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  • Paul Kim 10:47 pm on February 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: jonathan harris, Photography, story   

    Storytelling 

    I recently discovered Jonathan Harris’ age 30 project.

    Jonathan is an accomplished artist, known for seminal web projects like We Feel Fine which panned the Internet for fragmentary ideas and words to sluice out meaning and emotion.

    The posts are simple rough gems of photography and epiphanies, often abetted by travel, that reveal the stories and people behind them.

    I enjoyed these two stories: Mesa Verde, CO, Jan. 20, 2010 and Los Angeles, Jan. 22, 2010.

    Amazing what you can still do with just words and pictures.

     
  • Paul Kim 11:38 pm on January 31, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: BBC, Blogging,   

    BBC Click Essential Guide to Blogging 

    Good overview of the basics of blogging by the BBC’s Click program, using WordPress.com for the demo. Hat tip: Mark R.

    This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback.

     
  • Paul Kim 1:31 pm on January 26, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Rebooting 

    I’ve been blogging for almost five years now.

    I started, mainly for work, when I joined Mozilla, and everything about it was kind of a revelation at the time.

    Not many places incorporated regular blogging then, and it was another sign I’d made a good choice in joining Mozilla, which was pioneering ways of creating open source software and building a global community.

    The main thing I came to love about blogging was interacting with people who cared about what I was writing, whether they agreed with it or not. Over time, I learned about a whole bunch of folks who were doing incredible things to help the Web, and connected with people whose work I’d admired. (None of this is news to you if you blog.)

    Joining Automattic has been a whole new experience of diving into the deep end of the pool.

    I haven’t blogged as much as I would have liked mainly because there’s been so much going on. Like 24/7 communication with my excellent co-workers — we all work from our homes or the road, no commute, and a lounge instead of an office — and with WordPress community members who are blogging zealots in the best possible way. Thank you for welcoming me to the community and feeding me tons of interesting ideas (I’m looking at you, Jeff Chandler). My life has been too exciting to blog about as a result, I swear. ;-)

    But I love and have missed writing and connecting with others through my blogging. So I’ll try to slow it down just a bit and share more here.  Also, I’m going to start pulling in pieces of my activity on other services to supplement the posts like this one. My most used web services these days are WordPress.com (here and for Automattic work), Twitter (which is already syndicated in one of the WordPress.com widgets at right), Flickr, Foursquare, and Delicious.

    I see a lot of resetting and rebooting of people’s blogs in 2010. WordPress.com continues to evolve and I’ll share here some of the things these changes enable, like better integration with social networks and improved alternatives for many different kinds of web publishing.

    I run this blog on WordPress.com with domain mapping, and I’ll try to make it clear when I’m using tools that are non-obvious — right now that includes custom CSS, the P2 theme (as interpreted by MT), Typekit fonts and several widgets.

    Four months in, I can report that I am now part of a stealthy force that is as ingenious and disruptive as my one year old daughter. Striving always to be generous, while uniting code, art, life and the Internet to distribute the collective wisdom of a global community (we’re ambitious! :-) ). I find it fascinating that we are this small — just 50 of us spread out all over the world — yet so mighty because we are part of a worldwide open source community.

    So, yes, please stay tuned to find out what other creative brews we have cooking. And as always, help spread the news about WordPress!

     
  • Paul Kim 8:46 pm on December 31, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Happy New Year 

    2009 was intense and rewarding for me. I’m grateful to be working with the team at Automattic and to be a part of the WordPress community entering 2010. To my friends and colleagues present and past, I hope you have a meaningful and excellent year ahead.

     
    • Ryan Markel 5:23 am on January 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      Happy new year, Paul. I am likewise happy to be part of the team and think exciting things are ahead in 2010.

    • Toni 8:51 am on January 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      Happy New Year!

      • thebristolblogger 2:04 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

        Hi Paul,

        as you’re responsible for “existing user engagement and retention” could you take a little time out to tell me why my blog: http://thebristolblogger.wordpress.com has been pulled this morning (GMT) without notice?

        It’s a UK-based political blog regarding the city of Bristol and has a readership in the region of 2-3,000, many of whom will be quite upset at its disappearance without explanation. It is also an integral, popular and well-known part of the city’s internet community.

        You are welcome to reply on here (I’ve nothing to hide) or email me at bristol_citizensATyahoo.co.uk

        Many thanks.

        • Mike 2:46 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          Yes we miss him. Please let him know what his violation is rehabilitate him.

        • Eastonite 3:13 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          So, this ‘nothing to hide’ anonymous little scandal monger has had his blog pulled, presumably one of his many libels have caught up with him.

          Happy New Year !!

