WordCamp Orange County 2011

Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

OC WordCamp Badge Widget

We know there are a lot of you already coming, but we’ve still got room for more. To help get the word out, we’ve built a little WordPress widget that you can install on your blog to help promote the Orange County WordCamp event. You can download it at the link below.

[download id=”2″ format=”3″]

To install this on your blog, follow these simple steps:

Unzip the files and upload the entire oc-wordcamp-badge folder to the plugins directory of your WordPress powered site.
Go the the plugins panel in the admin and activate the plugin.
Add the widget to your sidebar in the widgets panel in the admin.
That’s it!

Posted in Community Support | 2 Comments

Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

How to Create a Premium WordPress Plugin

Premium WordPress Plugins One of the biggest misconceptions among WordPress plugin developers is that you can’t legitimately make money from your plugins. This is complete bunk — the truth is if you develop a plugin that complies with the GPL and provides value to your users there are actually many ways to legitimately make money from it.

In my presentation at OC WordCamp, I’m planning on covering a complete process you can use to release a premium plugin including:

Selecting the type of plugin to write — This could be the hardest and most important part of this process. If you’re going to spend as much time as it takes to create a valuable plugin, you better select a feature set that you’re interested in, other people actually want and has a market large enough to make the development and ongoing maintenance of the plugin worth your while.
Technical differences between free & premium plugins — WordPress offers an awesome repository for deploying and upgrading free plugins — but not for premium ones. Since WordPress’ entire plugin repository and code-base setup to only deal with free plugins, you’ll have to create your own system for deploying and upgrading your premium plugin. This system will no doubt include code within your plugin that will link to a plugin repository of your own. Sound hard? Don’t worry, there are several other plugins and software packages that will help you to get your premium plugin deploying and able to auto-update in no time.
Legal considerations — WordPress is released under the GPL and is fully open source — doesn’t that mean that legally speaking premium plugins need to be GPL and fully open source? Well, yes … all plugins, including premium WordPress plugins need to be GPL and hence, fully open source — but that doesn’t mean you can’t charge money for them. The GPL restricts your plugin to being “Free as in Free Speech,” not necessarily “Free as in Free Beer.” 🙂
Strategy — There are many different ways you can release a premium plugin and you’ll want to select the one that works the best for your offering. Some of the strategies that I’ll cover include free plugins (monetized with advertisements), premium plugins, freemium plugins (premium plugins that offer a free version), and plugins that connect to a premium service you’ve created.
Marketing & Building Credibility — You may love to program in a dark room and only require that a bucket of mush be slid under the door every day to keep going — but you’re going to have to get out there and market your plugin if you want it to be successful. My presentation will cover some of the basics of getting your plugin some visibility.
How to get a system up quickly to deliver your plugin — This is where the nuts & bolts come into play — I’m planning on covering this from the technical setup to mobilizing your community and getting some help.
Ongoing Support and Updates — I’m surprised how many premium plugins make no mention of support or updates on their landing pages. It is absolutely critical to the success of your plugin that you plan out how you’ll put this in place well before you release your plugin.

I’m really excited to give this presentation at OC WordCamp — I think it will be highly useful to anyone wanting to release a premium plugin or service. Hope to see you there!

Posted in General Awesomeness, Presentation Topics | Tagged GPL, Legal, Making Money, Marketing, monetization, plugins, premium wordpress plugin, Strategy, wordcamp, wordpress | 12 Comments

Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Oops! Did I Scare You?

You may have noticed a little grey box that says “Woopra” at the bottom right hand side of your browser when you visit this site and may not have thought anything of it. It’s a simple thing to overlook, but I can assure you that it’s something you should be paying a lot of attention to. Let me explain why.

At Pixel Jar, we use Woopra to track stats for nearly every site we own/manage these days. We used to use Google analytics, but we were frustrated by the delay in actionable information. So much of the web happens in real-time these days, why shouldn’t our ability to act on it be real-time as well. Woopra allows us to do just that. If you’re browsing this site and can’t find what you’re looking for, take a look at that little grey box. If it says “Chat with us”, you can click it and immediately put directly in contact with me, the guy with the answers. How sweet is that?

Now, here’s the part that might freak you out. I say that, because I think I’ve scared some of you off. Sorry about that. We can see what pages you’re browsing…in real time. When you click any link, we know it immediately. Now, we’re not stalking you, but having this information at hand helps us to better deliver the kind of content you’re looking for. If I happen to be looking at the stats app and notice that someone is spending a lot of time on the site, has a history of coming to the site, they bounce around from page-to-page, that tells me that they might be looking for something that just isn’t there or is hard to find. This can also be the sign of a frustrated user.

I’ve tried to reach out to a few of you to see if I could answer any of your questions, but I think I scared you.

If you see a chat notification, don’t freak out. We’re still trying to figure out how best to harness it’s awesomeness. If you’re browsing around this site and get stuck and one of us is online, feel free to reach out and say hello. I bet we have the answer you’re looking for.

Woopra has some strong ties to the WordPress community through John P. (One Man’s Blog), Lorelle VanFossen (Lorelle On WordPress) and early adopter/promoter Cali Lewis (GeekBrief.tv). It was unveiled at WordCamp Dallas in 2008 and immediately went in to closed beta. Keep your eye on this technology folks, it’s just going to continue to get better.

[poll id=”3″]

Posted in General Awesomeness | Comments Off

Mar | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Checking in With UC Irvine

Here’s a little back story on why we chose UCI as our venue.

