On a rainy Sunday morning, the ContentRobot team took the train south to check out WordCamp NY. Jonathan Dingman had the tough task of gathering the WP geeks into warm room in the Sun headquarters. Here’s what we experienced:

Keynote with Matt Mullenweg

Matt praises the State of the Word as “strong,” and he gave a bunch of usage/download stats that were just amazing. The room was a-buzz as they were happy to be part of this wave – we were, too!

This year, Mullenweg concentrated on meeting as many users as possible at various WordCamps all over the world and spreading the open source gospel. Some quick facts from Matt:

  • Automattic wants to evolve WordPress toward the FireFox model of updating, stats, and usage
  • Sees plugins as a free market of features that allows them to adopt core functionality in a democratic way
  • Average plugins per blog was 5 – our clients tend to hover around 10
  • WordPress 2.7 is coming in November and has a totally customizable dashboard/interface
  • Improving comments were on Automattic’s top-of-mind, especially with comment threading coming and the integration of their recent purchase of IntenseDebate
  • An integrated library of themes and plugins with a promise of one-click updates on the way
  • Looking forward to easier implementation of rich media – audio/video, etc.
  • Sees the blog as a one-stop place that brings together all different modalities, such a tumblr log, Flickr pix, Twitter stream, Facebook, and more

Making it into the Big Leagues with Aaron Brazell

Aaron focused on atracting big audiences with marketing, message, and branding. Stuff we especially liked from his discussion:

  • 90% of your users are new and come from search engines
  • Your marketing activities that will keep them coming back
  • Create content that is relevant and consistant
  • Determine who your audience is, what they want, and keep giving them it
  • Word of mouth will shape your brand, so your interactions with your customer will define it – not you
  • Develop a pattern of deliverables from web site, print materials, blog writing, etc. that enforces your brand
  • Participate on others’ blogs and develop a repore with other bloggers
  • Grow your audience via newsletters and RSS feeds

Running a Blog Network with Jeremy Clark

Young Jeremy is responsible for a global, multi-lingual site that holds lots of challenges. Tho his discussion was a bit more technical than some of the audience would have liked, he was entertaining and had some great points to make.

  • Keeping the overall design simple, so it can be easily integrated any blog in the network
  • Decide on what the core features are and stick to your guns
  • Focus on security by upgrading (especially to stay ahead of the hackers)
  • Learn how subversion can help the upgrade process go quicker and easier

We enjoyed our day at WordCamp despite the lack of WiFi at the event. The food was awesome and we had fun meeting a variety of fellow bloggers.