        • Anarchist606 5:41 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          What’s happened to the Bristol Blogger? Would be nice to know what has happened? Bring the blog back! And there was me thinking of moving from Google’s Blogger to WordPress….

        • Tony D 5:45 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          Why has this blog been suspended? And why was this done without even an explanation as to why? Bring the blog back

        • Pete Jordan 5:52 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          Who knew that Jan Ormondroyd’s reach had grown so long? I guess it’s the inevitable consequence of speaking truth to power, or possibly just a cockup.

        • badnewswade 6:18 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          Yeah, what’s going on?? I must have my fix of BB!

        • Paul Kim 6:46 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          I’m looking into this. I’ll get in touch with you via email once I have more information.

    • redzone 3:58 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      maybe he’s been exposing far to many home truths, rattling to many cages & generally just upsetting the political apple cart !?!?
      whatever it is, the sooner the bristol blogger returns, the better!!!!

    • silenced bristolians 5:49 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      what on earth is going on, this makes it a distinctly unhappy new year, wtf is going on!? It’ll be trending on twitter soon – http://search.twitter.com/search?q=bristol+blogger

    • harryT 6:07 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      Why has the Bristol Blogger been suspended ? And without explanation ?

      What sort of online community is this ?????

  • Paul Kim 2:32 pm on November 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: iphone, Mobile, WordPress,   

    Go Mobile with WordPress 2 for iPhone 

    wp-iphoneLast week we released WordPress 2 for the iPhone. You can read the announcement by Matt Thomas here.

    I’m excited about this release because I’ve become a fan of the iPhone after some initial skepticism, centered around the physical interface (I do still miss the keyboard of my Blackberry 8703e). Over time I’ve come to appreciate the iPhone’s integration, polish and utility. Maybe too much, if you ask my wife.

    With WordPress 2, the development team has created a high quality blogging app, one that I think many iPhone users will enjoy putting through its paces.

    If you blog with WordPress I think you’ll appreciate the ease of connecting your existing WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress blog, the streamlined post and comments interfaces, and persistence and restoration features to preserve your work should you switch apps or lose your network connection.

    On the reading side, we turned on mobile themes for smartphones and feature phones by default for WordPress.com blogs a couple of weeks ago, improving the accessibility of blog content for mobile readers. (Self-hosted WordPress bloggers can add the WPTouch plugin to offer a mobile device optimized layout to their readers.)

    Three more cool things to try:

    1. Configure Publicize for your blog to push your posts to Twitter and Yahoo! automatically
    2. Post by Email is an alternative method for posting from your iPhone (or any other email-capable mobile device) – details here.
    3. WordPress for Blackberry is also available (as with WordPress for iPhone, a joint my colleague Raanan worked on).

    Future releases of WordPress for iPhone are already in the works. Like much of what we do, this is an open source project and the team welcomes feature requests, feedback, and bug reports.

    Here’s a roundup of reviews and blogger reactions:

    WordPress’ sophomore iPhone debut impresses
    - Josh Lowensohn, CNET

    WordPress for iPhone 2: Mobile Blogging Just Got Easier
    - Frederic Lardinois, ReadWriteWeb

    iPhone apps that bloggers will love
    - Dave Caolo, The Unofficial Apple Weblog

    Top 10 Must Have iPhone Apps for Bloggers
    - WPBeginner.com

    iPhone Apps That Bloggers Need
    - Brian X. Chen, Wired

    WordPress for iPhone OS 2.0: a Review
    - Wayne Dixon, Macgasm

    WordPress 2 for iPhone/iPod Touch
    - Stephen Ingraham, Cloudy Days and Netbook Nights

     
    • jjm 5:13 pm on November 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      sweet! i will give it a whirl

    • Cheryl Striepe 5:32 pm on November 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      A big congrats on your move to Automattic. I know that you’ll continue to do fantastic things.

  • Paul Kim 9:02 pm on September 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Why I Joined Automattic 

    wordpress-logo-hoz-rgb

    I started with Automattic last week. I’ll be focusing my time on driving new user growth and existing user engagement and retention.

    I’m beyond excited about this opportunity. (If I could do a silly walk to demonstrate just how excited I am, I would.)

    As a representative form of the profound shift in agency and connection that has emerged around the world with the rise of the Web, blogging is a powerful and meaningful activity. One that has rapidly matured to encompass innumerable personal expressions and the social interactions that attend to them. In blogging, I see the progression and explication of many longtime human pursuits – exploration, storytelling, knowledge sharing, collaboration, among others – that ultimately benefit us all. And, coupled to this, a disruptive capability that is only just beginning to be felt as blogging has become widespread as a technology.

    It should be no surprise, then, that I was a believer in WordPress (the product, the open source project, and the movement) for years before joining the team at Automattic. When I started talking to Matt and Toni about how I could help, I kept coming back to what I believe are three key drivers of success for WordPress.

