Who in the world would use WordPress? It’s free, so how could it be any good? Is it scalable? What happens if my company grows? Oh, it’s just a little blog thingy isn’t it? It can’t be secure? What about data I’m collecting? Oh, I want a big e-commerce site, WordPress can’t do THAT can it? Oh, I don’t know about that Open Source stuff, does it have any support?
I was going to write a piece on this, but it’s all over the internet already. Why would I plagiarize or rewrite something that’s been said a thousand times already. WordPress powers almost a quarter of the internet. Yes, 23% of the internet is powered by WordPress. It’s HUGE folks, it’s not just a little blog platform anymore. It is everywhere. Google and Bing love it. Why? It’s simple, it’s easy to use and it has major ROI. If you don’t know what ROI is, it’s Return On Investment. It has MASSIVE support. Far superior to anything Microsoft has and you have to PAY for Microsoft, WordPress support is free.
WordPress is what is known as a Content Management System or CMS. I’m a database guy; the basis of all content management systems is a database. Data driven software is a database guy’s dream. Everything the software uses is contained in the MySQL database. It allows the user interface to be simple and effective. I started using CMS systems back in the dark ages of the internet with CMS systems like Mambo, Joomla and Drupal. They were the ‘prototypes’ and they were sufficient, but hard to use for the regular guy. WordPress is elegant, simple and so easy ANYONE can use them to manage their content. And what drives the internet? Content.
So suffice it to say that until something better comes along, WordPress is the bomb. And the platform itself is completely free. You pay only for a domain, a hosting company and for me to install and configure it for you. You can maintain your own content if you like. Nothing compares, and I know, I have used them all and originally coded my own web sites in HTML, also back in the dark ages. Now I don’t have to do that and what used to take me weeks now takes me hours. How’s that for automation.
Anyway, without further ado, I’m going to send you to a link that tells it all. Then I’m going to list some of the major companies that use WordPress, but Freddy Muriuki, who lives in Nairobi has put together a pretty good story of The 20 Big Name Brands That Use WordPress (this is a link, click away), why to use WordPress and of what’s going on in the WordPress world so you can find out more there. But here’s the ‘Top Twenty’ list: