WordPress Can Now Turn Blog Posts into Tweetstorms Automatically #

13 October 2020

Earlier this year, WordPress .com introduced an easier way to post your Twitter threads, also known as tweetstorms, to your blog with the introduction of “unroll” option for Twitter embeds. Today, the company is addressing the flip side of tweetstorm publication — it’s making it possible to turn your existing WordPress blog post into a tweetstorm with just a couple of clicks.The new feature will allow you to tweet out every word of your post, as well as the accompanying images and videos, the company says. These will be automatically inserted into the thread where they belong alongside your text.

My immediate reaction when I first saw the headline, was “oh my god this is terrible”. But after reading the article, I think it actually makes some sense for the world we live in right now.

As much as I dislike the situation, a lot more people read Twitter than they read blog posts. So in regard to your content being accessible, it’s great. I still feel it moves away from content having a canonical place on the internet, but that could just be the idealist in me.

One part of me thinks that is a feature that will please some people, but I wouldn’t use it for my own blog. Another part of me deep down, wants Ghost to add something similar so I can try it out.

WordPress is a Hostile Place for Web Curators #

9 July 2016

Dan Lages has written a piece on how WordPress is relied upon by a lot of different people and websites, but in most cases it isn’t really the optimal solution:

“That’ll do.” I can only imagine this is what was said to the WordPress developers as they bolted website service together with the initial blogging platform. It is clear that the WordPress is tailored towards bloggers, the initial audience of the service. As a result of this, users are left facing an endless amount of themes that prompt the use of posts, not pages. How many times have you seen a blog on a company website?

In fact, every element of the service appears broken without a heavy backlog of blog posts. From the menu system, to an empty archive sidebar that is included by default. The result of this horrendous integration is a collection of un-utilised pages and elements that leaves users with various questions. – dlages.com

I seem to agree with everything he’s written, and if you read it for yourself, you can clearly see for yourself why WordPress isn’t the best idea.

It may be used a ton, but it really shouldn’t be. I for one started to use Ghost recently, and I really prefer it over WordPress.