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  • Go Mobile with WordPress 2 for iPhone 

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

    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.

  • Why I Joined Automattic 

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

    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.

  • Why blog? 

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

    Two great answers, from Seth Godin and Tom Peters.

     

  • transitions 

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

    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!

  • Firefox 3.5 launch party in Guanajuato, Mexico 

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

    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.

     

  • Going Live with Firefox 3.5 

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

    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.

  • Marketing Updates on the Road to Firefox 3.5 

    Paul Kim 3:40 pm on June 17, 2009 Permalink |

    Firefox_by_Ophyr_2Some of what’s been happening on the Mozilla marketing front to share with you, friends, as we trek down the final stretch to the release of Firefox 3.5.

    Advertising Age’s Garrick Schmitt (also EVP at Razorfish and kind human) paid a visit to Mozilla last month. Garrick’s post on the work we’ve done in conjunction with our community to spread Firefox just came out and it’s a great read. Here’s a clip:

    Mozilla competes against Microsoft, Apple and Google — arguably the biggest and most valuable brands in the world — and it succeeds with no traditional advertising (or big budgets) to speak of. It may have taken Barack Obama’s historic political campaign and election to alert the ad industry to the power of grass-roots marketing, but the ongoing success of Mozilla’s Firefox marketing efforts are more relevant for most.

    Read Garrick’s full column at AdAge.com

    I gave a talk last week at the Influx Curated conference, a one-day gathering of 250 creative professionals from  the advertising, design and technology fields organized by Ed Cotton of BSSP. The reaction to the Firefox marketing stories I talked about was gratifying, mainly because of how the way we’ve learned to work as a distributed, participatory movement resonated with people just glancingly familiar with us. (I’m indebted to John Lilly for his help with a bunch of the content in my slides, which I’ve embedded below.)

    Ed Cotton’s insights from Influx Curated

    Lastly, Mozilla is a sponsor of this weekend’s Open Video Conference in New York. It’s going to be an epic, dare I say, wes-andersonian gathering of people working across the spectrum of technology, activism, and culture about video, the Web and the power we have to shape this still emergent media space. I’ll be attending the OVC along with several Mozillians: Chris Blizzard, Paul Rouget, Asa Dotzler and Mark Surman.

    Here’s an overview of the Open Video Conference that co-organizers Dean Jansen and Ben Moskovitz sent my way:

    Open Video Conference
    June 19-20 in New York
    http://openvideoconference.org

    What is Open Video? Open Video is a movement to promote free expression and innovation in online video. The upcoming conference is a three day showcase of inspiring talks, awesome video and film, open hacking sessions, parties, and cutting edge open tech.

    Why is Open Video Important? At this very moment, in 2009, we have a chance to ensure that internet video retains key characteristics of the internet at large. It’s still early and things are looking good, but we need devices that play nice with each other, networks that aren’t totally neutered, and playback and production tools that are low-cost (ideally free/open source) and easy to use. Developments like Hulu are interesting, because people can watch what they want, when they want. But we don’t want internet video to be a glorified TV on demand service. We want video to be a dynamic medium that invites clipping, archival, remix, collage, repurposing, and many other uses that are currently inhibited by law or by lack of tools.

    About the Open Video Conference: The event will take place on at NYU’s law school and is expected to attract more than 600 participants from a wide range of backgrounds. Industry will meet grassroots, artists and filmmakers will meet technologists; and theorists will meet activists. Everyone will be talking about the future of internet video as it relates to free expression and innovation.

    Speakers: NYU’s Clay Shirky, Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin, Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, co-creator of the Daily Show Lizz Winstead, the head of video for TED Talks, representatives from YouTube, Adobe, Mozilla and many more technology companies, an EFF staff attorney, and lots more! Also participating are hackers from free and open source software projects, including: Firefox, VLC, GStreamer, Xiph/Ogg/Theora, Miro, Boxee and many more. See the full lineup here: http://openvideoconference.org/speakers/

    Phew! Lots going on, as usual (I didn’t even mention our uptown office move, Mozilla Service Week, our collaboration with Infectious, or FastestFirefox.com). And, shortly, make way Internets for Firefox 3.5 – you’re going to love it. No treasure hunts required.

