WordPress
WordPress is an open source blog publishing application powered by PHP and MySQL which can also be used for basic content management. It has many features including a user-friendly workflow, a rich plugin architecture, and an advanced templating system.
It was first released in May 2003 by Matt Mullenweg as a fork of b2/cafelog. As of September 2009, it is being used by 202 million websites worldwide.
Features
WordPress has a templating system, which includes widgets that can be rearranged without editing PHP or HTML code, as well as themes that can be installed and switched between. The PHP and HTML code in themes can also be edited for more advanced customizations. WordPress also features integrated link management; a search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles; and support for tagging of posts and articles.
Automatic filters that provide for proper formatting and styling of text in articles (for example, converting regular quotes to smart quotes) are also included. WordPress also supports the Trackback and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves linked to a post or article. Finally, WordPress has a rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install.
A native iPhone and iPod Touch application exists which provides access to some of the features in the WordPress Admin panel and works with WordPress.com and many WordPress.org blogs.
History
b2/cafelog, more commonly known as simply b2 or cafelog, was the precursor to wordPress. b2/cafelog was estimated to have been employed on approximately 2,000 blogs as of May 2003. It was written in PHP for use with MySQL by Michel Valdrighi, who is now a contributing developer to WordPress. Although WordPress is the official successor, another project, b2evolution, is also in active development.
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