Posted on June 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

14 things I learned about Matt Mullenweg and WordPress at WordCampRDU

Photo via WordCampRDU

This past Saturday, I had a chance to participate in WordCampRDU. Matt Mullenweg (Ma.tt), the co-founder of WordPress and AutoMattic, was the keynote speaker at the event. After WordCampRDU several of us had a chance to spend some time with him over burgers and bbq downtown Raleigh. Matt had my full attention, as I always try to learn as much as I can from successful individuals, especially those in the online/technology world. Here are 14 things I learned about WordPress and Matt. Some were new features of WordPress, while others were reminders about existing features that I hadn’t used.

1. VideoPress:
VideoPress is WordPress new video hosting feature. It costs $59.97 a year as an upgrade feature for WordPress.com users, but there is also a beta VideoPress plugin for WordPress.org users. You can custom design the VideoPress player and additional player branding features are on the way.

2. WP.com:
Matt recently acquired the domain WP.com and told the WordCampRDU crowd that it “may” become a tinyurl service for WordPress blogs. It’s something Matt has thought about, but he mentioned how spammers abuse existing tinyurl services. I’m confident that the WordPress team will find a way to implement this feature.

3. P2 WordPress Theme:
I’m not going to say Matt doesn’t like twitter but, have you really taken a look at the P2 Theme for WordPress? It’s not your normal blog theme. By installing the P2 theme you can have your own microblog platform with threaded replies. I use the P2 WordPress theme on http://smhustle.com. Search for other examples of P2 being used to see the many things you can do with this new theme or watch the video below:

4. Press This Button:
WordPress includes a Press This button under the tools section that allows you to blog from any web page. It acts like a bookmarklet for your blog.

5. Matt is a “stat-a-holic”:
Matt love stats. Just ask Matt about downloads of WordPress 2.8, plugins being installed, or how much bandwidth his company uses and he can tell you the numbers off the top of his head. If math is required, he can calculate it easily on his iPhone.

6. WordPress for iPhone app:
You have to like a someone who’s honest about his own product. Matt mentioned in his keynote that he’s not a fan of WordPress for iPhone application and to expect a new version a few months after iPhone 3.0 OS has been released.

7. Matt is more than just WordPress:
At just 25 years old, Matt has already accomplished more than what some have done in a lifetime. With those accomplishments comes experiences and although Matt co-founded WordPress he sometimes would rather talk about other topics such as entrepreneurship and life. He told us a story about a talk he given about a man who had a perfect memory. If you ever get a chance to meet Matt ask him about it.

8. Matt is not the CEO of Automattic or WordPress:
I was writing a blog post on my iPhone blog and Matt kindly corrected me that he’s not the CEO but the co-founder.

9. It’s AutoMattic and not Automatic:
You get it it? It’s Auto”Matt”ic … nice one, Matt.

10. Matt is a forward thinker:
Matt is a forward thinker. We were talking about how the Kindle and the iPhone touch was ready a few years before public knowledge. Matt and the WordPress team are already working on making WordPress better to work with software and hardware three years from now. “If you start now you’ll be ready vs starting in three years and playing catch up.” Matt says.

Photo via Jason Keath

11. Matt is not a Mac guy:
Surprisingly, Matt doesn’t carry a MacBook around, but a Sony PC. He also started Palm users group back in the day. But he does have an iPhone now and most of the AutoMattic team uses Macs.

12. What Matt likes about NC?
Matt loves NC sweet tea. We tried to take Matt to one of our famous BBQ places but it was full. I think he still ordered BBQ, but I didn’t get a chance to see what he thought about NC BBQ vs other states BBQ.

13. Email a post to WordPress.com
Did you know you can create a unique email address for your WordPress.com blog and email post with attachments. You can even email .mp3 files to your WordPress.com blog and they’ll post and play automatically.

14. OpenID and Jabber:
WordPress.com is an OpenID provider and you can use your WordPress.com user name to for Jabber chatting. I think there’s something WordPress may have to turn on to get Jabber to work with your username, or it may be a user error on my part. But it does work. Update: Matt emailed me to let me know the way the WordPress Jabber account work is username@im.wordpress.com.

Overall all after spending a few hours with Matt, I left with the impression that Matt is one of the smartest and coolest guys in technology. He doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves for contributing to the success of others, and to the internet as an whole. Thanks, Matt, for creating an awesome platform and I hope we’re able to cross paths again soon.

Photo via Kipp Bodnar.

Also I did get a chance to interview Matt for the upcoming relaunch of WayneSutton.TV. Be on the lookout for the interview online soon.

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About the Author

Written by Wayne Sutton

Wayne is the business development/marketing strategist for TriOut and partner at OurHashtag. For more, follow SocialWayne.com on Twitter, Buzz, and Facebook. Also check out the SocialWayne Podcast in iTunes. See all posts by Wayne Sutton.