    1) Product is best in class and continually improves to meet user demands. WordPress has emerged to become the most widely used self-hosted blogging platform (powering several million blogs) because of its functionality, user experience, ease of installation and customizability. Add to the mix nine major releases since 0.70 and a relentless focus by the developers on making WordPress better. This foundation of product strength and improvement is a baseline requirement for user growth.

    2) Free and open source from the roots up. “Open source” can be much more than a development methodology. For me, it also constitutes a world view that upends institutionalized notions of competitive advantage that saw their apex in the twentieth century. Many much more eloquent people have written about the benefits of open source software development – I encourage you to dig in if you are interested to the corpus of knowledge that is widely available.

    For me there are two important factors that an open source orientation introduces to a commercial offering:

    • moving the business up the value chain
    • increasing the intelligence and creativity applied to developing, marketing and supporting the product.

    For WordPress, the core product is freely available at wordpress.org. Automattic’s current business builds on top of the free and open WordPress software to deliver services at WordPress.com and through support contracts with a range of publishers. A snapshot of the breadth of the WordPress ecosystem: over 6,500 plug-ins, 970 themes, and 4,700 WordPress consultants.

    3) Community. The network enables massive, widespread communication and action. The speed, reach and scale of the network is a major asset for the growth of a new breed of companies and products. In the case of WordPress, a passionate, active community has been working to spread the story for years, to great effect. Collaborating with this community, of which Automattic is just one part, can be a catalyst for growth – both in adoption and engagement – in the years ahead.

    A network is a possibility factory.
    - Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy

    I feel lucky to be joining Automattic at this particular time. While serving tens of millions of bloggers on a regular basis, we’re also contributing to the innovations that will power the next stage of growth for the Web. From our support for RSS Cloud to the launch of an AI-powered editing tool, and more to come, Automattic is strongly positioned to rock the Web. In addition to providing the interaction of social networks and realtime communication tools, WordPress powers independence - of expression, thought and vision.

    As I get underway with this new adventure, I’m mindful of how much I have to learn from the WordPress community. I hope to meet many of you at WordCamps and to brainstorm about ways to introduce the power of WordPress to as many bloggers-to-come as we can, working together.

    I’m very happy to be a part of Automattic and to contribute to the ongoing success of WordPress.

     
    • John K. Lin 9:29 pm on September 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Congrats on your move! Let me know if you need any help… We use WordPress for 8Asians.com!

    • Jay 11:41 pm on September 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Looking forward to seeing great things from Automattic… all the best Paul! Blog on.

    • dria 2:53 am on September 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I’ve been a WP fan for a long time now, both as a blogging platform and as an open source project, and I’m really looking forward to hearing about and seeing what you get up to over there :)

    • jjm 6:44 am on September 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      congratulations! i’m at 2 sites so far ;-)

    • Ken Saunders 10:04 am on September 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      After the Deadline:
      Contextual Spell Checking
      Intelligent Grammar Checking

      After the Deadline should be integrated into all software used by persons under the age of 20.
      Altho, they will all b wundering y everything zat they type izzzle underlined. :|

      Congrats Paul!
      I’m sure that your contributions to Automattic will be great and significant ones.

  • Paul Kim 11:05 am on September 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Why blog? 

    Two great answers, from Seth Godin and Tom Peters.

     
  • Paul Kim 11:12 am on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    transitions 

    It’s been a fantastic voyage for me this past four years as part of Mozilla Corporation. I wanted to let you all know that next month, I’ll be moving on to join Automattic, where I’ll be working on user growth and development.

    I’m extremely proud to have been a part of the Mozilla project, and to have worked side by side with so many of you in our community to accomplish things that seemed at one time audacious and improbable. From the launch of Firefox 1.5, through too many outreach programs to count, and as the number of people exercising a choice in the way they got on the Web climbed past 300 million, I’ve always been struck by the essential human-centeredness that permeates Mozilla.

    You can see this spirit in the shared excitement on our blogs as new Web features get activated and in the personal touches groups of Mozilla supporters all over the world display in welcoming a new release. For me, this is at the core of how Mozilla, a tiny organization (really!), can compete and win against titans. In the years to come, the Web will need entities like Mozilla, that exist solely to advance the public benefit and the interests of the people, more than ever.

    I have no doubt Mozilla will keep surprising the world.

     
    • Pascal Chevrel 11:19 am on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      We’ll miss you all Paul!

      Don’t forget to visit us in the Paris Mozilla office next time you come to Europe!!!

    • Lloyd Budd 11:37 am on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      This news makes my day!

    • Anthony 11:40 am on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Rock on. Will look forward to your arrival here at Automattic!

