Who Are My Marketing Heroes?

Today, I want to drop some love for my marketing heroes—guys like Tim Ferris, Jason Fried and Seth Godin—all of whom I can honestly say make me a smarter and more effective business guy than I would be without them.

Read the Best WordPress Book Ever!

Digging into WordPress by Chris Coyer and Jeff Starr is neither boring, nor outdated, which is more than I can say for 99.9% of all the ebooks I’ve read over the years. The book was released earlier this week as a .pdf download, but at over 400 pages, you’ll definitely be getting your money’s worth.

If you want to know everything about WordPress 2.8, than look no further. I’ve learned a lot from this book already (even as a guy who’s been using WordPress for three years) and I’m sure you will, too. The authors are also promising to keep updating the book over time and your purchase secures a lifetime subscription to any new version they may release. My vote is that Digging should become the new official WordPress codex. Great job, gentlemen!

Want a sneak peak? Here’s a sample chapter. Let me know what you think below!

WordPress Plugins are About to Get Real

This announcement from WPMU.org should easily make topic list for the next show of WordPress Weekly.

First, they revisit old territory with a semi-dis to Automattic and their alleged third-party commercial cock-blocking, then the announcement of WPPlugins, the supposed app store for WordPress plugins.

Is this goodbye to free [quality] plugins? Maybe, but if this service is to catch on, it’ll take six months to a year for real adoption, so no need to freak out just yet.
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Silverback – Usability Testing

I have yet to find a better program for usability testing. Silverback uses your built-in Mac iSight to record the facial reactions and mouse tracking of normal users interacting with your website. I highly recommend usability testing well before launching a site, and because Silverback is so cheap ($50) and easy to use, it removes all excuses not to.