WordPress was originally made as a blog publishing application but has now evolved into a huge content management system (CMS). It was first released in May 2003 by its co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little as the successor to b2/cafelog. It is powered by PHP and a SQL data backend. As of September 2009, WordPress is used by 62.8 million websites in the US and 202 million websites worldwide.

Here are my top 5 reasons that I would recommend WordPress any day of the week:

1. WordPress can make websites that don’t look like blogs. This is a very big misconception. Many people always assume that if you are using WordPress as a CMS that it has to be a blog. This is very untrue. For example, check out the very popular site colourlovers. This site runs WordPress and is not just a blog.
2. Plugins. Plugins are extensions that add additional functions to the basic WordPress software. These are what turn the basic blog program into a full content management system. Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine. There are almost 10,000 different king of plugins! Everything from basic social media plugins to advance portfolio galleries.
3. Themes make it easy to customize and update. Essentially, the WordPress theme system is a way to skin your website. You can find thousands upon thousands of premade themes online for free or sometimes a small fees. Here at Firebelly we make a lot of the custom themes from scratch. Themes allow your WordPress site to look ANY way you want.
4. Installing a WordPress blog/website is VERY easy. WordPress is now known for what they call the “famous 5-minute WordPress installation.” The title says it all. WordPress is very simple to setup and start using ASAP. You can setup a free account with WordPress.com to host your site or you can always host it on your own server.
5. WordPress is really easy to use. If you have ever used Microsoft Word or something similar, you can easily use WordPress. When you update posts or pages it has a very “word-like” editor, which is called a WYSIWYG editor (What you see is what you get). This built in visual editor makes updating as simple as tying your shoe.
6. BONUS REASON: It’s FREE!

Do you love WordPress? Tell us why!

Article by: Zach Reed // Firebelly Designer (Follow me @bluetidepro)

Branding in in our DNA at Firebelly Marketing. And we're firm believers that design makes everything better. Design thinking should be embedded in how we approach making things in general. Check out this story.

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential product designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

Read director Gary Hustwit’s post about the film. Objectified is the second part of a three-film “design trilogy” by Gary Hustwit, details on the third film will be released soon.

Featuring:
Paola Antonelli (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Chris Bangle (BMW Group, Munich)
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (Paris)
Andrew Blauvelt (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis)
Tim Brown (IDEO)
Anthony Dunne (London)
Dan Formosa (Smart Design)
Naoto Fukasawa (Tokyo)
Jonathan Ive (Apple, California)
Hella Jongerius (Rotterdam)
David KelleyBill Moggridge (IDEO)
Marc Newson (London/Paris)
Fiona Raby (London)
Dieter RamsKarim Rashid (New York)
Alice Rawsthorn (International Herald Tribune)
Davin Stowell (Smart Design)
Jane Fulton Suri (IDEO)
Rob Walker (New York Times Magazine)
and more participants TBA

(IDEO)
(Kronberg, Germany)