    • Mike Shaver 12:08 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Paul,

      Thanks so much for everything you’ve given to Mozilla the project, Mozilla the company, and to the web. Your genuine love for people and making the world better for all of us shone through all your work, and I admit that I’m sad that I won’t see you around the office on my visits.

      Thanks even more, selfishly, for everything you’ve taught and shared with me, and for making even some really stressful work a little more fun. Automattic are in for a treat.

    • jamey boje 12:42 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      darn it ;(

      Paul god bless you in your journey thank you so much for being a friend over the years
      may you always shine

      your friend jamey

    • dhumphrey 12:42 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Hey Paul,

      I hope your next position allows you to do as much good work as you’ve done in this one. It was nice to have worked with you, and to have had your interest in the things we were doing at Seneca and with Education. Best of luck at Automattic.

      Dave

    • David Tenser 12:49 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Thank you, Paul. You will be missed by many, many people. Mozilla grew up much thanks to you (as evidenced, quite nicely, in the excessive amount of bad boy leather in this picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fmg2001/3595294649/ ).

      Let me just point out that regardless of your impact and incredible accomplishments at Mozilla, you never got to experience Mozilla Eskilstuna. Regardless of what user growth at Automattic actually means, be sure to do some of that in Eskilstuna when you visit Sweden in the future!

    • Edwin Khodabakchian 12:55 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Congratulations. Looking forward to see your impact at Automattic. You human centered approach to marketing has been a great inspiration.

    • Basil Hashem 1:49 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Paul,

      What a pleasure it’s been to have shared an office and worked with you on the growth of Mozilla. You’ve been an innovator and thought leader for how marketing, user engagement and community is built collaboratively. Bravo!

      Automattic is going to be rockin’ further.

      All the best.

    • dria 2:29 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I, for one, am totally bummed. We’ll miss ya ’round the HQ, Paul :)

    • Douglas 2:48 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Congrats! I’m looking forward to working with you at Automattic.

    • Chris Messina 4:51 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Big news Paul! Congratulations!

    • Marco Casteleijn 8:25 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I remember when the buzz was around that Mozilla was hiring a “marketing guru” to streamline the crazy fans, like me, at SFX and to build the brand name.

      Now 4 year later, we can give props to a fine product for the large number of users, but also due to some of the most innovative marketing ever seen ;o)

      It was really nice when we finally met in mountain view and the new job looks very exiting and in line with the Mozilla “feeling”.

      But who do I harass now with emails about new ideas?

    • Marco Casteleijn 8:26 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Oh and ofcourse:

      GOOD LUCK!

    • Anant 9:57 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      We’ll definitely miss you Paul! Thanks for everything you’ve done for Mozilla :-)

      All the best!

    • Matt 5:36 am on July 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Welcome to the team. :)

    • Paul Kim 6:52 am on July 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks for the good wishes everyone. Right back atchoo. :-)

    • Thorsten 7:38 am on July 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Very good to hear this. Looking forward to meet you some time.

    • patrickfinch 1:47 am on July 24, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Thank you for everything Paul, we will miss you, but we’ve all learned a lot from you.

      I often find myself quoting pkim gems of wisdom.

    • Channy 5:34 am on July 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Wow. I’m also WordPress’s fan. You were great in Mozilla marketing! Congratulation your successful transition.

    • jjm 10:09 pm on August 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      belatedly, congratulations. can’t wait to hear more.

    • Maya 10:32 am on August 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Congrats and welcome!

  • Paul Kim 2:18 am on July 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Firefox 3.5 launch party in Guanajuato, Mexico 

    Fiesta de lanzamiento de Firefox 3.5 GTO by cellfrozen

    Great photo of a community party for the release of Firefox 3.5 held in Guanajuato, Mexico.

     
  • Paul Kim 8:24 pm on June 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Going Live with Firefox 3.5 

    mozilla marketing

    This morning Mozilla released Firefox 3.5.

    It’s a terrific upgrade for the 300 million+ current Firefox users, and will radically improve the Web experience for everyone who migrates to Firefox in the months to come. Most of all, Firefox 3.5 is a compelling expression of the values that underlie Mozilla’s ongoing mission to improve the Web itself.

    I’m extremely proud of the hard work everyone in the Mozilla marketing community put into making this a stellar product launch. Each launch I’ve been a part of has felt unique. This year, and with this release, we’ve crossed into operating within a new, more intense competitive environment. One that we’ve had a huge part in creating, for the benefit of everyone on the Web.

    Much <3 to everyone in the Mozilla community on a fantastic release, and to upgrading the Web.

     
    • db 7:02 am on July 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Paul – congrats to you and the team on pulling off a stellar Fx 3.5 launch! Well done.

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