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Ghost Blogging Platform
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Ghost Blogging Platform

Posted on 15 May 2013 by Matt Russell

An interesting new blog platform is just around the corner. Funded through a  KickStarter project, Ghost aims to simplify the blogging and publishing world. While WordPress now aims to be a full web operating system and a powerful CMS, Ghost is solely aimed at bloggers. Projects like this that cross our hosting radar are always interesting.

Ghost Blogging Platform

Ghost Blogging Platform

In Ghost’s case, we’re particularly interested because:

  • Around 55% ofthe sites we host are WordPress
  • WordPress is great but it isn’t for everyone. There are security issues if the base install and plugins are not regularly updated. We do make this easy  through our 1-Click installer and updater (Softaculous) but it can still catch people out
  • WordPress is simply too complicated for some of our audience
  • The amount of options, plugins, themes and more that WordPress has can be overwhelming

 

Just to be clear that I have nothing against WordPress. I use it for some of my personal sites, we use it for our WebHostingBuzz.com blog (i.e. this one!) as well as for the WebHostingBuzz.co.uk Blog, and we host some of the most popular blogs in the world. A couple of these include NevilleHobson.com and LondonCalling.co – both highly ranked by Cision for readership and influence.

 

Ghost, however, promises to shake up the defacto blog platforms and should offer a viable WordPress alternative. Mr O’Nolan, Ghost’s founder, is well qualified. He’s:

  • Built WordPress sites since 2005
  • Worked as deputy head of the WordPress UI Group from 2009-11
  • Helped design and develop the WordPress user interface
  • Spoke at conferences all over the world about designing in WordPress

Ghost’s funding on KickStarter has also raised eyebrows. Ghost initially sought £25,000 which was quickly met, leading to Ghost going for a revised funding goal of £250,000. Given the tech press coverage Ghost has received from the likes of Wired, Forbes and TechCrunch, it seems highly likely that Ghost will meet this higher target. At the time of writing, £123,996 has been pledged towards the £250,000 total (50%) with 12 days still to run.

 

So what about Ghost and WebHostingBuzz? And Ghost web hosting?

We reached out to Ghost to express our partnership interest. It seems like we missed the window for the early-stage partner opportunities but we’ll closely monitoring developments, and Ghost has our contact details. Ghost talks about a cloud version of the product and how it will solve some of the ‘complications’ associated with self-hosted WordPress blogs. We assume (and hope) that Ghost does not discount a self-hosted version. We know as well as you do, most WordPress hosting complications are as a result of poor hosting service and not the principal of self-hosting. In fact, if Ghost bring a carefully moderated platform in which tested themes/plugins are approved and suggested to Ghost users, many of the problems that WordPress users face would be solved. I’m advocating a system as closed as Apple’s, but something better than the Android-esque approach used by WordPress would benefit users and web hosts alike. It’s very easy to develop a poor WordPress plugin then buy some positive reviews on Fiverr. People  then trust this plugin assuming these reviews are legitimate. And this is where security problems start.

When more details of a self-hosted version of Ghost surface, we will do plenty of groundwork to insure our hosting platform is fully compatible. We’ll quickly look to build a 1-click / auto-installer to make Ghost installation simple for our clients. And our team will conduct an intensive Ghost training course upon launch, guaranteeing we can support Ghost to the level we and you are used to.

Ghost is still a few months out. More information on their timeline can be found at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnonolan/ghost-just-a-blogging-platform#faq_58417

I’ll close by wishing John and Ghost the best of luck!

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