Five Things You May Not Know About WordPress

I’ve been using WordPress software for years and I love it! Here are five interesting facts you may not know about WordPress.

Before there was WordPress there was B2/Cafelog. B2/Cafelog was blogging software created in 2001. As there are branches in your family tree, there are “forks” in software development. In 2003, some developers took B2/Cafelog in a new direction. The new direction or fork became WordPress.
WordPress is Open Source software. That means that the source code (the computer code that makes WordPress run) is open to the public. It also means that the software is free to use. Because of this there are hundreds of people all over the world working to make plugins, themes and code improvements for WordPress software.
Some of the main developers of WordPress founded Automattic. While it’s true that scores of people are working to make WordPress better all the time, it’s also true that there are a few key players. In 2005 some of those key players got together and founded a company called Automattic. Automattic has worked on a slew of projects including WordPress, WooCommerce, Akismet, JetPack and more.
WordPress is a database-driven application. Yep, at the heart of its programming, WordPress uses a MySQL database. All your settings, posts, comments, users and pages are stored in a MySQL database. So with every post you’re actually manipulating data in a database. In my book, that’s pretty cool.
WordPress can be used to make a website, a blog or a website that has a blog. They initially developed WordPress as blogging software. However, users quickly realized that WordPress can also create standard websites. While it seems intuitive to us now, at the time it was radical thinking. Use blogging software to make a website without a blog? It can be done and it works very well!