Wordpress is, without a doubt, the most popular open source blogging software. But, its much more than just a blogging platform. With its 3233 plugins (as of this instant), its the most flexible platform for developing almost anything. In this post, we’ll see what all you can do with Wordpress.
Blog
Wordpress was primarily developed to be a blogging platform and that is what it is being used for, widely. Almost every other blog that you come across today is powered by Wordpress (includes my own blog). Also, Wordpress.com hosts about 4,562,469 blogs (when I started writing this post) 4,562,720 blogs (when I finished writing this post) that are powered by Wordpress.
Static Website
If you are not going to blog and you simple wish to have a static website, Wordpress can still help you with it. Also, you can just have the static website or have a blog attached with it. You can do it without any external plugin. This feature comes packed with Wordpress. You can check out this post and this for more knowledge.
Magazine
Are you a print magazine publisher ? Or, do you want to write a magazine online ? You can create your own E-Zine with wordpress. There’s a huge pile of magazine themes available for Wordpress. In my previous post, I dealt with using magazine themes. There are some very popular e-zines out there, powered by Wordpress.
Social Network
All of you would have probably heard of Facebook, Bebo or MySpace. They are what we call today as “Social Networks”. The cool thing is that you can create your own Social Network with Wordpress. Either you can do it manually by editing WP’s code. Or, you can simple install BuddyPress over an installation of Wordpress MU. Also, check out this live social network which uses Wordpress.
Email Newsletter Manager : WordBurner
Most of the Newsletter Managing softwares out there are very expensive. But, luckily FeedBurner offers Emails Subscriptions for RSS Feeds for free. Combining that with a Wordpress installation, you can create your own email newsletter manager for free. NetTuts has an extensive tutorial on how to create this software called “WordBurner” ;)
Gallery
“A Picture says more than a Thousand Words”.
Wordpress has inbuilt Gallery support using the shortcode. But, there are numerous plugins available to convert Wordpress into a cool gallery. You can check out the whole list, but NextGEN gallery is my favorite.
Forum
Though softwares like vBulletin, phpBB and SMF rule the world of online forums, Wordpress has its own solution called bbPress. bbPress is plain and simple forum software, plain and simple. It’s easy to use, easy to administrate, fast and clean. It is also highly customizable just like how Wordpress is.
Feed Aggregator
Simply put, A Feed Aggregator is one which gets the content from various sources and puts them all at one place. A very powerful plugin called WP-o-Matic is available to serve this purpose. The plugin converts your Wordpress into a personalized feed aggregator. But, such plugins are also being used to STEAL content from other blogs.
MicroBlogging
Does that word seem unfamiliar to you ? But, I bet you’d have heard about Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr etc.. They are nothing but the so-called MicroBlogging platforms. Using Wordpress, you can create your own MicroBlogging site, with the help of the Prologue theme. And, the good news is that, it comes right from the Wordpress team themselves. You can also check out the demo.
Membeship Directory
Do you want to create a moderated membership directory that showcases your member’s information? Do you want it to be flexible, be very little work after initial setup, and use a world-class open source platform that you are already familiar with?
Check out this detailed tutorial on how to create your own Membership directory using Wordpress.
Do you use Wordpress for any other purpose ? Or, do you know anyone that does it ? Have any new idea on how else Wordpress can be used ? Share your views in the comments…
Great list. I didn’t know about the forum and social media site options. I have been planning on using it for a membership site and for a future static site, but those other options are very interesting. I am really glad I subscribed to your feed. You have been posting some really good stuff.
I’m off to stumble this post…
Thanks for the comments and also for the stumble, George… Hope i can keep up with such content… :)
Wow! I agree with George: great list! I develop web sites on a regular basis, and especially the tip about how to use Wordpress for static web sites is an eye-opener for me. Thanks!
You are welcome. It is definitely a lot of work to create great content like this list, but it can pay off once a lot of people recognize how valuable it is.
Thanks for sharing this great information about wordpress!
I feel like I did the first time I ate pancakes for dinner. Excellent post, thanks for the fresh insight!
What should i say about this post.. awesome.. what i know about wordpress is only doing static website, gallery and blogging.. never knew there is forum and social networking available..
Thanks a lot Hari…
Tell you something.. at first i wanted to make my glitter graphics website out of wordpress.. lol.. yes.. of course it is doable..
I’ve just learned about the membership site style and I didn’t know that there’s a forum to be made as well. At first I thought you’re talking of forum-wordpress integration.
WordPress forever !
Yea those are all good tips and something to think about when your trying to build up something. Wordpress is a great tool that we can use to do this too. People don’t realize how easy it is.
Wow! I’ve never heard of this before and I think they’re awesome!
11. Articles directories. There is a plugin designed specifically for this.
@Samantha, can you link me to the plugin ?
I’m dino… hi!!
i think wordpress and joomla are the best!
look at my site… it was made by wordpress
dinodelellis.blogspot.com
@Dino, that is a blogspot blog..
