Anyone who has read Smashing Magazine, ProBlogDesign, and WPHacks has read articles by Jean-Baptiste Jung. He was also highly talked about in mid 2009 when he created a Digg-like website with the WordPress core called WPVote. This was without altering the core and not bridging in platforms like Pligg.

Jean-Baptiste is really busy and just seeing all the websites he blogs for, I was really lucky to catch up with him via email for an interview. Here was the interview…. hope you enjoy!

ME: When did you step into using WordPress and what did you think about it when you first started using it? (Was it easy to learn?)

JEAN-BAPTISTE: I started using WordPress with version 2.1, in 2006. I felt in love at the first time because it was very powerful and very simple to use and learn at the same time.

ME: I noticed you have written at quite a few places, so I guess, for our reader’s knowledge, how many places do you write at, where (the URL) and how in the world do you have the time?!? (lol)

JEAN-BAPTISTE: First, I got a few blogs:

- CatsWhoCode.com which is a blog about web development.

- WPRecipes.com which is all about WordPress “hacks” and tips.

- CatsWhoBlog.com, my most recent blog, which is all about blogging tips and make money online tricks. I launched it 3 months ago and already have 1000+ rss readers so I guess people love this new blog.

I also guest post occasionally, on several places likes Smashing Magazine and the BuySellAds blog.

How I have the time? That simple – I’m just not afraid to work. I don’t know what a week end is. You know, when you have a dream (Mine is to live free with no boss) you have to work hard for it. Many people can succeed but they don’t work enough to do it.

ME: Now, I know how you created WPVote.com and it was great that you made such a site so bloggers can submit their WordPress-related articles… what motivated you to create such a site? What is the future of WPVote.com?

JEAN-BAPTISTE: WPVote was a good idea I think, but sadly it never really reached any success. Maybe it was due to my lack of promotion. I finally sold the site one or two months ago to Ben Gillbanks, a WordPress fanatic from the UK. You better watch out because I’m sure that Ben is going to do great things with WPVote.

ME: Obviously you are successful with the sites you run, all having decent rankings/ stats, so for those who use WordPress as bloggers, what advice can you give on how to promote their material?

JEAN-BAPTISTE: I run a blog CatsWhoBlog, where I give lots of advice to promote your material, so my best tip for now is just “go read it”

ME: You wrote a WordPress-related book called WordPress 2.7 Cookbook? Can you tell a little bit about the book? What motivated you to write this book? Did you have any help?

JEAN-BAPTISTE: It was a great experience and I’m happy that I wrote a book. The book is like WPRecipes. It contains something like 100 recipes to let you do anything with your WordPress blog. I haven’t sold a lot of copies – sadly (Something like 600/700 right now), but I got a lot of positive reviews by people who bought it. Now, I’d really love to write a book with my blogging tips.

ME: In your opinion, why should people who are looking around for a CMS should choose WordPress? Is there anything you think that WordPress might not be able to handle as of yet?

JEAN-BAPTISTE: I’d say, go test WordPress and then test another CMS such as Drupal. Drupal is very powerful, but it is not that easy to learn, especially for someone who haven’t a background in IT. A WordPress site can easily be created for a non-developer client, he’ll quickly learn how to use it.

ME: What kind of features do you hope WordPress might have in the future?

JEAN-BAPTISTE: I really think WordPress is great as it is now. What I’d like is that they release LESS upgrades! I have a lot of blogs, and upgrading them every 2 weeks is a bit boring.

Jean-Baptiste Jung is a blogger, web designer, and web developer from the French speaking-side of Belgium. You can find him at any of the sites mentioned in the interview or Jean-Baptiste on Twitter – @catswhocode.

I had the opportunity to catch up with Andy Bailey, the creator of CommentLuv. Since 2007, the plugin has been downloaded over 126,000 times! Believe me, he is a busy man, but it was great to interview him. I hope you enjoy!

ME: When did you become motivated to create CommentLuv and why?

ANDY: A plugin came out to put links to peoples sites based on how many visits they got. I didn’t think that was fair because the popular blogs would end up having the most links shown so I sat down and tried to write something that would reward the readers of my blog by parsing the feed at their url when they comment and adding the latest post to the end of the comment text.

It was also a great way for me to see what my community of commenters was writing about, all their last posts were easily clickable from within the comments of my posts.

ME: What was the hardest thing you had to get through when creating the CommentLuv plugin?

ANDY: The hardest part was releasing it as a plugin on the official WordPress repository. Making something work and be able to change it’s settings on my own site was fine. I knew the code and how my server worked but once it went out to the public, I quickly realized that not everyone has the same type of hosting features. So the hardest part about creating the plugin was making it compatible with all the different types of systems that users have.

The next hardest part came when I took CommentLuv to an AJAX system, I’d never used javascript before so I had to learn as I did it which is pretty much how commentluv came about. I’ve never studied php or programming so all my learning has come from taking apart other scripts and trying to get them to do what I needed. Using Wordpress and doing the edits required to make a theme do what I want has pretty much given me all the php education I need!

ME: What is the best thing about the CommentLuv plugin that has happened?

ANDY: Probably the best thing so far has been seeing my plugin make a difference to peoples sites, I get messages all the time how it has helped a blog get more comments or how it’s led to new and interesting site discoveries because the last blog post links. Being able to expand my programming knowledge and learn new skills has been pretty great too.

ME: What are some of your hopes for the future for the CommentLuv plugin?

ANDY: I would really like to bring out a CommentLuv 3.0 with all the features that have been requested by users. I have to work hard in our family business pretty much every day so finding time to do it is hard. Sometimes I have to take unpaid days off from work so I can have time to do a needed update or bug fix for a new wordpress release.

I’d really like to take the plugin more seriously by giving it some dedicated time to code. I am considering moving 3.0 to be a premium plugin where a user who buys it can install it on any of their blogs and register it direct from the dashboard. Proper support would be much easier if the plugin went premium too and it’d make taking days off from paid work a lot easier!

ME: What other WordPress-related projects are you on or are in the works to start?

ANDY:My multiuser site ComLuv.com is starting to take shape, lots of new blogs are being created. Quite a lot of promotional sites coming in but luckily nothing too spammy or splog like. I’d like to get the comluv server paying for itself with ads and sponsorships, once that can happen I’ll be able to start paying for some staff to take care of tutorials and some simple support.

I have some sketches for a new ecommerce plugin which can turn any post into a shop item. It’ll work with an AJAX shopping basket and integrate with google checkout or paypal but it’s on the back burner while the busy holiday period is on.

ME: Anything else you might like to say? Any shoutouts to your developer team or anyone?

ANDY: I’d love to thank my developer team but, I don’t have one! I’m a one man band for the site and plugin and support. I would like to thank all the users and bloggers who write posts and tutorials for commentluv, I don’t always have time to respond personally but I love seeing users help out other users with things.

Andy Bailey uses his pc in my spare time to create and code useful things that make life easier. He can spend 5 hours coding something that’ll save 5 minutes and feel completely satisfied. He works with a partner and her brother in a Chinese takeaway in the North of England (firedwok.co.uk). Andy also runs The ComLuv Network, the only free blog site where anyone can start a Wordpress blog with the CommentLuv plugin installed.

I had first heard Erin Blaskie speak at WordCamp Chicago 2009. She spoke a lot on how blogging and social media worked for her and how to harness that power for your own blog. (I still have the notes taken for WordCamp Chicago.) I thought it would be nice to allow her to speak on why she likes and recommends WordPress. This is no traditional interview, but more like a guest post. Here are some of the guidelines I gave to her (it was not much):

1. What or who brought you to using WordPress?
2. What you like about and/or recommend WordPress?

I hope you enjoy her response that she sent me as much as I did.

—

Let me first start by saying that no matter what you hear, I don’t love WordPress solely because of Matt Mullenweg and my publicly known “professional crush” on the man. In fact, I fell in love with WordPress as a platform long before I met the geeky entrepreneur.

It was a New Year’s Eve and the weather was awful so I retired to my home office after a very delicious New Year’s Eve dinner. Sitting in front of my website, a plain HTML install at the time, I felt this longing in my heart. I knew that I wanted something more. So, I went to Google and began my search.

I like to think WordPress found me that night. Although, admittedly, it probably was my search term of “blogging platform” that brought us together. In any case, on that New Year’s Eve in 2005, I installed my first WordPress install and “customized” the Kubrick theme. It was love at first one-click-install.

Over the next four years, WordPress and I had a love / hate relationship. It was mostly love however and I was willing to share the secrets of our relationship with a lot of other people. Together, we helped other entrepreneurs get themselves up on WordPress and ditch their own HTML crutches.

The beauty of WordPress, for me, is the instant search engine optimization, ability to easily customize and change the look and feel of the platform and the ease of use. There is nothing simpler and more powerful for websites at the moment and with instant communication becoming so prevalent, it fits the bill perfectly.

