Liz Gannes writes for AllThingsD, Automattic Grows Up: The Company Behind WordPress.com Shares Revenue Numbers and Hires Execs. In addition to Stu joining as CFO and Paul as Consigliere/Automattlock, we’ve been on a hiring roll the past month or two with excellent folks joining at every level of the company, including two more Matts. If you’re passionate about Open Source and making the web a better place, like we are, there’s never been a better time to join. My favorite thing about logging in every morning is the people I work with. Friends say I work too much but it hardly feels like work at all.

LaunchTime is a coming-soon page theme that you can use as a placeholder while waiting until your site is launched.

Silesia is a clean and elegant HTML5 theme.

SmartBiz is designed for corporate business websites and blogs.

Voyage is a peaceful, nautical theme that would suit personal blogs, sites about boating or sailing, or any other nautical related subject matter.

Zenon Lite is an all in one wordpress theme with 3 awesome fonts, slider, background image, and an easy to use theme options panel.

I'm currently sitting in the conference room for BlueGlass LA, listening to Marty Weintraub and finishing my presentation I'll be giving this afternoon. Which leads me to the point of this post as I'm going to try and prove a point, therefore the following video is not really meant for you to watch but for me to test something with:

As a side note, BlueGlass LA is probably the best conference I've been to in a while, with a ridiculous line-up of speakers, if you're going to go to an internet marketing conference, BlueGlass conferences are seriously among the very best in the US, second only to SEOktoberfest.

Having a blast at BlueGlass LA is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

ManageWP, the service that makes it a breeze to manage multiple websites from one location has announced that they are currently developing an iOS application specifically for ManageWP. This move takes the ease of managing multiple websites to the next level. While the app is not yet available, there are a couple of screenshots of what the final product might look like.

The first screenshot shows a concept of what the dashboard might look like. I have not tested the app itself but it will be interesting to see if they manage to pack all of their sites functionality into the iPhone app while still maintaining ease of use.

ManageWP Dashboard Concept Image

What may be the most exciting part of this news is that the app will also be available to use on the iPad. With more screen real estate and the retina display on the newest version of the iPad, this combination should make for a great experience.

Pricing has yet to be determined and in some aspects, this could get tricky. While the app is no use to non ManageWP customers, will the company end up charging for the app for existing customers? Considering there are three different service plans, I could see them offering the app for free to those who are middle and top tier plan customers. I know that the folks from ManageWP monitor this website so if you have feedback on how they should go about this, please offer your feedback within the comments.

While there are alternatives to ManageWP, they are certainly experiencing healthy growth. Earlier this year, they hit the 100,000 managed websites milestone. They have also obtained 2,000 paying customers. Speaking of paying customers, I encourage you to read through the comments of a post I published about a week ago where a number of folks chimed in that while ManageWP is awesome, their prices are a bit too high to digest. Based on feedback I have observed, there are two camps. One that says ManageWP is worth every penny that they currently charge and one that says the prices are just too high.

If you believe their prices are too high, consider the following. They currently have a staff of 20 or so people with plans to add more. They are an international bunch and the company is growing rapidly. There is the infrastructure, hardware, etc that they have to pay for. In my opinion, they shouldn’t price themselves out of business. They should simply charge what they feel is right for the service.

Related posts:

1. WordPress App – The Best Thing On Peter Brights iPhone
2. Turning Your WordPress Powered Site Into An iPhone App
3. WordPress iPhone App 2.7 Released

I read Ben Horowitz’ post about their investment in Instagram that made them a 312x return, turning a $250k investment into $78m. Most people would regard that as a shrewd business decision on Andreessen Horowitz’ part, but I think it actually comes down to money making money.

Andreessen Horowitz has raised a venture fund worth almost $3bn in the last 3 years. So for them to make a $250k investment represents 0,0083% of their total investment fund. Considering that Instagram ended up being a pivot from the business that they actually invested in, I’d argue that the $250k investment was a “calculated” gamble. Sure, you might argue they backed the entrepreneurs behind the original idea, but that too is a calculated risk / gamble at best. (I’d stick to this opinion regardless of whether or for what amount Instagram was eventually acquired.)

Compare that to Y Combinator that invests an average of $18 000 into approximately 120 startups every year. Or Yuri Milner & Ron Conway that puts $150 000 into any Y Combinator startup that wants it (via Start Fund). As of last year, Yuri Milner alone had a net worth in excess of $1bn (Wikipedia), so putting $150 000 into a startup represents small change.

Their respective returns on these investments are however a far cry from small change, making their investment status a goal for most other investors. Myself included.

Yet, these guys have a head start: they have bucketloads of money. Marc Andreessen co-founded Netscape back in the day. Yuri Milner created DST which has become a premier investor in so many awesome tech companies. And Paul Graham has become the leader of the whole startup community with his work with Y Combinator. So they deserve their success & all these new opportunities now.

The one thing all of them have in common now is that they had one big success as an entrepreneur; one big success that propelled their reputation into the higher echelons of our community & gave them the capital (or access to it) to make all of these investments. It only took one big success.

