asked if I knew anyone else who wanted to go, so I called up my buddy Jason Van Orden (http://www.jasonvanorden.com) and the four of us tagged along to the show. I met up with Blair, Austin, Ben and Scott at The Jet nightclub (which I basically had to weasel my way into) for the official Blogworld after party. Blair and I took off to see the Blue Man Group with a few new friends, Ronjini and some other random guy from the club. The show was awesome. I’ve never seen it before so it was all new to me, but I gotta say that it kept me entertained (and awake) all the way until the end of the show at midnight even though I was running on three hours of sleep. I highly recommend the show to anyone who’s planning a trip to Vegas. Updated: Jason sent me a sneaky cam video of me playing the pipe’s in the gift shop. Won’t you ave a little fun at my expense. =)

Day 2 (Saturday)

Phew. Day one was exhausting. I had planned on starting out the day having breakfast with Jason and some of his friends, but I got up too early and ended up with 30 minutes to kill before breakfast at Paradise Cafe in the Las Vegas Hilton. I sat down at a slot machine and proceeded to lose $100. Not a good start to the day. At least Jay paid for breakfast (thanks Jay)! I met some cool people at breakfast, including Emile Bourquin (CTO of Ideas For Download – http://ideasfordownload.com), Chris Christensen (Host of the Amateur Traveler podcast – http://amateurtraveler.com), David Jacobs (http://connectedworldmedia.com), and Karin Hoegh (Podcasting consultant from Denmark – http://podconsult.dk). This informal setting turned out to be a great little mini-session on social media and membership sites.

After breakfast I made my way back to the conference where I stood guard at the WordPress Genius booth. There I met Dana and Karen, from Content Robot (http://contentrobot.com). When my shift was over, I made my way to the WordCamp session already in progress. On the way I ran into Aaron Kronis, Rockstar SEO Consultant from WPromote. He showed off a really interesting SEO tool that WPromote is releasing in the coming weeks. I’m hoping we can get Aaron to speak on an SEO panel at OC WordCamp.

I think the most valuable information came from Glenda Watson Hyatt (http://doitmyselfblog.com). She gave a talk on website accessibility. I think a lot of people take web accessibility for granted, but according to Glenda, 18% of the U.S. population is living with a disability. That’s 18% of a market just in the U.S. that is being neglected. That’s a lot of money (for those of you who are trying to monetize your websites) to leave on the table.

Blair and I took a walk to get some free ice cream in the exhibit hall when we ran into Tracy and Stu from WPWishlist (http://member.wishlistproducts.com/). For those of you who don’t know, WPWishlist makes a membership plugin for WordPress. We’ve just finished building a membership site using it, and it’s fantastic. I’ll be writing an article on it here soon. I talked to them about some pretty exciting business opportunities (more on that another time).

After that, I knew the conference couldn’t get any better, so I decided to jump in the car and head back to Orange County. I was feeling so lucky because of all the chance meetings I had that day that I stopped in at Prim to test my luck. I sat down at a slot machine and within 20 minutes, I had won my $100 back from the morning. On the way to cash it in, I stopped at another machine that caught my eye. I sat down once more and within another 15 minutes I was walking away with another $200. I was very happy with my winnings, so I got in the car and drove home, a perfect end to the already fantastic weekend.

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Today the folks who developed WordPress have launched a new tool to help people get up and running with their blogs. It’s going to be a valuable resource for people who have questions and don’t want to waste their time wading through the codex or the support forums. Hopefully they’ll support user submitted content to [...]

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about how to get this to work on a specific page, or only within a specific category. I actually had the same issue when building the script originally. The trick is that you can’t just use the conditional tags in the functions page. At that point, it’s already too [...]

Are you tired of literally being a faceless commentor in the crowd?  Much like Navin R. Johnson you want to “be somebody!”  Since WordPress version 2.5, creating an avatar for yourself has become quite easy.  Currently, if you do not have a gravatar set up, you are given the generic avatar icon ().  But imaging [...]

