Unit 2 blogs

BLOGGER.

Read and memorize the following words:

Blogger — название популярной блог-платформы

blogger — блогер, человек ведущий блог

was acquired — была приобретена

acquisition — приобретение

under undisclosed terms — на нераскрытых условиях

web standards-compliant templates — темы оформления, совместимые с web-стандартам

launch — запускать

rank — оценивать

Blogger is a blog-publishing service. On August 23, 1999, Blogger was launched by Pyra Labs. As one of the earliest dedicated blog-publishing tools, it is credited for helping popularize the format. In February 2003, Pyra Labs was acquired by Google under undisclosed terms. The acquisition allowed premium features (for which Pyra had charged) to become free. In October 2004, Pyra Labs' co-founder, Evan Williams, left Google. In 2004, Google purchased Picasa; it integrated Picasa and its photo sharing utility Hello into Blogger, allowing users to post photos to their blogs.

On May 9, 2004, Blogger introduced a major redesign, adding features such as web standards-compliant templates, individual archive pages for posts, comments, and posting by email. On August 14, 2006, Blogger launched its latest version in beta, codenamed "Invader", alongside the gold release. This migrated users to Google servers and had some new features, including interface language in French, Italian, German and Spanish. In December 2006, this new version of Blogger was taken out of beta. By May 2007, Blogger had completely moved over to Google operated servers. Blogger was ranked 16 on the list of top 50 domains in terms of number of unique visitors in 2007.

Questions:

When was Blogger launched ?

Who left Google in October 2004?

What is the date of acquiring Pyra Labs by Google?

When did Blogger launch the latest version in beta?

What was the codename of August 2006 beta version?

LIVEJOURNAL

Read and memorize the following words:

virtual community — виртуальное сообщество

commenting — комментирование

polls — опросы

self-contained — автономный

software — программное обеспечение

features — черты, характеристики

selling — продажа

upgrade, update — обновлять

announce — объявлять

design — разрабатывать

social networking features — функции социальных сетей

LiveJournal (LJ) is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community. LiveJournal's blogging features include those found in similar blogging sites (multiple authors, commenting, calendars, and polls). However, LiveJournal differentiates itself from other blogging sites by its WELL-like features of a self-contained community and some social networking features similar to other social networking sites.

LiveJournal was started on April 15, 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick as a way of keeping his high school friends updated on his activities. In January 2005, blogging software company Six Apart purchased Danga Interactive, the company that operated LiveJournal, from Fitzpatrick.

On December 2, 2007, Six Apart announced it was selling LiveJournal to SUP, a Russian media company that had been licensing the LiveJournal brand and software for use in Russia. The new owners unveiled a plan to upgrade the service, engage with the LiveJournal community and launch new products for advertisers. This work would be undertaken by the newly formed American-based company LiveJournal, Inc.

On January 6, 2009, it was announced that LiveJournal had laid off some of their San Francisco-based employees and moved product development and design functions to Russia.

On April 22, 2009, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev opened his own blog on the LiveJournal service.

Questions:

Who is Brad Fitzpatrick?

What is the date of selling LJ to SUP?

When did president Medvedev start his blog?

WORDPRESS

Read and memorize the following words:

typography — типографика, оформление

blogging tool — инструмент для блоггинга

Open Source project — проект с открытым исходным кодом

completely customizable — полностью настраиваемый

flexible — гибкий

to create — создавать

download and install — загружать и устанавливать

requirements — требования

to limit — ограничивать

to be free — быть бесплатным

user experience — опыт пользователя

self-hosted tool — саморазмещенный инструмент(механизм)

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

Everything you see here, from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for the community. WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means you are free to use it for anything from your cat’s home page to a Fortune 500 web site without paying anyone a license fee and a number of other important freedoms.

About WordPress.org

On this site you can download and install a software script called WordPress. To do this you need a web host who meets the minimum requirements and a little time. WordPress is completely customizable and can be used for almost anything. There is also a service called WordPress.com which lets you get started with a new and free WordPress-based blog in seconds, but varies in several ways and is less flexible than the WordPress you download and install yourself.

What You Can Use WordPress For

WordPress started as just a blogging system, but has evolved to be used as full content management system and so much more through the thousands of plugins, widgets, and themes, WordPress is limited only by your imagination. (And tech chops.)

Connect with the Community

In addition to online resources like the forums and mailing lists a great way to get involved with WordPress is to attend or volunteer at a WordCamp, which are free or low-cost events that happen all around the world to gather and educate WordPress users, organized by WordPress users. Check out the website, there might be a WordCamp near you.

A Little History

WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPLv2 (or later). It is the official successor of b2/cafelog. WordPress is fresh software, but its roots and development go back to 2001. It is a mature and stable product. We hope by focusing on user experience and web standards we can create a tool different from anything else out there.

Questions:

When did Wordpress start? How has it grown since then?

What is Wordpress as an Open Source project ?

What can you use WordPress for ?

Who made Wordpress?

Is WordPress a stable product? Why?