For you RSS subscribers out there, the RSS URL will remain the same for now, and if I do change it, I’ll be sure to 301-redirect it so you don’t have to update it manually.

The new design isn’t anything too fancy since I’m definitely more a developer than a designer, but if you have any comments I’d be interested to hear them. It’s my first time developing a WordPress theme from scratch instead of basing it off another theme (e.g. Sandbox).

That’s the goal of SEO Ultimate, which is a free plugin I’m developing on behalf of SEO Design Solutions.

Right now the plugin is in its early stages (currently at version 0.6). There are many more features yet to come; as more functionality is added, I expect SEO Ultimate to become the all-in-one WordPress SEO solution of choice for more people as time goes on.

Features

Current functionality includes the standard All in One SEO Pack features:

• Title rewriting
• Noindex checkboxes
• Meta editing
• Canonical tags
• Post meta box

SEO Ultimate also has these additional capabilities:

• 404 monitoring
• Linkbox insertion
• Settings import/export functions

Upcoming features include robots.txt editing, 301 logging, XHTML validation status monitoring, and much more. (If you install the plugin now, you can get these features delivered to you on a regular basis via WordPress’s semi-automatic plugin updater!)

I’ve also incorporated these extra features into SEO Ultimate:

• Inline changelogs
• Readme changelog
• Footer branding
• WordPress 2.7 menu integration
• Integration with WordPress’s Help system
• Inline phpDoc documentation

Auto-Installer

Also, be sure to check out this cool auto-installer system I invented. Just type in your blog’s URL, click “Launch Installer,” then click “Install Now,” and voila, SEO Ultimate will be installed on your blog! You can then enable it by clicking the Activate link.

Try it out:

You can also download the zip file. SEO Ultimate requires WordPress 2.7 or above.

Let me know what you think!

Mobile is really important. Blackberries, iPhones… and other things… are coming. And I’d like that to be in a core cell phone. They were hoping to do it in time for WordCamp and announce it here, but there is a device maker who is working on actually building WordPress into the device, so it’ll come bundled with it — which will be pretty interesting. I can’t say who it is yet, but there’s only a few out there so you can probably guess.

I’m guessing Apple — who else could it be? They already bundled YouTube and Google Maps into the iPhone, so it wouldn’t be too far-fetched for them to integrate WordPress as well. Apple has already incorporated email to take advantage of the iPhone’s full QWERTY software keyboard, so blogging would be a logical next step for them to focus on.

Sure, the iPhone SDK would allow third-party WordPress integration when the iPhone OS 2.0 is released in June, but notice that Matt said it’s the “device maker” (not a third party) who will “bundle” WordPress — I think we’re talking default inclusion here.

And what other device maker besides Apple makes a “core cell phone” that bundles web apps?

This move sounds a lot like Apple: Integrating a brand-name web application into the iPhone (like they did with Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Yahoo! Weather, etc.) instead of focusing on “generic,” brand-less functionality like other smartphone companies would likely do.

And I know this last point is a bit overly analytical here, but since Matt switched from calling it a “cell phone” to calling it a “device,” this implies that this gadget has functionality beyond just being a cell phone. (And of course that just screams iPhone.)

If my prediction is correct, then congratulations in advance to Matt et al — this would be fantastic exposure for WordPress!

I could tell by Matt’s expression on the video that he was trying to hold in his excitement about this, so even if it’s not the iPhone, it must be something big.

What are your thoughts? Do you think I’m way off? Or do you think WordPress will indeed be coming to the iPhone as a preinstalled blogging app?

This is great news! I think BuddyPress has a lot of potential in today’s social-oriented web. If early versions are indicative of the final release, BuddyPress is going to be more than a plugin — more like powerful “plugin system.”

I’ve actually been tracking the BuddyPress project for quite a while. After the creator, Andy, announced he didn’t have time to continue its development, I seriously considered contacting him to offer to take over the project. But it looks like it’s now in much better hands! Who would be better suited to developing a revolutionary WordPress plugin system than the creators of WordPress itself?

Can’t wait for the release!