More Background On Think-Press.com

Think-Press.com was a significant website during the late 2000s, dedicated to WordPress development and the open-source blogging community. The following comprehensive article explores the history, founders, mission, offerings, achievements, and lasting cultural impact of Think-Press.com, providing the depth needed to understand its place in the evolution of WordPress and web development culture.

Founders, Ownership, and Location

Think-Press.com was founded and operated by Brandon Dove and Jeffrey Zinn, two well-regarded web developers and designers from Orange County, California. Both began their careers in web development in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They later co-founded Pixel Jar, a web design and development agency that grew directly from their collaboration on Think-Press.com. Their work and influence have roots in the vibrant Southern California tech scene, and their subsequent projects and presence remain intertwined with the broader WordPress community.

• Brandon Dove specialized in creating custom WordPress themes and had nearly a decade of development experience by the late 2000s. He was deeply involved with design, development, and community events.

• Jeffrey Zinn had experience creating custom blog software and web applications. He later adopted WordPress for his own projects, inspired by its strong ecosystem of plugins, themes, and open-source philosophy.

The location of the project—in Orange County near the beaches and the Sierras—helped foster a unique, energetic, and outdoorsy culture behind the screen, with both founders actively participating in local events, conferences, and the lifestyle of the area.

Mission, Goals, and Editorial Focus

Think-Press.com’s mission was to empower a growing wave of WordPress users, ranging from beginner bloggers to professional developers and organizations. At a time when WordPress was transitioning from a niche blogging tool to a full-fledged content management system, the site positioned itself as:

• An authoritative knowledge base for the latest WordPress features, themes, plugins, and best practices.

• A community hub for sharing tutorials, code snippets, plugin and theme launches, and developer stories.

• A venue for commentary on the evolution of the internet, SEO, and the cultural shifts triggered by mass adoption of blogging.

The site celebrated the open-source nature and flexibility of WordPress, promoting high standards in usability, security, customization, and accessibility. Think-Press.com also played a role in building networks between developers, highlighting the value of real-life connections formed at conferences, WordCamps, and meetups.

Website Content: Menus, Categories, and Signature Topics

Think-Press.com was organized into categories and posts aimed at demystifying both the basics and advanced aspects of WordPress. Content included:

• Security Best Practices: Detailed guides, such as instructions for updating to major security releases and explanations of specific vulnerabilities. For example, the site urged users to adopt new versions quickly, describing the specific risks and how patches addressed them.

• Conference Coverage and Community Takeaways: Reports and reflections from major industry events like Blogworld Expo and WordCamps, offering readers practical networking advice and recaps of valuable sessions or chance meetings with major WordPress personalities.

• Original Code and Tutorials: Custom code solutions for frequently requested features (like sorting posts via meta keys), plugin development walkthroughs, and introductions to new WordPress functions that streamlined or replaced older, more complex approaches.

• Plugin Announcements and Updates: Coverage of both internally developed plugins (e.g., Favicon Generator) and reviews of promising third-party plugins, including honest feedback and troubleshooting tips for users.

• Tips, eBook Recommendations, and Resource Curation: Recommendations for essential ebooks and tools for designers and developers, frequently presented in practical, actionable formats.

• User Interaction and Support: Encouraging direct engagement through comment subscriptions, question responses, and active follow-ups from the founders.

The organization of the site made it easy for visitors to find timely answers and solutions, embrace new features, or simply follow the ongoing story of WordPress’s growth and challenges.

Awards, Recognition, and Industry Impact

Think-Press.com was widely respected within the WordPress community for its approachable, deeply informed style and its commitment to the grassroots developer movement. While formal awards are not noted, its indirect recognition includes:

• Frequent citations at WordCamp and other major conferences: The authors were both speakers and sought-after participants, reviewing and teaching the latest industry trends.

• Influence on Developers: Many up-and-coming WordPress developers credit Think-Press.com and its founders as pivotal resources in their learning and professional advancement, following their tutorials and advice as a foundational curriculum.