Ultimately I’d probably be able to make quite a bit of money if I had a $5m venture fund and I could invest $250k into 20 hot startups right now. You could too. Provided we’re not totally shit at making our picks.

Money makes money. And it only takes one, big success to get there.

Our next theme to be made fully responsive is DeepFocus. If you visit the theme preview on a mobile phone or tablet, or you re-size your browser window, you will see the design adapt to display your content in the most intuitive manner for that size screen.

Mobile devices have quickly become one the most common ways that we browse the internet. It is important to perpare your website for an ever-increasing amount of mobile visitors, and we will continue to show initiative here at ET as we update our themes to be fully responsive.

Download the latest version of DeepFocus from the members area and test it out for yourself! I hope that everyone enjoys the update. If for whatever reason you do not want your theme to be responsive, you can always turn off responsive design from within ePanel.

Prevent automatic image compression

By default, WordPress compress jpg images when you upload them to your blog. This is useful because it saves bandwidth and loading time, but sometimes you may prefer to have full quality images (For example, if you’re a photographer using WordPress to showcase your work).

Paste the code below into your functions.php file to remove automatic compression of images.

add_filter('jpeg_quality', function($arg){return 100;});

→ Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/prevent-wordpress-to-compress-your-jpg-images

Add target=”blank” to all links

I’ve never been a fan of target="blank" links, but I’m always surprised to see how clients love them. So if you need to transform all links to target="blank" links, here is an easy solution.

This function have to be pasted in your functions.php file.

function autoblank($text) {
	$return = str_replace('<a', '<a target="_blank"', $text);
	return $return;
}
add_filter('the_content', 'autoblank');

→ Source: http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/snippets/add-target_blank-on-all-link

Add extra contact methods to user profiles

By default, WordPress allow users to enter an AIM name on their profile, but no Facebook and no Twitter names! But in 2012, those websites are far more popular than the good old AIM (ah, memories…).

In order to add more contact methods to user profile, simply paste this hook in your functions.php file. In this example it will add Facebook and Twitter, but it can be used for any website or service you need.

function my_user_contactmethods($user_contactmethods){
  $user_contactmethods['twitter'] = 'Twitter Username';
  $user_contactmethods['facebook'] = 'Facebook Username';

  return $user_contactmethods;
}

add_filter('user_contactmethods', 'my_user_contactmethods');

→ Source: http://wp.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-add-extra-contact-methods-to-user-profiles/

Remove the “read more” jump

On WordPress blogs, when you click on a “Read more” link, it automatically drops to the point in the article you theoretically just got to the end of. If you don’t really like that jump, simply paste the following code into your functions.php file to get rid of it.

function wdc_no_more_jumping($post) {
     return '<a href="'.get_permalink($post->ID).'" class="read-more">'.'Continue Reading'.'</a>';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'wdc_no_more_jumping');

→ Source: http://wpshout.com/wordpress-functions-php/

Automatically enable threaded comments

By default, WordPress do not enable threaded comments. If you want/need to change this, here is a handy code snippet to paste in your functions.php file:

function enable_threaded_comments(){
 if (!is_admin()) {
  if (is_singular() AND comments_open() AND (get_option('thread_comments') == 1))
   wp_enqueue_script('comment-reply');
  }
}

add_action('get_header', 'enable_threaded_comments');

→ Source: http://wpshout.com/wordpress-functions-php/

How to show an urgent message in the WordPress admin area

When writing custom WordPress theme or plugins, you might want to inform users that something important needs doing, perhaps due to an upgrade. e.g. You need the user to update a setting, or check that their settings have been transposed correctly. Here is a ready to use hook to display a custom message to admins.

function showMessage($message, $errormsg = false){
	if ($errormsg) {
		echo '<div id="message" class="error">';
	} else {
		echo '<div id="message" class="updated fade">';
	}

	echo "<p><strong>$message</strong></p></div>";
}  

function showAdminMessages() {
    showMessage("You need to upgrade your database as soon as possible...", true);

    if (user_can('manage_options') {
       showMessage("Hello admins!");
    }
}

add_action('admin_notices', 'showAdminMessages');

→ Source: http://www.wpdoctors.co.uk

Automatically replace words in your posts

Imagine this: your blog was named “myblog” and for some reason you renamed it “mysuperblog”. Don’t edit your XXX posts to replace every single occurence! Instead, paste this useful hook into your functions.php file and let it do the work for you.

function replace_text_wps($text){
    $replace = array(
        // 'WORD TO REPLACE' => 'REPLACE WORD WITH THIS'
        'wordpress' => '<a href="#">wordpress</a>',
        'excerpt' => '<a href="#">excerpt</a>',
        'function' => '<a href="#">function</a>'
    );
    $text = str_replace(array_keys($replace), $replace, $text);
    return $text;
}

add_filter('the_content', 'replace_text_wps');
add_filter('the_excerpt', 'replace_text_wps');

→ Source: http://wpsnipp.com/

Add post thumbnails to RSS feed

This very cool piece of code will get the post thumbnail and automatically add it to your RSS feeds. Paste the code into functions.php and save the file. Don’t forget that you need to use a theme that supports post thumbnails for this snippet to work.

