WordPress 2.9 Is Ready For Download

The world’s most popular blogging platform has released an important update. Release 2.9 for WordPress is out and includes some significant changes. Just so you know I have seven blogs to update, but thanks to the automatic update tool, that job is over and done with quickly.

WP 3.0 Looms

Being that this is release 2.9, this particular update brings us one step closer to a major overhaul of the platform which will introduce WordPress 3.0 to the world. No doubt, we’ll see several interim updates before then such as WP 2.9.1, 2.9.2, …, but when it does show up I’m sure that it’ll reflect the best of what WordPress has to offer.

Before you upgrade WordPress, you’ll want to back up your database first. Select Tools > Backup to accomplish that task, but if you’re not in the habit of regularly backing up WordPress, I suggest that you install the nifty WordPress Database Backup to automate the process. Why chance having your site crash and then discover your database (which contains all of your articles) is old and your most recent articles are no more? That’s a lot of work to lose because you failed to backup your database!

Four Significant Changes

Automattic, the company which developed and oversees WordPress, says that the following major changes have been included with WP 2.9:

1. Batch Plugin Update – I like this feature because every time that there is a significant update of WP, many of the plugins fail or don’t work quite as well as they could. That means WP plugin developers will respond by making quick changes to bring their plugins up to snuff, which also means that you may have scads of updates to handle. FYI, some of my sites have as many as 26 plugins installed, but thanks to the new batch update process, I can handle those changes at once and so can you.

2. Undo Feature – Have you ever accidentally deleted one of your posts? I can’t say that I have, but I know if I did I’d be bummed. WordPress has created a feature which will allow you to find and bring back your killed off posts, saving you a lot of grief and anxiety.

3. Image Editor – A built-in image editor makes it easier for you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images without having to leave WP and use Photoshop, Gimp, or other image editing program to get this work done. I haven’t used it yet, but if it works according to plan, then this feature will save bloggers plenty of time and remove the excuse that you don’t have time to include a photo with your work.

4. Video Embeds – I don’t do all that many video embeds across my network of blogs, but that may change now that WP 2.9 has made this task easier to accomplish. All you have to do is paste the URL of the video in your post and WP automatically converts it to an embed code. Amazing! My personal recommendation for WP pros is to use videos sparingly as they tend to slow down the loading of your site. Too many videos on one page and your visitors may move on. Still, the updated feature sounds like a good one to me.

Upgrade Now

How do you perform an update to WordPress 2.9? That’s easy. A drop down notice is sitting on the top of your screen in the administrative control panel. Click on it and choose either to “upgrade automatically” or “download 2.9” and do the latter yourself. I always select automatic updates once I know everything is backed up and I haven’t had a problem yet.

I Took A Bite Out Of Bit.ly!

Honestly, how do you keep up with all of it? I mean, how can you possibly track all of the wonderful web applications, extensions and related paraphernalia which are rolled out, updated and refined on what seems to be a daily basis?

Biting Bit.ly

A case in point is Bit.ly, an odd sounding but amazingly resourceful URL shortener packed with all the amenities you can imagine. Not only are your web addresses shortened when you use this tool, but you can change the suffix to something that is uniquely yours.

For example, when I created an automatically shortened link for this lengthy URL: http://thearticlewriter.com/autowriter/no-mahindra-models-this-year/, Bit.ly rendered http://bit.ly/xWeBv instead.

But it gets even better than that.

Next, I adjusted the URL to read http://bit.ly/mahindra-trucks/ which allowed me to claim “Mahindra trucks” as my embedded word phrase. Why was this important to me? Well, Mahindra will be selling their all new pickup trucks in the United States beginning Spring 2010, therefore I wanted a recognizable and highly searchable web address to match my article. After all, if I’m to promote my authority as an automotive columnist, you should be able to find some of my cutting edge articles, right? You bet!

Certainly, I could have used an abbreviated URL on my blog post, but I don’t: I prefer to match my title with my URL which makes for some very long Twitter-unfriendly web addresses.

Customizing Bit.ly

Of course, what good is a URL shortener if all it does is whack your address and allow you to customize it? Certainly, having statistics to go along with your work would help.

Indeed, Bit.ly offers registered users the ability to track their links by seeing just how many people click on their links over a period of time as well as within the past hour, what sites are referring traffic to your URL, the countries from where clicks are coming from, and what Twitter conversations are mentioning your URL. Track buzz in real time or sort through that information days later. The choice is yours.

Bit.ly is, by the way, the default URL shortener for TweetDeck and was recently incorporated into Twitter itself. This is good news, because a number of web shortener applications have closed down or will close down eventually including Tr.im. This means that if your web shortener dies, then your links will perish too – not a good prospect, especially if you’ve put so much time into working your links.

Influencing Bit.ly

In just a few days I entered 75 links into Bit.ly from across my site network in a bid to gauge effectiveness. I mixed new articles with old ones including some I had tweeted in the past. A handful completely bombed because they ran out of tweeter juice ages ago. Still, the related statistical information comes in handy, something I will be using along with Google Analytics to help me monitor traffic, referrals, locations and more.

Are you using Twitter? Lots of people are and, according to Danny Sullivan, it ranks up there with Tiny URL which is the grand-daddy of all address shorteners on the market.

Libya Bit.ly

Lastly, the .ly extension for Bit.ly stands for Libya. That country has had its ups and downs over the years, which may cause some people to worry that Libya could one day whack Bit.ly, Owl.ly and others who are using this domain extension. But, with two million dollars in recently funding, the investors in Bit.ly don’t seem to be worrying about this URL shortener’s long term survival, thus I won’t either.