WordPress and I will have a long and happy relationship – of that I am sure.

Erin Blaskie (@ErinBlaskie on Twitter) is a girl involved in a passionate love affair with the Internet. When she isn’t entertaining people via her video podcast, eThusiasm, she can be found managing a team of twenty-one in her creative outsourcing firm, BSETC. Featured in three print books and her own published book due out in early 2010, Erin has an unstoppable desire to put her hands on all things entrepreneurial.

I had the privilege of meeting Lisa Sabin-Wilson at WordCamp Chicago 2009. She is the author of WordPress for Dummies and BuddPress for Dummies. I found her quite friendly and just a real inspiration. The other day I sent her a message asking for an interview and she graciously allowed me to. This comes as a real treat for the Holidays! If you are into WordPress, Lisa is a person that you MUST know.

Here was my interview with her.

Me: When did you decide to use WordPress for the first time? (or were you a b2 user like myself)

LISA: I was not a b2 user, though I wish I could say I was just for the sheer novelty of it. In reality, at the time you were using b2 – I was using Movable Type. A good friend of mine introduced me to WordPress, after I was complaining about the whole rebuilding process that I had to do with MT every time I wanted to make any changes to my theme – the whole site (including all the archives) needed to be rebuilt every time, it was insane! I switched from MT to WordPress in 2003 (on version 0.9-something (I think) and never looked back and have not ever considered using another platform for my own sites. By the way, not to knock Movable Type or SixApart – I think they’ve greatly improved since then and it’s not quite as painful as it used to be – but it certainly was enough to force a switch with me, which speaks a bit to how important user experience is when choosing a publishing platform.

ME: What is so appealing about WordPress versus other CMS, or even other basic blog scripts/platforms?

LISA: Where to begin? Ease of use. Flexibility. Intuitiveness. Community. Extensibility. Did I mention ease of use?

When I choose applications – it does not matter if it’s for blogging, designing, accounting, project management, etc… The first question that needs to be answered to my satisfaction is: Does it do what I need it to do in the most efficient way possible? WordPress does, and then some. I’ve worked with various CMS platforms, and while there are some really fantastic apps for blogging and content management, none of them meet that ‘efficient’ need of mine the way WordPress does.

Plus – I learn new stuff using WordPress all the time, which is exciting and (mostly) keeps me out of trouble.

ME: Did anyone inspire you to take up writing “WordPress for Dummies” or “BuddyPress for Dummies”? Who?

LISA: Having been an early-adopter of WordPress, I’ve been fortunate enough to really witness it’s organic growth over the years and the development community full of people who, each doing their own part, are the reason why WordPress is so very successful and the most widely used platform on the web today. I was not inspired by any one person, in particular, but rather an entire community of people.

I have been supporting WordPress users since 2004 – day in, and day out. Helping people discover the platform and watching the light bulb go off when they realize how extremely easy it is now to control, manage and maintain their own content is really quite fun. When I was approached to write WordPress For Dummies in 2006, there was no question on whether or not I would do it. It seemed a natural next step for me to take, and I’m still having great fun doing it. The first edition of WordPress For Dummies was published in November 2007, and I wrote a second edition that was published in March 2009. With lots of exciting development coming out of the WordPress development community, you can expect the third edition to hit the shelves sometime during the summer 2010.

BuddyPress For Dummies came about earlier this year (2009) during a conversation I was having with my editor on social media and online communities. She said (something like), “You sound really excited about this BuddyPress thing – do you think it’s book worthy?” Obviously, with the book being published in early 2010 (and currently BuddyPress For Dummies available for pre-order on Amazon) – we decided it was absolutely book worthy – no question. There is great excitement surrounding the BuddyPress project, and it’s a growing buzz that will hit new highs in 2010, and beyond.

ME: How long did it take to write both books and did you have assistance?

LISA: For the actual writing of the content, it took me 3-4 months for each book, followed by a month of copy editing, proof reading and technical editing before the books get sent to the printer and out to the book stores. Those months are pretty packed with lots of research, deadlines and some very, very late nights (LOTS of coffee!). My biggest challenge with both titles was keeping up with the latest development. It’s hard for all of us to keep up with all the great stuff that comes out day to day, but trying to keep up with it in a the static environment of print publishing is an extreme challenge.

