A Brief History Of WordPress Plugin Development And What The Future Holds

Developing wordpress (WP) plugins is a great way to add more features to a blog. Since wordpress plugins became active, lots of blog owners have been able to add any feature or function they want in their blog, that didn’t come right out of the box. Others simply extended existing functions to create a more customizable blog or website. Much like downloading an iphone application from the Apple app store, plugins can be developed and designed to do almost anything the webmaster wants.

Plugins were not introduced into the wordpress content management system until version 1.2. At that time, the CMS was not well known and webmasters using it then primarily made use of it for blogging. It was almost the same or even inferior to other blog publishing platforms like blogspot (now known as blogger). However, there was one big limitation of those platforms, including wordpress. You couldn’t add a feature to the system without modifying the core programming.Then wordpress introduced plugins.

Since that time, enhancing and customizing wordpress blogs have become a lot easier. These plugins are just applications written in PHP that adds new features and services to the blog once downloaded and installed. As anyone would expect, wordpress users and the community started growing at a significant rate every year. Right now there are more than 18,000 free plugins, not even counting paid ones, and those free plugins have been downloaded more than 265 million times. WordPress plugin development is certainly alive and well.  Not only that but it is most certainly the hottest area in software as we speak.

How Plugins Keep WordPress Alive

WordPress was already easy to use right from when it was first created. The plugins made it even easier to use. Ecommerce websites could be easily created with the installation of a few plugins. Online price comparision sites, gaming sites, and just about any type of website could be easily created with the help of a few plugins. Webmasters and plugin developers could chat about plugins through the wordpress forum and the community grew as a result. Lots of new plugins were being developed every day and the majority of them were free.

Every day new and existing webmasters switched to WordPress as the plugins, and as a result, the features, grew consistently

Developing a WordPress Plugin

Plugins can be developed by anyone who is willing to learn how to. WordPress provides for free a full documentation on how to develop plugins. Webmasters can also hire developers at a small fee to create plugins for them. The Future of WordPress plugin development will only continue to increase as there will never be an excess amount of plugins, as there are millions of rabid wordpress consumers always hungry for the latest and greatest.

There are still many empty spaces yet to be filled and the moment one of them is discovered, a plugin is created for it. Some people even develop plugins primarily to sell them and make profits. The popularity of plugins has made WordPress the most used CMS on the web. Who would not want a CMS that can be used to create any kind of website with the help of a few plugins?

Some Popular Plugins and Their Uses

Plugins are easy to develop, install, and use. Each plugin, both free and paid, comes with set up instructions. WordPress plugins will only get more popular every day as more and more people use wordpress. This trend is not dying anytime soon.

The Current State of WordPress Plugin Development

WordPress (WP) has become the leading content management system (CMS), with the current state of WP plugin development playing a huge role in keeping it at the top. The plugins enable awesome functionality of this CMS, making it the most preferred choice by a majority of website developers and internet marketers alike. Simply put, if you need a website or a blog that does something unique to gain you an edge over your competition, you will find a WordPress plugin to almost completely, or even fully automate that. This is how powerful WordPress has become.

Think of anything you want your website to do and you will get a matching plugin for it, thanks to the large community of WordPress plugin developers. Most of these developers work on new plugins out of passion. They seek to make their loved CMS the best there is all the time. As a result, you will find most of these very useful components and add-ons to WordPress come for free. Save for a few, most WordPress plugins are free to use in your blog/website, and you also get top of the range support in case you encounter problems and bugs with your installation. Even so, the paid ones are very affordable and have enhanced capabilities to match the price.

The WordPress plugins development community is also one of the most active, always trying to keep up with any new development in the websites’ world, as well as any other technological developments and innovations. Take for instance, the introduction of smart phones over the last few years, and the way it has revolutionalized ways of doing business online. This threw most CMS platforms off balance, or caught them off guard. Not for WordPress; the plugins development community has continually brought to the public, new and innovative plugins that simply convert your “old school” WordPress blog/website, in to a modern one that is easily accessible via the smart phones and other recent gadgets.

The current state of WP plugin development has also enabled complete automation of the functions of a WordPress based website/blog. You can, for instance, set up a blog, add a few plugins and then activate them. Then the blog automatically gets loaded with relevant content, optimizes its self for the search engines, adds your affiliate links or products that you are selling, and reports to you in your email, thanks to the plugins. All you need to do is get a domain and hosting, install WordPress and a number of plugins and you are done. 100 percent automation.

With new developments and policies coming in to the WordPress plugins repository, the plugins market is becoming more and more interesting. The increased variety of plugins and their improved functionality continues to make WordPress the best that a CMS can get. Even for the person who is technically challenged, the plugins come as a savior. You do not need to know how to do something within your WordPress website. Just let the plugin do it for you.

All said, the current state of wordpress plugin development is still in need of more developers to be able to meet the rising demands and changes in the ways of the web.

The Future of WordPress Plugin Development – Where Is WordPress Headed

The future of WordPress plugin development seems to be getting brighter as the days go by, and as technology keeps changing. This is more so with the rise in demand by the online based businesses for automation solutions and tools. More people are looking for ways that they can simply set a business system and forget it without compromising on its ability to generate good and consistent profits over long periods of time.

The rise in the number of passionate programmers and plugin developers has also not helped slow the growth rate either. It has actually fueled the growth and rise of WordPress as a leading content management system when it comes to websites development and making of blogs. There are more and more raving WordPress fans who continuously want to see their loved content management system stay on top of the world. They regularly come up with new and innovative plugins that help to automate certain aspects of WordPress, or bring in more functionality to the resulting WordPress blog or website.

Regardless of what you want to see your website do, you will find a plugin that can help with that. Better yet, you will find a number of different plugins, most being free, that will help to bring that functionality to your WordPress based website/blog. Even for the technical idiot, you can easily have a WordPress site up and running, even fully automated, in no time at all, even if you have never touched a line of code ever in your life. This is all thanks to the WordPress plugins and the WordPress plugin development community.

The future of WordPress plugin development is something to actually look forward to, and especially for the internet entrepreneur. If the current state of almost complete automation is something to go by, then the future will guarantee 100 percent automation. Employing the use of these plugins will more likely than not, also guarantee an increase in income for the online based businesses. This we can only wait to see.

Technology is also changing at a very high pace. We have new innovations and tech gadgets that are becoming the preferred tools of trade for the common man. Talk of smart phones and tablets, and many other new gadgets coming in to the consumer market day in, day out. WordPress plugins are also being developed in equal measure. These new technologies are also creating room for new brains to come in to the plugins development community. The result is an even more advanced, more functional and better content management system that is WordPress.

Here is the bottom line; whether you are new to online businesses, or you are a seasoned internet entrepreneur, WordPress will always have something to offer to help maximize your profits. The same is true when it comes to being technically sound or not. You can set up your web based business and have it work on its own regardless of your level of technical knowhow. The future of WordPress plugin development also promises to keep this CMS at the very top of the blogs and websites development game, offering more flexibility, functionality, and reliability.

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