The Article Writer

This just in: women really enjoy reading The Article Writer blog. At least women here in the U.S. do.

All right, perhaps I’m interpreting something different about the survey released by BlogHer/Compass Partners, the people who conducted the 2008 Social Media Benchmark Study. But the survey reveals several things about American women and the way that they approach the blogosphere: they like it a lot.

According to the survey, 36.2 million women actively participate in the blogosphere every week with 15% posting an article to a blog at least once each week and 21% reading and commenting to blogs weekly. Most interesting of all, more than 40% of the women surveyed consider blogs to offer a reliable source of information and advice for them. Shockingly, when it comes to things that women would give up for blogging, 20% would give up chocolate to keep up with blogging (can this be true?!)

The survey cited an increasing lack of trust in established institutions as one reason why women enjoy the blogosphere. Many women distrust the government, corporations, and the media and enjoy blogging to discuss topics that are important to them including which household products to choose, the presidential candidates, and the ungrateful guys in their lives (I threw that one in ). The study has shown that blogging is all about relationships — for women participants, in this case.

As far as us guys go, we weren’t surveyed but I know that there are a few things that we would never give up for blogging. I’m thinking about NASCAR — what did you have on your mind?

Photo Credit Matthew Bowden.

Mobile devices continue to catch on in popularity and may someday match or even surpass personal computer usage. Accessing the internet is easy with many of the PDAs (personal digital assistants) currently available, including such hand held devices as Blackberry, iPhone, Treo, iPod, to name a few. Even if you don’t own a PDA, some of the visitors to your WordPress blog could be finding your site with a mobile unit.

So, the question for you today is this: is your blog mobi ready?

Chances are it isn’t, but thanks to a simple little WordPress plug-in you can make your blog mobi ready without resorting to purchasing a *mobi extension.

Andy Moore developed a plug-in which, when activated, can make your blog easily readable with a PDA. The WordPress Mobile Plugin is something I discovered when a client asked me if his two blogs were mobile readable (they were not) and what we could do to make it so. Googling for that answer I came across Andy Moore’s plugin.

I don’t own a PDA, so confirming any blog as being mobi compliant can only be done with an emulator. Try the tool before downloading and activating the plugin and then come back and take a second look once you’re ready to roll. You’ll see the difference, observing your blog the exact same way that people with a PDA see it — a nifty tool that goes hand in hand with the plugin.

I hate to lose customers and/or visitors to this blog. Now that I know that the plug-in works and that the emulator confirms this, I can reach more people than ever before. If you aren’t mobi ready, then the competition already has a leg up on you.

If you weren’t logged on to your computer that much over the weekend, you may have missed a notice on your WordPress administrative panel stating, A new version of WordPress is available! Please update now.

Yes, the long-awaited — even dreaded — WP v. 2.5 is out and I have some good news for you: WordPress and friends are offering a lot of hand-holding to see you through this update. Before I continue, I am offering special thanks to Deborah Petersen of the Life In The Fast Lane blog for forwarding some important material to me which I am sharing with you today. Thanks, Deb!

Download The Preflight Plugin

Before we proceed, I must tell you that I already upgraded my SEO blog on Sunday afternoon to WP 2.5. I had no problems whatsoever with the upgrade, completely everything within five minutes. Yep, it was that easy.

Still, if you have an older blog, particularly one with an older theme and a bunch of plug-ins, I recommend that you upload the Wordpress Upgrade Preflight Check plugin before proceeding. This appropriately named plugin will examine your current theme and plugins for compatibility issues relating to upgrading to WP 2.3 (a modified version to help you upgrade to 2.5 will soon be released). Even though the plugin hasn’t been updated yet, I still found problems with an older theme blog that I know must be addressed. Once installed, click on the Options tab on your administrative panel and you’ll see the report.

BlogHerald Reports

BlogHerald’s Lorelle Von Fossen wrote an excellent primer in early March outlining what to expect with the update — read it, study it, and take your time doing your upgrade especially if you are concerned that problems could be lurking. Always, back up your database before upgrading and keep copies on hand. Do not rely on your web host’s copy even if they store them for you.

Lost Art of Blogging Reports

You can also find out detailed upgrade information by visiting Lost Art of Blogging and read what Tibu Puiu has to say about this update. I haven’t read it yet, but it is a very thorough review of WP 2.5.

You Can Wait On It

Although your administrative panel is telling you to update NOW, I don’t see any harm in waiting a few days, especially if you want to gauge the feedback which will soon be all over the internet. Mondays are the absolute worst days for me to do these types of updates as I’m gearing up for the week, needing to meet important writing deadlines. There are seven other WordPress blogs I must also update so you can see I’m not too eager to set aside my precious time to tackle them all at once.

Still, with one blog upgrade behind me, it wasn’t the crisis I had expected that it could be.  Kudos to everyone in WP-land for taking the sting out what amounts to a significant change in the way we use WordPress.