As the sole author of both books, I didn’t have anyone else helping me research and write the content. However, I do have a great many people to thank for their help with technical editing of both books – and folks I used as resources who helped me stay as up to date as possible on what was coming in the next version. The folks over at Automattic were extremely helpful – in particular Matt Mullenweg and Jane Wells, especially with the second edition of WordPress For Dummies. I started writing that one in version 2.5 and ended up rewriting a lot of it in a mad rush at the end to make sure it was relevant up to 2.7 and Jane Wells was an integral part of helping me accomplish that, as she made sure I was kept in the loop with the new Dashboard design and user interface that was introduced with 2.7. I literally was updating screenshots and changing content for the book just days before it was due to hit the printer.

For my BuddyPress For Dummies book that’s coming out shortly, Andy Peatling was my technical editor. A Technical Editor is the person who reads every word I wrote and then edits it for technical accuracy, and having Andy doing it gave me supreme peace of mind because he is, after all, the guy who wrote the program. Because BuddyPress is so new, there isn’t a whole lot of user documentation out there about it – so I really had to rip that program apart and spend a lot of time digging around in it in order to write about it – - Andy was extremely helpful with a few corrections, some suggestions and lots of insight on what users can expect with the highly anticipated release of BuddyPress 1.2 later this year. It was a super learning experience for me, and I hope the readers of the book benefit from that experience, as well.

ME: I know by your profile at E.Webscapes that you know other blog and CMS platforms, but do you focus a lot in E.Webscapes around designing with WordPress? / Do you try to encourage clients to use WordPress over other CMS?

LISA: About 95% of the work we do at E.Webscapes is with WordPress – and that is, by and large, a reflection of client request. I do not try to sway my clients one way or another – mostly, they already know they want to use WordPress before they contact me. However; for those clients who are looking to me for a CMS recommendation – I take into consideration their requirements and help them make a choice based on their, individual, needs. I can say that, for the most part, WordPress is the CMS I am recommending 99.9% of the time and that is because there most things can be accomplished with WordPress. Additionally, WordPress has such a friendly user experience – it takes a lot of the guesswork out of the mix for the end user. The other 5% of the work that we do is done in TypePad, Movable Type or (very rarely) Expression Engine – and, most often, those clients are already using the platform and aren’t interested in making the switch.

ME: What is the most unique job you have done using WordPress?

LISA: Lately, I am really digging BuddyPress – which fits well because it seems I am getting more and more requests for it. People are really excited about the idea of having their own niche community on their web site, so while I’ve done a fair amount of WordPress work over the years that have been unique projects – what is really sticking out in my brain right now is the work I’ve been doing lately with BuddyPress, mostly because it’s so new, the excitement surrounding it is so awesome and, at the moment, seeing a nicely customized BuddyPress site is a fresh experience for everyone (because it’s so new). Some work I’ve done very recently includes: NourishNetwork.com, SportsGrants.Org, WeEarth.com, WeHeartThis.com – and I have a handful of other BuddyPress sites I’ll be launching for clients over the next month, or three.

ME: What kind of features would you like to see WordPress have in the future?

LISA: Perhaps with the whole mash up of BuddyPress, WPMU and WordPress.Org – this may already be taken care of at some point, but I have always wanted to see a better User Profile engine. Right now, we’re limited (unless we know how to alter it) on what user information can be captured in the Profile area. Wouldn’t it be great if we, as users, were able to add new fields through a field manager type of set up? If I wanted to capture Twitter or Facebook URLs of my registered users in order to display them in their comments, or user/author pages and feeds – - or if a business site wanted to capture other user data for sales leads. There are a few plugins that are headed in the right direction for this.

Right now, as a project management/help desk solution – I’m working with an application called Kayako. Within that app, I can customize user ticket fields – - basically, that is the fields the users fill out when they submit a new order, or a new request for support. The Field Manager is great because I’m able to add new Field Groups, new Fields and ask the user all sorts of questions that, when answered, helps me determine the best way to approach their new request.

I don’t know how many times clients ask me to make sure they are able to capture specific user data upon registration/sign up. With BuddyPress, this is possible within the Extended Profiles component. But with regular old WordPress.Org software – - it’s possible, but maybe not as easy and intuitive as it could be for users who aren’t so familiar with code mucking.

That, and if WordPress could do my dishes, laundry, vacuuming and feed my fish – that’d be cool, ok Matt?

Lisa Sabin-Wilson is a creative designer and the owner of E.Webscapes with over 12 years of graphic and web design, expertise in CSS and has been developing sites, large and small, in various content management systems like WordPress, Expression Engine and Movable Type. Lisa is the author of the popular WordPress For Dummies and BuddyPress For Dummies, both published by Wiley Publishing. Follow @EWebscapes and @LisaSabinWilson on Twitter!