A WordPress 2.7 Upgrade Guide (Really!)

Back when WordPress 2.5 came out earlier this year, we wrote a cheeky post called "A WordPress 2.5 Upgrade Guide" which pointed out some of the areas where we think our Movable Type platform offered a good option for people who wanted to consider alternatives to WordPress.

But today, WordPress 2.7 is out, and any day a great new upgrade for a blogging platform is released is a day that's good for all bloggers and for the web. So, to celebrate the release of WordPress 2.7, we've put together a list of resources that show how we at Six Apart are committed to helping all bloggers, regardless of platform. Here's a quick list of how Six Apart can help WordPress bloggers. Most of these services are powered by our completely reinvented TypePad infrastructure. And as you'd expect, all of these options are either free or open source or both.

• TypePad AntiSpam: TypePad AntiSpam is like Akismet in that it blocks junk comments on your site. But TypePad AntiSpam is different because it's built on an open source engine, it's free (no matter how you use it) and our users tell us it has fewer false positives, while still being 100% compatible with the Akismet API. We've even got a WordPress plugin that makes connecting to the service a snap, and some great giant WordPress-powered sites like Techcrunch have seen great results with it.

• Six Apart Media Advertising: Want to try actually making money with your blog? We've got over a thousand bloggers in the Six Apart Media advertising program already, with many of their sites powered by WordPress. Both our bloggers and our advertisers tell us they love working with a partner that really understands blogging. (If you're on WordPress.com and can't run your own ads, we can help you get set up with a blog where you can.)

• TypePad Connect: This free service just launched in beta and easily connects to any WordPress.org blog to offer really powerful commenting and beautiful, customizable commenter profiles on your site. Naturally, since OpenID was born at Six Apart, TypePad Connect and these cool new TypePad profiles have OpenID baked in, too. (WordPress.com users can't install a service like TypePad Connect yet, but perhaps you can suggest the idea and hopefully it'll be added.) If you want, you can just get your free TypePad profile and use it to track your comments or to provide links to your other accounts — this replaces the old TypeKey system that you might remember.

• Blog It: This great, free application powered by TypePad lets you easily update multiple blogs and services from an Apple iPhone or right within Facebook. With one click, you can post to blogs on WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Movable Type, TypePad, Blogger and most other blogs, while also updating your status on Facebook, FriendFeed or Twitter. Write once, and publish anywhere.

• Blog Link: In an economy like the one we're facing today, even our blogs need to play a role in helping out our careers. We make that easy with our new, free LinkedIn application Blog Link, powered by TypePad. Blog Link automatically displays headlines from any blog you use (whether it's on WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, Movable Type or anything else) right on your LinkedIn profile. Now the ideas you publish on your blog can be part of what your employers or partners see when they check you out on LinkedIn.

All of these services and tools are just the beginning of what we're already offering to millions of bloggers around the world, regardless of which platform you use to publish your blog. For example, our Six Apart Services team has built some of the biggest social media sites in the world, including ones powered by WordPress, though of course we think they're the best Movable Type and TypePad development teams in the world.

Blogging and the future of the social web is bigger than any one platform or any one company, and that's why we've always offered different platforms for different audiences, and worked hard to be a good resource to all bloggers. So we offer our congratulations to the whole WordPress community on an exciting launch, and especially to the many WordPress bloggers who are Six Apart customers as well.

There are, of course, official docs available if you're looking for help upgrading your WordPress install, and we strongly recommend it as it's important to stay up to date in order to keep your site secure. And finally, while we're of course proud first and foremost of the tremendous effort with put into Movable Type, TypePad and Vox, we do sincerely hope our roster of services offer a nice set of upgrades to make this new version of WordPress even better. Let us know what you think.