• Theme and Plugin Competition Participation: The creators were involved with plugin and theme development competitions, sharing insights and often reviewing new projects made by peers and community members.

Audience, Popularity, and Community Role

Think-Press.com’s audience was diverse, reflecting the rapidly broadening WordPress ecosystem. The site served:

• Independent bloggers seeking ways to optimize or secure their sites.

• Professional designers and developers, many of whom would go on to make their own mark in the community.

• Corporate and nonprofit web managers seeking expert guidance on customization, optimization, and scaling WordPress installations.

• Attendees and organizers of regionally and nationally significant WordPress conferences and events.

Its popularity stemmed from the blend of depth, approachability, and real-world knowledge evident in its posts, as well as the founders’ active participation in both online and offline networking.

Menu and Content Details: Examples and Noteworthy Posts

The Think-Press.com menu included direct access to:

• Guides on WordPress security, such as detailed updates and risk breakdowns for new releases.

• In-depth conference recaps focusing on accessibility, search engine optimization (SEO), and practical networking strategies.

• Technical tutorials and code snippets, including both original solutions and documentation on newly introduced WordPress functions for ordering and displaying posts.

• Plugin announcements, change logs, and upgrade advice for tools like the Favicon Generator.

• Thought leadership and motivational content, including perspectives on prioritizing care and passion over financial returns, fostering genuine relationships at conferences, and making the most of one’s time in the fast-evolving WordPress world.

Many posts were written in a conversational, real-world style, mixing humor with practical lessons. For example, a conference recap might shift from lessons on POUR (Perceivable Operable Understandable Robust) accessibility to stories about attending shows with plugin developers after hours, illustrating the blend of hard skill and relational soft skill that the site encouraged.

History and Evolution

Think-Press.com was primarily active from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, a period of explosive change in web publishing. The site’s archiving of developer experience, community insights, and technical innovation gives it lasting value even after its most active period ended. The founders went on to launch Pixel Jar, building on the collaborative ethos and technical excellence established at Think-Press.com.

As WordPress matured into a world-dominating content management system, Think-Press.com’s documentation of this era captures a cross-section of web history: the challenges of early plugin development, the growing pains of a burgeoning community, and the threads of innovation that continue to shape WordPress today.

Press, Media Coverage, and Cultural Significance

While Think-Press.com was not a mainstream consumer brand, it held clear significance within the professional open-source web development community. Coverage and mentions included:

• Presentations, panels, and coverage at major events like WordCamp and Blogworld Expo, often relayed by both peers and attendees as high-value learning experiences.

• Recommendations and citations from respected figures in the WordPress and open-source communities, reflecting its strong reputation as a developer resource.

• Contributions to the culture of openness, sharing, and constant learning that has come to define the WordPress ecosystem.

Culturally, the site embodied the spirit of the era: a grassroots collaboration by practitioners, for practitioners, intent on lowering barriers and expanding participation in web publishing. Its blend of professionalism, humility, and humor made it accessible to both newcomers and advanced users, contributing to a legacy still felt in today’s WordPress landscape.

Reviews and Legacy

Direct, formal reviews of Think-Press.com in consumer publications are rare, but its reputation among industry peers and later beneficiaries remains overwhelmingly positive. Developers routinely cite the site as a crucial resource, and its blend of precise technical advice, honest storytelling, and strong community ethos remains a gold standard for newer educational platforms.

The founders, Brandon Dove and Jeffrey Zinn, continue to influence the industry through their later work, carrying the lessons and networks formed at Think-Press.com forward into new ventures and ongoing community leadership.

Think-Press.com occupies a unique place in the history of web development, particularly within the WordPress universe. Founded and helmed by technically adept, community-minded professionals, the site documented and shaped the journey of a key open-source tool as it expanded to meet the needs of a new internet age. Its focus on education, empowerment, and real-world engagement lifted countless users and developers, building bonds and best practices that endure to this day.