I’ll admit, I was skeptical when ManageWP.org launched.
“Here’s another Digg,” I thought.
Do we really need another source of WordPress news? Will this just turn into a link farm? A popularity contest is the last thing WordPress needs. So I would pop in every now and again, dropping in some links and up-voting here and there. I wasn’t fully engaged with it as a source, because heck, I was doing my own twist on coverage in the industry.
It even stung a few times when I would submit my content and it got flagged. I think hyper-focused WordPress developers still aren’t wiling to open up to other angles of business as it relates to the WordPress ecosystem — but that’s another discussion.
No worries, this is par for the course when you have a community rating system and at the end of the day, it ultimately makes it the compelling reason to be involved.
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Then work got in the way
As an agency owner, there’s one thing you can bet on — busy starts to the new year.
If you’re out there hustling for clients and building your network, eventually your referral engine starts rolling. It seems every new year we have to brace for a rush of business and this year was no different. Add our WordPress products (Themes & Conductor) to the mix and I’ve got myself a fairly full plate.
No more time for back channeling.
Tweetdeck isn’t open for 8 hours.
I’m not in Feedly trolling for Tom’s posts.
Enter in ManageWP.org (again)
This is that Aha! moment I didn’t have at the first go-round with the website.
Now that all cylinders are firing, the community-driven website is just the ticket for when I need to see what’s trending for the last few days.
Missed a few hours in the day from the Twitter feed? No worries, I can hop on and check the top voted news. Need to see what other’s opinions are on a topic? Easy-peasy, we can check out the comments (if there are any*) on the respective topic.
All of this wrapped-up in a nice efficient display of top posts. Kudos.
Some caveats
For listeners of The Matt Report, you might not find your dose of WP business news or digital business trends there. It still seems that folks favor the more technical side of WordPress on ManageWP.org. Not a surprise to me really, I’ve been doing this for a while.
I think that’s the murky side of community-driven portals. Once one culture dominates, the fewer we see of others. Either way, I’m welcoming the site back into my semi-daily rotation and I hope you give it a shot too.
Bonus round
I love data and I’m sure you do too.
One of my favorite areas of the site is the statistics page. You can find all of that top posts by domain, category and contributors. As you can see my favorite topic, Business, really lags behind. Maybe we can change that?
As bonus #2, another site I’d like to introduce you to is WPChat.com.
I’ve had a few conversations there, but I’m really looking forward to committing more time on their boards. How about you?
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