     

    • Tom 5:25 pm on June 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Hi Paul,

      After stumbling across you’re blog I wanted to say that I think Firefox is the best web browser I have ever used!

      I’ve tried Google Chrome but it was more complex to use so I went back to Firefox.

      I only realized how intuitively friendly Firefox is to use when I could no longer use the browser in the Taiwan office it does not work, on our network :(

      I did try Internet Explorer, but it’s always slow and unstable, plus book marks are more of a pain to add. Internet Explorer do have one nice feature though which is when you click on a new tab, it puts the table too the right of the tab you are on. While Firefox put a new tab at the end of all the other tabs if that make any sense?

      I now use Safari which I still think is not that great, always to crash if you have too many tabs open….ha now you’re thinking I have some tab fetish going on.

      Anyway hope you and you’re team keep up the good work!

      Cheers,

      Tom

  • Firefox 3.5 and Open Video 

    Paul Kim 9:57 pm on May 31, 2009 Permalink |

    Consider this the little red caboose of Mozillian posts on Dailymotion’s announcement last week of their support for open video (Tristan Nitot and Chris Blizzard have both already covered the news in detail).

    It’s fantastic to be working with Sebastien Adgnot and the rest of the team at Dailymotion as they convert an initial set of 300,000 videos to the open Ogg Theora format. When Firefox 3.5 ships very soon, around 25% of the Web audience will be able to view videos without the need for plug-ins. More importantly, everyone who creates for the Web will be able to hack this <video> joint in the finest traditions of view source-enabled empowerment.

     

  • Spread Firefox: New Day Rising 

    Paul Kim 9:26 pm on April 30, 2009 Permalink |

    The third major redesign of Spread Firefox, Mozilla’s community marketing hub, just went live tonight.

    Big ups to the amazing team that made this happen, across our design, IT, marketing, web development, and QA communities: Jamey Boje, Paul Booker, Alex Buchanan, Mary Colvig, Lucy Connor, Akash Desai, Otto de Voogd, Stephen Donner, Alix Franquet, Aravind Gottipati, Neil Lee, Jeremy Orem, Jay Patel, Krupa Raj, Ken Saunders, Matthew Zeier, and The Royal Order.

    Much respect for your skills and dedication on the path to browser enlightenment. :-)

     

    • Ken Saunders 5:32 am on May 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      “on the path to browser enlightenment” That’s cool. How is it licensed? I may just use it in an ad. :)

    • Ken Saunders 5:35 am on May 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Hey the 3 above me left some really deep and insightful comments. Mine seems so insignificant now. ;)

    • Otto de Voogd 6:41 am on May 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      SFx v3 going live is a moment we have been waiting for with anticipation! It’s the beginning of a new chapter in our efforts to spread Firefox.

      I was a bit surprised to see my name in your post, I don’t think I have done so much as to deserve that, but thanks anyway.

    • Ken Saunders 11:06 am on May 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      “I don’t think I have done so much as to deserve that”
      I strongly disagree. Otto has been contributing in many different ways to SFx and supporting its members (like me) for many years now. The contributions just haven’t been as visible as recently though they have always been provided with the same amount of time, energy, and passion.

      You’re too damn modest my friend.

  • three, is a magic number 

    Paul Kim 9:48 pm on March 5, 2009 Permalink |

    mozilla interns 2007

    mozilla interns 2007

    Summer 2009 is just around the corner, and with it the third year of Mozilla’s intern program. This year, the marketing and PR team has three US-based internships available:

    If you’re working towards an undergraduate degree and love Firefox and the Web as much as we do, we invite you to join us at Mozilla this summer!

    P.S. Check out past Mozilla intern experiences here, there and elsewhere.

     

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