Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

Filed under: Business, Podcasting, Blogging, Open Source

Wordpress.com gets influx of VC money, launches video publishing tool

WordPressThe company behind the popular WordPress blogging platform and WordPress.com, Automattic, has received a large influx of cash from investors. The company has drawn $29.5 million in financing from four companies, including the New York Times Company. After last weeks' news of MySQL being acquired by Sun Microsystems, it appears if you have a great idea and a good business structure, open source is a viable business model.

Matt Mullenweg, the man behind Automattic, has said the company will use the money to build infrastructure, expand product offerings such as Gravatar and spam protection service Akismet, and offer new hosted solutions.

Looking at some of the new traffic metrics, WordPress.com will need to strengthen it's infrastructure. According to GigaOm, In the last 30 days Quantcast reports that Wordpress.com attracted 42 million unique U.S. page views, 114 million global uniques, and 492 million page views overall. WordPress.com is a very attractive option for individuals and organizations who want a blog but don't want to stress about the necessary infrastructure required.



WordPress.com is host to some high profile blogs including Robert Scoble, the GigaOM network, CNN, Fox, and Fortune Magazine.

In other WordPress.com news, Automattic has just launched a fantastic option for their premier customers. Pro users of their services will be able to store up to 8GB of media that can be combined with a beta video player to enable bloggers to publish video and/or audio. One drawback is the uploads are limited to 70MB, which means an individual video would be limited to about 15 minutes. Not bad for $20/year.

Additionally, at this time WordPress doesn't create an iTunes compatible RSS feeds. However, this functionality can be done by utilizing FeedBurner or a like service.

This new video/audio publishing tool may work for some podcasters who today rely on a service such as YouTube or Blip.tv. Having all your media on your WordPress weblog would be very beneficial.

[via GigaOm]
jobs & resumes
Lead Blogger

AOL Find a Job - New York, NY (2 weeks ago)

See More Relevant Jobs ›

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio

Joystiq

TUAW

Daily Finance

Autoblog

Urlesque

Engadget

WoW

Switched.com

FanHouse