For a very long time now, I have been a WordPress user. I have released free and paid themes, I’ve worked on a few different plugins, I’ve blogged about WordPress (Blogging Pro) and its community, and I’ve been part of two WordPress focused podcasts (WordPress Podcast and WordPress Weekly). I never reached the brand tie-in that many upper echelon WordPress fans have been able to reach, despite having been using the software, and touting its awesomeness for far longer than most. This limitation has been, in my mind due to my need to speak out on things that I find odd, unreasonable, and strange, as well as my inability to really connect with the people doing the amazing work behind the scenes.
My post today isn’t about my involvement with WordPress though. Instead it is about WordPress itself, and the unfortunate state of the WordPress community today. It isn’t the WordPress community of a few years ago. Things are a mess, and I feel like I need to stand up, one more time, and go over my thoughts on the current state of the WordPress project. (more…)
Something I have been waiting for since I first used WordPress was a better way of managing user submitted data. Contact forms have always been horrible, and worked randomly, depending on the theme, other plugins and what sometimes felt like the roll of the dice. Gravity Forms is the perfect replacement for all of those horrible issue laden plugins.
I’ve been beta testing the plugin for some time now, and have found it useful for a variety of different needs, and the more I use it, the more ideas I come up with on what it could do for me with regards to taking in information from visitors and displaying it to me.
The first thought that people have is that Gravity Forms is “just another Contact Form plugin”, but it can do so much more than that.
Want to do a visitor survey? Want to do a “send this post to a friend”? Want to have user guest post submissions? Gravity Forms can do all of that and more. I’ve even used it for a basic product inventory system, as well as a tool to sign players up for an online RPG. The uses for the plugin are wide, and according to the Rocket Genius team, they’ll continue to expand.
Gravity Forms is a premium plugin, but I like to call it the first “extension” of WordPress, because I feel like marketing it as a plugin is too limiting. It does so much more. There are three price points for Gravity Forms, $39 gets you a one-site personal license, $99 gets you a five site license, and $199 gets you the unlimited developer license.
The Developer license comes with Priority Support and Free Add-Ons and allows you to install it on as many sites as you want. This is the license I will be purchasing, and the one I hope you’ll all purchase as well.
Why go for the Developer License?
It might seem pretty pricey to shell out nearly two-hundred dollars for a WordPress plugin, but I assure you, there is more than two hundred dollars in value that you’ll receive. If not from the initial 1.0 version, then from future version, the free add-ons and the priority support.
What other plugin will allow you to quickly and easily make contact forms on all of your blogs? What other plugin will make it easy for you to take feedback, guest posts and other information from your users? What other plugin will allow you to make a basic help-desk? We are just scratching the surface of the types of input and data management this plugin will allow, and you’d be silly not to try to take full advantage of what Gravity Forms is offering you.
Affiliate Offer
Yes, the links in my post are affiliate links, and you too could sign up, receiving a 20% commission on any sales you generate. I think this is very fair, and look forward to hearing from the Rocket Genius team how this does for them.
Follow the Rocket Genius Team on Twitter
If you are like me, and want to keep up to date on everything happening with Gravity Forms, make sure to jump on Twitter, and follow the following people:
Don’t forget to check your server first to make sure Gravity Forms will work on it. Use their Gravity Forms Server Test plugin to double check, or just make sure your server is using WordPress 2.8+, MySQL 5+ and PHP 5+.
I have always found WordPress to be lacking a theme that gave a full set of tools to the user, making sure they could customize their blog in an effective way without any PHP, xhtml or CSS knowledge.
Sure, it might be that I want to be lazy, but I sigh when I have to try to dig through a theme authors code.
Over the last few months, I have been working on a theme system that deals with my own issues in WordPress themes, and today, it is finally being released. The theme is entitled WPUnlimited, and is a paid theme system.
It will be constantly updated, support will be included through a support forum and e-mail responses.
WPUnlimited does two things that I hope everyone will enjoy. First off, it takes plugins out of the hands of plugin authors. I have spent far too much time waiting for plugin authors to keep up with new versions of WordPress as they come out, and by integrating the plugins into the theme, the onus is now on me to keep those features working within the theme.
Secondly, I wanted to make sure I could change the layout, colors, typography, and header image without editing a line of CSS and WPUnlimited allows for this level of customization. The theme truly takes little to no coding knowledge to create custom look and feel results.
WPUnlimited costs $59 for a single user license, and $150 for a developer license. Don’t let the “developer” term scare you though. The license is for anyone that wants to deploy WPUnlimited on more than one blog, either for themselves or their clients.
Check out WPUnlimited today, and let me know what you think.
My name is David Peralty, and having been a full time web worker for the last three years, I have been fortunate enough to have experienced many of the facets involved in making a living online. This site will cover much of what I have learned, as well as the things that peak my interests.
I am available to consult or speak on a variety of different matters, including social media promotion, WordPress, and blogging as a business tool for communication and increasing sales.
James Cogan James Cogan is a Canadian new media entrepreneur, domainer and branding connoisseur. His current venture is the dailypixel.ca Network, a Canadian focused network of blogs, web services and online communities.
Joseph Thornley Joseph Thornley has blogged on ProPr.ca since 2005. He is the CEO of Thornley Fallis and 76design and really understands social media.
Chris Garrett An Internet Marketing Consulting, Chris Garrett posts his thoughts and advice on the business of new media, blogging and online marketing.
Jim Kukral A well known web marketing strategist, speaker, and consultant, Jim Kukral has made a brand for himself by using video and audio podcasting.
Chris Brogan Blogger, speaker, and social media expert, Chris Brogan is able to boil down complex ideas and topics into actionable items.
I have always found WordPress to be lacking a theme that gave a full set of tools to the user, making sure they could customize their blog in an effective way without any PHP, xhtml or CSS knowledge. 