function cwc_rss_post_thumbnail($content) {
    global $post;
    if(has_post_thumbnail($post->ID)) {
        $content = '<p>' . get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID) .
        '</p>' . get_the_content();
    }

    return $content;
}
add_filter('the_excerpt_rss', 'cwc_rss_post_thumbnail');
add_filter('the_content_feed', 'cwc_rss_post_thumbnail');

→ Source: http://snipplr.com/view.php?codeview&id=56180

Quick maintenance mode

Sometimes, you need to put your blog on hold while performing some maintenance. Many plugins are allowing you to do so, but here is a simpler solution: Just paste the following snippet into your functions.php file and save it. Your blog is now unavailable to anyone except administrators. Don’t forget to remove the code when you’re done with maintenance!

function cwc_maintenance_mode() {
    if ( !current_user_can( 'edit_themes' ) || !is_user_logged_in() ) {
        wp_die('Maintenance, please come back soon.');
    }
}
add_action('get_header', 'cwc_maintenance_mode');

→ Source: http://skyje.com/2011/05/wordpress-code-snippets/

Remove comments autolinks

If someone leaves a comment containing a url on your WordPress blog, the url will be automatically transformed to a link by WordPress. This can be useful, but personally I don’t like to see many links in comments, especially when they’re a bit spammy.
Removing autolinks is pretty easy: Just paste the following code into your functions.php file: Once you saved the file, you’ll notice that autolinks have disappeared.

remove_filter('comment_text', 'make_clickable', 9);

→ Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/wordpress-hack-remove-autolinks-in-comments

When I released my updated WordPress SEO article a few weeks back, my buddy Avinash was kind enough to tweet it. He tweeted it, at first, with a bo.lt link. Bo.lt is a sharing service that allows you to basically make a copy of a page and add some notes or even some changes to the page. The idea is nice, as a webmaster though, I hate it. Let me explain why.

You see, bo.lt makes a copy of the page at the moment it's prepared for sharing, they say they do that because of speed. As Avinash tweets a lot, he probably made that copy a couple of hours before he shared it. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if I hadn't added stuff to the page in the mean time and fixed a lot of typo's. Everyone who'd use Avinash's link wouldn't see those changes. And bo.lt decided that for me, without asking me anything, or even worse, giving me the option to opt-out.

SEO Impact

Surely those bo.lt guys are at least trying to give the rankings for those pages people share through its service their links back? No. They don't. Well, not unless you're not already adding rel="canonical" elements to your site yourself. Each user has its own subdomain. Avinash's subdomain is zqi.bo.lt. As you can see for yourself, quite a few of his shared pages are indexed by Google. That shouldn't be possible. Bo.lt should add a canonical back to the original page if there isn't one in the source already.

No Analytics

They claim a webmaster gets all his normal stuff, ads and analytics etc. Except that for both Clicky and Google Analytics there are no views measured for that bo.lt link, because Clicky refuses pageviews from other domains and I've filtered those out of Google Analytics to prevent others from rendering my analytics useless (yes, people do try that). So, "my" visitors don't get the changes I made to the copy, making me look stupid and I can't track which visitors those were and where they came from... At this point, I want out.

Opt Out

I've gone through their documentation, both normal and for developers, and there simply is no documented way to opt-out. So I decided to dive a bit deeper and figure out which user-agent bo.lt uses. It turns out that they actually do have a page about their user-agent. The next step would normally be simple: add a line to your robots.txt blocking bo.lt. Unfortunately, in my tests, bo.lt never actually retrieved the robots.txt file so they're not adhering to the robots.txt protocol. They really should. They're taking my content, they're not asking for permission and they're not allowing me to opt-out. Someone could sue them over that. I'm just going to request, through this blog post:

Bo.lt, please add an option to opt my sites out of your service.

Also, in my opinion, if you're using bo.lt, you should probably start considering alternatives.

Disclaimer: please be aware that I like Avinash a lot and don't blame him for anything. He's a great guy and an inspiration to a lot of us in the online marketing industry. It's the bo.lt service I dislike and I think that after reading this he will switch to something else as well.

A "hard" out

I figured out a "hard" way to get out of bo.lt doing its thing, add the following to your .htaccess file:

RewriteBase /
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} bo.lt/ua
RewriteRule . - [F,L]

This will block bo.lt, giving it a "forbidden" page.

Why I dislike Bo.lt is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

Express is a basic, simple theme that would be suitable for any blog or website.

Next Saturday is a bold and playful theme which adds a touch of childlike innocence to your blog.

Typhoon is a simple blue theme.

This weekend I’m attending the first ever WordCamp Nashville, and am excited to also be running the first ever liveblog for a WordCamp Nashville. Okay, so their “first time” is a bit more special than mine, but we’ll still have fun today.

If you’ve never read through a WPCandy liveblog before, basically this post will continue to update throughout the day with bits from the event, both from my point of view and others who might be attending. If you’re at WordCamp Nashville today and would like to take part in the liveblog today, just let me know in the comments or via Twitter.

The fun starts just after the jump!