Excelent post. I wish good luck from Autoversicherung
Good to know how flexible WP is becoming. I have also launched other sites on the WP platform. It’s a little difficult like anything else at first….like studying HTML the first time – but once you get the hang of it, there you go. For instance, here is one of my latest: http://topgiftcardsonline.com/
That looks really nice :)
Wow, that’s cool. Thankyou for the great list.
Very nice. thank you for sharing
Wow, thanks for this list, i knew of a few of these, but not about the forum and micro blogging stuff.
http://articlesss.com/article-directory-wordpress-plugin/
There is one instance of an article directory plugin.
Also you can do review sites like http://www.awardwinninghosts.com/ with this plugin http://www.wpreviewsite.com/ it costs money but it looks pretty good.
~ Flyer
Yeah, i knew about the Review Plugin.. But, forgot about it at the time of writing this post.
And, regarding the Articles directory, if you ask me, you can convert Wordpress into an Articles directory merely by using a suitable theme. There is no need for fancy plugins. But, this opinion is based on my understanding of the term “articles directory”.
Well, i believe that when someone speaks of an article directory, they mean something like that of a site directory eg Dmoz. But instead of sites, it has articles. Is that what your idea of one is?
Yeah, exectly.. So, a simple article directory can be achived by hiding the “date” and “author” information from the posts. And, by hacking the front page of wordpress to display recent articles etc..
This can be done using a custom theme (except for the frontpage hack). But, of course a plugin a help a newbie..
that is true. So if you could do either, which do you think would create the better site?
Err, if it is made using a custom theme, if’ll be easy to set up but will have limited features.
On the other hand, an article plugin may give a lot of features.
So, it really depends on what all features you want.
I’m a big fan of WordPress too. Not only because it’s so powerful and flexible, but because you don’t really have to know anything about web sites to use it – WordPress has put web publishing into the hands of ordinary people, and is no doubt part of the reason for the tremendous growth we’ve seen in the internet in the last few years.
Of course Rodney. The tremendous growth of blogosphere should be owed to Wordpress..
Great write up! I’ve actually never come across a bunch of resources that you supplied. In fact I didn’t know that Wordpress was capable of so much, I’m more of Joomla guy myself. Thanks for this, looks like I might have to try this out myself.
I’ve tried Joomla once long ago. But, it was sorta very complex..
Wordpress is very flexible. And thanks to some great coders, it gets even more flexible by the day.
@Bill,
Yeah, thats a whopping 3486 plugins and grows day by day :)
Nice list. I didn’t know about WordBurner, that’s pretty cool idea. Thanks. By the way i heard it is not good for Wordpress blog to install too many plugins – i have only 12, and i feel it slows down a little bit.
@Kevin D, i don’t think it does. I have 17 enabled plugins, and my blog still runs at the same speed. Might be just the plugins you are using?
@Kevin D and @Flyer,
Technically speaking, plugins do increase the load times of a blog, as more code needs to be executed.. But, it is not noticeable enough to say “oh ! my blog has slowed down..” except for maybe some specific plugins..
Wow great list! George makes the most valid point though
Excellent, Social marketing is an adaptable approach, increasingly being used to achieve and sustain behaviour goals on a range of social issues, it is a very good post .
Cheers,
Andy Colleman
great post, that was a great idea about the rss feed and using it for a newsletter
Excellent article, congrats on it, Great tips and well written english, stumbled up !Andy
Awesome post. You really have a nice blog here and keep up the quality content.
Thanks,
Phil
Great List….just started a blog and enjoy working with it than my static site.
Google seems to like it as well!@!@!!
g
great list. i’ve find it very interesting..i’ve always ask myself what others plugins exists for “transforming” wordpress in something else. thanks
great tips, i like the idea of using wordpress for static blog, excellent idea, thanks
I’m currently on blogger, but when I read posts like this (especially about the plethora of plugins for wordpress) it makes me want to switch. I’m not ready to take the plunge yet… but the time is coming.
@JCL,
I tell you, its really worth it to make the switch to Wordpress.. Its amazing…
Great post as an introduction. You’re right that with Wordpress you can really accomplish a lot.
With regards to bbPress – I’ve been hearing more about this however have also heard that it isn’t as robust as something like vBulletin or phpBB – so definitely depends on the goal of the forum.
I’ll have to look into it more.
Daniel
You are right Daniel. It is a much more simpler forum software than the others like phpBB, vBulletin, SMF etc..
I had no idea there were that many plug-ins. I’m sure my SEO guy knows about these. Maybe I’ll add a few!
Ed Harris
Solid post. I just dug through the rest of your blog there is some good stuff in here.
I’ve kept up with Wordpress from the start and have witnessed its rapid growth over the years.
I just added this to my newsreader. You should check my blog out sometime too – we seem to have simliar interests.
-Freddie Laker
Digital Strategist / TakeMeToYourLeader.com
This is definitely a great post. Lol it’s funny because I used the same image for my social network picture. Anyway, I am a blogger user, but I have been thinking about switching to Wordpress for some time now.
You have a great writing style. I’ll be back around here more often.