WordPress as a mobile publishing platform

Editor's Notes

• #2: Thanks for coming to listen to me talkToday going to be talking about WordPress as a mobile publishing platformRoughly 3 parts (about me, why you should go mobile, more technical how to go mobile)
• #3: Name is Matt GeriLike to think adventurous web & mobile developerAdventurous as I like the outdoors and web & mobile developer speaks for itselfCore skillset as developer is HTML/CSS/PHP/MySQL/MongoThen I also work on top of frameworks and platforms like WordPress
• #4: During day Chief geek at WordPress geeks, wordpress development & consultancy businessI founded it a earlier this year with a partnerOne of original MobilePress developer (more on that later)
• #5: Been developer since 2001Started off 2D tile based games in Qbasic and eventually moved on to c++During my time developing game, I built up quite a few but had no way to distribute them
• #6: Wanted to show off games and get also feedback on themDecided I needed website to host my games and so learnt HTML/CSS/PHPThanks to archive.org, on screen is my first website, table based and lots of spelling errors
• #7: Site hosted on free host with tons of adsRealized I could make money on the netBeing young I needed some money to party with on the weekendDug deeper and discovered adsense and affiliate programs
• #8: Armed with the desired to make some money, started looking into easier ways to publish content (building static sites was becoming a pain)Found WP and TextPattern around 2004How many of you have heard of text pattern?Started building affiliate sites with bothWordPress won due to easy of use, themes and community
• #9: Cut long story short, I ended up becoming a WP consultantQ3 2008 joined Younique, started MobilepressStarted out of need for a decent Mobile plugin
• #10: At time, 2 other half decent pluginsAuthor inject admob ads into themes, he was making money off the back of other peoples contentThemes hard coded, changes overwritten when theme updatedGeared towards high end devices only
• #11: Figured we could build a better mobile pluginPeople were looking for an alternative, but there wasn’t oneHow idea for MP came about
• #12: Built MP with a few key featuresBtw, picture a jokeLower end device supportCustom themes for iphone, bb, winmo, low end devices etcCreate your own themes
• #13: On top of those featuresAlso added in better ad support through AduityMobile analyticsDuring the time of MP we were also building a mobile ad mediation platform.
• #14: Launched and very well received by WP communityGot lots feedbackNot many changes since launch (because part time, focus was on better ad experience)
• #15: Share quickobservations from building MP and feedbackPlugin enhanced SEO automatically, SE’s loved MP websites. Blogs added to index quickRealized how big the mobile web actually is, small blogs would get tons of visitorsFor every 2000 web visitors (smallish blog), you would get around 1000 mobile visitors114000 downloads to date. People going mobile
• #16: Whats happening with MobilePress going forward?Busy with massive overhaul, version 2.0Features are hush for now but will have better themes
• #17: Always hear mobile is the next big thingLast year, this year and next yearBack then we needed justification (not many stats, people unsure), but now obvious
• #18: From seeing MobilePress stats, the mobile web is massiveOnly going to grow with the rise of smartphonesMore people are browsing the web from phonesiPad and tablet growth (got to optimize for these devices)
• #19: The audience you blog for, are not always in once place, they are on the move.You need to cater for that.First feedback we got from mobilepress was people were happy they could now read blogs in bed
• #20: Makes sense that blog is optimized for mobileWe optimize content for RSS, so why not for mobile? RSS is dying yet we still care to optimize for itAnother reason, ordinary blog themes include widgets and plugins which don’t render nicely on mobile screens
• #21: WordPress huge, and easy to go mobileWordPressno longer for bloggers, it’s for everything i.e. websites, applicationsMakes sense to reach the widest audience possible by turning WP website into mobi websiteQuick stat, 14.7% of top million websites powered by WP
• #22: Since WP so popular, used world wideYour blog can be read anywhereIn some countries it’s the first and even only screen!
• #23: Mobile stats
• #24: Talk about pluginsAdvocate for promotion of mobile web, would like to see many mobi sites as possibleAllows me to read while I am on the loo, shopping, resting etcSo please use any of the above that suites you, all are good
• #25: Little bit technical since we are on the development trackGoing to look at MobilePress behind the scenes and how it works with some code snippetsYou’d even be able to use the following information to build your own mobile theme switcher
• #26: Most important part of your plugin, detects if we are dealing with a Mobile deviceWrite your own (MP open source)Device atlas – lots of overhead, not ideal for pluginswURFL – again, lots of overheadRecommend writing your own
• #27: Massive caching issue at first with MP, sites were caching mobile version etcReached out to Cache developers, as did othersMost good cache plugins now let mobile traffic through (Total Cache, Super cache etc)
• #28: Once you have detected a device and skipped the cache, need to display a mobile themeLuckily WordPress is flexible and gives us filters to do thisCode snippet for switching themes
• #29: Most tricky part of the whole processBe aware devices use different rendering engines, what you see on one device, not the same as anotherA lot of lower end devices only support a subset of html/css (CSS quirky)CSS for lowerend devices must be inline or in the head part of html pageCookies also not suported on a number of devices
• #30: Great for higher end devicesCheck out jQuery mobile for smart phonesNot so much for lower end devices, be careful
• #31: Not all plugins will work on mobile, watch out for flash/JSIntegrate the plugins on a per case basis and testMost likely custom integration into mobile themes
• #32: Questions?Will be around till the end of the conference for discussion