Internet Marketers, Should You Upgrade to WordPress 2.5 Now?

1/04/2008

If you’ve been following the developments on the WordPress blog, you’d know that the new official release of WordPress 2.5 is out.

Besides better image handling – the new version has a pretty comprehensive built-in gallery (WordPress head developer honcho Matt Mullenweg did a preview screencast of the new gallery), it also has features like an enhanced in-built tagging feature, integrated analytics (so you get a better idea of your traffic picture without having to go to Google Analytics), a redesign of the user interface that should allow for more intuitive posting.

What’s uncertain is if embedding videos and other code requires having to muck around with the blog settings, because WordPress hasn’t really “played nice” with PHP, javascript and flash files in it’s previous incarnations.

Also, there’s a big question mark about the compatibility with WordPress plugins (generally developed by third party and independent developers) designed for earlier versions of WordPress.

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So the $64,000 question (or perhaps in today’s context, the $1million question…) is as an Internet Marketer – either you promote other products as an affiliate or you have your own products – should you upgrade to WordPress 2.5 now?

Here’s my personal take…

If you started out with the later versions of WordPressÂ 2.2.x or WordPress 2.3.x and your blog works ok now, you should not have too much difficulty with the upgrade. Maybe 1 or 2 plugins might stop working, but you might be able to get along without it.

If on the other hand, you started out with WordPress 2.0.x or 2.1.x and you use more than 20 different plugins, you can expect some pain during the upgrade process.

I know specifically if you’re using SEO-optimization type plugins and affiliate marketing plugins, and one of them breaks in the process (especially since WordPress has gone from a category-based data management system to a taxonomy-based one), you might want to hang on for a moment, and wait a couple of weeks before the dust settles.

From what I’ve seen from the notes, it doesn’t look like the ability to post video on the blog is a huge priority at the moment, so podcasters, video bloggers and lifecasters might experience some difficulty during the migration.

Whatever you choose to do, be sure to backup your MySQL database, and copy and paste important settings and information into a text file for reference later in case something goes awry.

There’s nothing more “fun” than doing a one-click upgrade of your blog, only to spend the next 24-48 hours trying to undo it.

If you have the ability to, you might even want to duplicate your existing blog on another domain or a sub-directory and upgrading that instance of your blog. The major bugbears may take a couple of days to show themselves though.

Whatever you do, tread carefully, especially if your blog brings in daily income!

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9 comments on Internet Marketers, Should You Upgrade to WordPress 2.5 Now?

Darran
April 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm (16 years ago)

Some corrections I feel I need to make.

2.5 has the ability to add in video, and also there isn’t any stats for wordpress.org powered blogs. With each release, you can expect plugins to break, that is sure to happen. Despite tags being used readily, Categories still exists though.
Andrew Wee
April 1, 2008 at 3:10 pm (16 years ago)

Re: Categories –
see http://www.whoisandrewwee.com/blogging/wordpress-231-legacy-blog-plugin-killer/

Ryan Boren, part of the automattic team which developed WordPress documented this.

You might want to read the WordPress blog to keep track and be educated about the latest developments.
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All versions have the ability to add video, but there’s a number of complicated workarounds associated with it.

Check out Matt’s update and you’ll see that video doesn’t feature prominently.

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Lastly, I’d suggest any marketer worth their salt would do a self-hosted WordPress blog.
Shannon
April 1, 2008 at 9:21 pm (16 years ago)

So far I have most of my blogs upgraded to the new version.

I haven’t had any negative effects yet. I’m liking the new dashboard.

The upgrade was a snap with the Automatic WordPress Upgrade plugin. Highly recommended.

http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade-plugin.html

~Shannon

p.s the fully automatic option didn’t work on my server, but the semi-automatic (just a couple clicks) option worked perfectly.
marsha
April 2, 2008 at 3:32 am (16 years ago)

o,k, I’m convinced,,,thanks for the information. I’ve been procrastinating
about the new WP download.
marsha
How to make money online
April 2, 2008 at 12:02 pm (16 years ago)

This almost makes me want to use WordPress again. :[
Steve Mills
April 3, 2008 at 10:24 am (16 years ago)

I am just installing now on one of my sub sites to see how it goes. I am still on an older wordpress install with a bit of SEO magic behind the scenes, so It will be a long testing process before I am satisfied that nothing is broken
Gary Lee
April 4, 2008 at 12:42 am (16 years ago)

Looks like I’ll make the upgrade later this weekend to some of my blogs. . . thanks for the tip Andrew!
Mike Paetzold
April 7, 2008 at 8:52 am (16 years ago)

Have been pleasantly surprised with this upgrade and this from someone who told people for 2 months not to upgrade to 2.3.

I do agree that if you are using anything older than the 2.3 and a lot of plugins to do it in a subdirectory and test it. I totally changed the plugins I recommend when I finally found a good set for 2.3 from what I was using before that and I know I am not alone on that.

Not a big fan of doing any one click upgrades as I always pull the data base and files before changing but then I have been burnt in the past and it is not fun..

There is more information about my feelings at my blog WordPress Meade Easy.