Wordpress.tv and Google Gears

Wordpress.tv

I recently read that Wordpress set up a tutorial site (wordpress.tv). It has been up since mid-January and seems to have a growing database of movies to watch.

I sent them an email about some ideas and got a nice response from Michael Pick. One of my main concerns was that there should be more user-submitted videos. He commented that “We’re already accepting and featuring user videos”.

I looked through the website and still and couldn’t find anything, so it must be hidden somewhere. You can see who submitted it if you look at the “producer” section on the site.

Michael seems to have done a lot of the videos now (~70 at the time of writing), but I found a few by some other authors.

The main reason for not having more user-generated tutorials, according to Michael,  is the lack of quality. I think there eventually needs to be a guide to do your own videos. Michael told me that a video is in the works for screencasting/video making, but that time constraints haven’t made it available yet.

Right now isn’t a big deal, but when Wordpress hits a new version that changes the architecture and GUI of the program, many of the features and videos will have to be redone - or maybe at least revised.

Even though Micahel said they weren’t competing with Youtube, I digress. Youtube has over 2,500 wordpress videos that people can learn from. Wordpress.tv has considerably less - I am guessing less than 250.

If they can’t make videos easy and fast to submit, it will quickly make the website outdated when new versions come out. Overall, it is a nicely done website. Good job. I can learn a lot from it.

Google Gears

I watched a Wordpress video on Google Gears and how it can speed up your browser experience. What it basically does is store more files on your desktop and allow your computer to do some of the processing.

It is a lot like how your computer caches files for faster viewing, but with the added processing power.

It apparently works with Wordpress, so I installed it and all seems to work well (I’m running 2.7.1).

Google Gears only works on a select number of sites, so don’t expect it to speed everything up.