First off, UCI wasn’t our first choice. As a graduate from Chapman University in Orange, I thought it would have been be a perfect venue for OC WordCamp. It’s small, central to Orange County and has a good community. Unfortunately, they don’t use WordPress at all internally and therefore didn’t have any sort of motivation to help us out. My wife is a UC Irvine graduate and suggested we look there.

Guess what?

It turns out that UCI is using WordPress MU to facilitate Blogs @ UCI, a blogging service for UCI faculty, staff and graduate students. I spoke with the manager of the UCI blogs, Sylvia Bass, who works in the OIT department about sponsoring the event, but due to reductions in university budgets they aren’t able to help us out. However, we were able to secure two rooms on campus that have the technology that we’d need to put on a successful event.

Today I went down to campus to drop off our deposit. OC WordCamp is right around the corner and I’m super pumped.

Much WordPress love goes out to all of the people who have already registered. There’s still tickets left, but the price is going to go up pretty soon. Don’t wait to get your tickets…and why not donate a few bucks to the cause while you’re there.

Posted in General WordCamp, Sponsors | Comments Off

Mar | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

The End of An Era

My WordPress branded pen just ran out of ink. I got this pen at my very first WordCamp, WordCamp San Francisco 2009. It lasted me only a year, but with that pen, I’ve proudly planned and executed many WordPress projects. Lucky for me (and for you), Orange County WordCamp is right around the corner and Automattic has kindly donated a bunch of the very same pens, stickers and other awesome shwag. Make sure you pick up one of these trusty pens on April 24th. It’s not only a writing utensil, but a symbol of your connection with a great community.

If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, head over to the ticketing page and snatch them up before the early bird discount is gone. See you all on April 24th.

Posted in General WordCamp | Comments Off

Mar | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Jane Wells

Jane is the user experience lead for WordPress, and has worked in the web industry for 10 years. She is often on the road, meeting WordPress users to incorporate their feedback into each new version. In between WordCamps, she tries to find time to restore her 1968 Austin-Healey Sprite. Jane is a former San Francisco resident. Her first computer was a Commodore Vic-20.

Posted in Speakers | Comments Off

Mar | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Drew Strojny

Drew is an interface designer, theme architect, ex-football player, and entrepreneur. He is usually busy designing and building handcrafted WordPress themes at The Theme Foundry, enjoying the fantastic weather in Boise, or on the couch watching romantic comedies with a box of tissues.

Drew graduated from Duke University in 2003 with an A.B. in Philosophy. Upon graduation the New York Giants selected Drew with pick number 203 of the 2004 NFL draft. He went on to spend seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the St. Louis Rams.

Drew is currently the head curator at Jestro LLC where he is building The Theme Foundry into a global superpower, working with clients from time to time, and boldly exploring new opportunities on the interwebs. Two of his themes, Vigilance and Titan, are featured on WordPress.com and have received accolades from likes of Mashable and Best WordPress Themes.

Posted in Speakers | Comments Off

Mar | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Step right up! Get your tickets here…

I am thrilled to announce that all the late nights getting our ticketing system put together are finally paying off. If you go to the site today, you might notice a new sidebar widget and some new menu items under the attendees tab. You now have the opportunity to purchase one of our very limited number of tickets. You may not have heard, but we only have a total of 200 tickets we can sell due to the size of our venue including the ones we’ve already bought for ourselves.

Everyone – organizers, speakers, sponsors and attendees all have to buy a ticket to get in because it’s all about the head count. By my count of all of those people plus those people I’ve spoken to in-person, there’s a very good chance that we’ll sell out before the event.

Don’t wait until the last minute or you might get left out. Go get your tickets now!

P.S. I can’t speak enough about Jonathan, the lead developer from the Shopp WordPress Plugin (that’s what we’re using for our registration system). The new version of his plugin is going to be awesome. I’m trying to convince him to come speak at OC WordCamp, so if you sell anything online, go check out his site.

Please let us know of any issues you run into with your ticket purchase and we’ll do everything we can to help you resolve them.

Posted in Tickets | 2 Comments

Mar | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Jonathan Dingman

Jonathan Dingman is a free lance WordPress developer that passionately loves WordPress. His experience with WordPress began in 2003 with the first release of WordPress. Some of his latest endeavors include organizing the first WordCamp in New York City back in 2008. Another is his involvement with WordPress Vibe, a blog devoted to the WordPress developer community. You can find him cruising the streets of Los Angeles in his Infiniti G35, tagged with WRDPRSS as the license plate.

Posted in Speakers | Comments Off

Mar | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Steve Zehngut

Steve founded Zeek Interactive in 1995. Despite dozens of dot–com hey–day offers to “partner up” for mountains of stock options, he remains the creative technologist behind the Huntington Beach–based company. With a degree in cinema and a background in graphic design, Steve has been a multimedia developer for more than fifteen years. Under his direction, Zeek Interactive has grown from an apartment bedroom to one of Southern California’s leading development and consulting shops.

Steve is recognized as a leading Web and Flash programmer. He has been a frequent panelist and speaker at industry trade shows, including the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and the Macromedia International User Conference. He was also a former Macromedia Advisory Board Member, a member of Producer’s Guild and he sits on the Advisory Board at the Art Institute. In addition, Steve has participated as a mentor in the American Film Institute eTV Workshop.

Steve has taught interactive development courses at University of California Irvine, University of Southern California, American Film Institute, and California State University Long Beach.

Posted in Speakers | Comments Off