BIG NEWS: Blog migration from Letterdash to WordPress!
November 14, 2011 in Uncategorized
Hello beloved Food bloggers
You know how I have been promising for a while (like 18 MONTHS) to get you off the Lettercrash platform?
Well, the time has come, the Walrus said.
The plan is to move all active 24.com blogs across to WordPress. We’ve done testing, some more testing, some plug-in arguing, and I’ve had to sit in many a meeting with techies talking gibberish… but we’re finally ready to begin the roll out. And we are starting this migration with YOU, our beloved Food bloggers. The rest of Letterdash will follow later.
This is what you need to know…
- First, don’t panic. We have a plan, and I am told it’s solid.
- Your current blog/24.ID needs to have a secondary email address (NOT a 24.com one), so we can keep you in the loop. So make sure that you’ve got one by clicking here and supplying a valid secondary address. Right now. (Seriously, you can come back to this post… that’s more important.) We know most of you do have one – so this is a call out to those who have NOT yet updated their accounts.
- We’ll be migrated as a community, i.e.: we’ll all still stay Food24 blogs!
- You’ll be able to sell adverts on your blog! (24.com is only going to take one ad position, as opposed to all of ‘em, like before. So you’ll be able to have both Google and your own ads!)
- You’ll be able to move your own Food WordPress blog back into Food24 blogs (You know how many of you moved over to WordPress and set up a “landing blog” on Food24 to drive traffic to it? You can cut out that step, by migrating your own blog across to the new Food24 WordPress community. And take out a lot of the schlep. And turn on the floodgates of SEO juice.)
The amazing new features:
- No more albums! You can just load up pics directly. (Can I hear a group “HUZZAH!”?)
- Private messaging, because you don’t always want to tell everyone everything.
- Upload videos (within limits of course)
- All sorts of cool plugins including an easy recipe upload plugin and an awesome gallery plugin for your photos
- Widgets – We’ve preloaded all sorts of nifty widgets for you to use on your blog
- Comment filters = WAY better control over trolls and spammers!
- Mobile – wordpress is fully mobile. Download the app for your mobile so long so that you can start blogging from your phone as soon as your blog has been migrated! http://wordpress.org/extend/mobile/
- Add several authors to your blog – allow guest authors to create posts for you to edit and publish to your blog
- A huge SEO boost to help your blog rank well on search engines.
HOW IT’S GONNA WORK:
Phase 1: Testing on ourselves
We’re going to migrate this blog, and a few other ones with “in-house” bloggers (like Chef Caro), so that we can make sure the process works.
Date for pre-migration: 25 NOVEMBER 2011
Phase 2: THE BIG MOVE!
3 days after this, we’ll be moving all the active Food24 bloggers across, all 176.
That’s gonna be on 28 NOVEMBER 2011.
Before we move… YOU NEED TO:
- Go to myaccount (we are saying this twice because it is so important) and click on add/edit: under secondary email & give us a WORKING email address (not a 24.com one.)
- Get excited by WordPress.tv to see what fabulousness is in store…
PLEASE NOTE THAT D-DAY IS THE 28th NOVEMBER 2011 so you will not be able to post on your blog ON THAT DAY. Until the 28th of November everything will be as normal.
We will keep you updated every step of the way, so for now you just have to watch this space and if you don’t have a secondary email yet (NOT a 24.com one) then please get on that.
Questions? Email cath@food24.com
I hope you are all as excited as we are, it’s been a long time coming!
Sam Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
JustChef said on November 14, 2011
Define Active bloggers please, Sam. I have not posted in ages, but I still comment. Will my blog be moved too??
Sous-Chef said on November 14, 2011
Will we still be linked to the Food24 home page etc? I have to say that not struggling with photographs would be a real pleasure.
pinkpolkadot said on November 14, 2011
This sounds great!! Good luck with everything!
ilovecooking said on November 14, 2011
Congratulations, Sam! Hope you’re getting solidly into the very best there is tonight! LOL XXX
Food24ed said on November 14, 2011
Hi there – just to be safe please post an entry(even a one liner) between now and the 28th November and you will definitely be moved across.
Food24ed said on November 14, 2011
Most definitely!
janicetripepi said on November 14, 2011
Choirs of Angels ****Fireworks**** halllllllelulah at last! Wonderful news Food24!!!! Congratulations! I can’t wait xxx
Sous-Chef said on November 14, 2011
Fantastic, bring it on! *fastens seat belt*
ninatimm said on November 14, 2011
he-ha!!! Great stuff!!
Zabwan said on November 14, 2011
Sam for president!!!! This is great news.
One question: I have bought my own wordpress domain, because I needed an official website for my magazine article readers to refer to – is that eligible for migration too? It would be great to not to need to do 2 posts each time, even if one is an abbreviation of the other. Thanks, Sam.
amydem2 said on November 14, 2011
is it only the foodies moving?
parent24ed said on November 14, 2011
I’m so excited about this move for all of us. Good luck being the pioneers, Foodies!
Collywolly said on November 14, 2011
YAY for pioneer food bloggers. Go west young everybody!!!
Thrilled to hear this news. It will be soooo good to get rid of the Letterdash blues. It took the joy out of blogging for so many of us. Thank you! And a BIG high five to all you lovely lasses. I wish you all the best for the big move xxx
PS Will the food24 home page remain as it is etc???
fritzbrand said on November 14, 2011
Oooh awesome news, and I believe excellent choice in Platform! Let me know if you need help with testing, I am a web developer by trade so should be able to give you useful input. Bravo!
sharonsmit2 said on November 15, 2011
Exciting times!!:)
Id be so happy to blog from my phone – I’ll be blogging more foody posts!! Can you spell A.W.E.S.O.M.E??
Food24ed said on November 15, 2011
Everyone is moving… Foodies first.
BITSOFCAREY said on November 15, 2011
This is great news! Congrats on this achievement, looking forward to it!
samwilson said on November 15, 2011
I am so excited I could burst. This is going to make SUCH a difference to our community, and the things we can do together.
letterdash said on November 16, 2011
Yip, Adele (the Product Owner) has been working on this for months now.
We’re not moving you to the WordPress website – we’re just giving you the WordPress backend – developed and tailored just for us. You can import/export content between the two blogs, which will make it so much simpler!
ajhart said on November 16, 2011
what has happened to Kobus?
Zabwan said on November 16, 2011
Wow, that is great news! Thank you, LD
Zabwan said on November 16, 2011
Apologies!
samwilson said on November 17, 2011
I know! He has gone suspiciously quiet.