Since 2003, WordPress has been demonstrating the power of community development as it becomes the dominant open source Web site platform on the Internet. It’s popularity has been propelled not only by its price (free), but by its quality. From an austere beginning, the platform has become one of the most full-featured, flexible platforms available on the Web today, but it continues to evolve. As WordPress nears its next major revision, many people are wondering where WordPress is headed. Here are five ways the WordPress may evolve in the future, many of which can be observed in current trends.

1. Beyond Blogging

Users around the globe are waking up to the fact that WordPress is much more than a blogging platform: it is a Web content management system (CMS) with the power to support Web presence in a variety of formats. Already, many plugins exist that help adapt WordPress into a CMS with a powerful backend. In the future, look for more CMS features to be native to WordPress, and the blogger features moderated to fit with the more general purpose. Already, WordPress is considered to be second only to Drupal in the market for open source CMS.

2. Premium Plugins, Themes and Enhancements

Casual bloggers probably won’t get very excited about premium WordPress items, but enthusiasts and professionals probably will. Premium features will serve two primary purposes: first, they will spur more innovation, something that is needed to keep WordPress from becoming stale. Secondly, premium products bring product support to the table. As WordPress becomes more complicated, more users need access to assistance if something goes wrong or doesn’t work right. Also, as more people rely on WordPress for income, the more valuable the availability of support becomes. Besides, who says bloggers are the only ones who should profit from WordPress? Look for the WordPress App Store and similar outlets to continue to grow in popularity as this trend gains momentum.

3. Multiple Users and Deploys

Multiuser and multisite implementations will continue to expand as WordPress continues to prove its worth as more hosted sites offer professional services to users lacking the time or expertise to run WordPress on their own. By accommodating tenants in a multisite environment, the benefits of WordPress become available to more people. This larger base of unskilled users in multisite and multiuser environments will present a new tier of Internet hosting from which many emerging providers will benefit.

4. Incorporation

A corporate buyout could easily be in the future for WordPress. With such a large user base and such a large core of developers, the WordPress platform seems like it would be ideal for a corporate giant to take it over. If this were to happen, development might fork as it has with commercial Linux products. One version would be commercial with full support and additional features, and an open source version would continue to be available. The proprietary version would of necessity have to include more and better features to attract customers. This scenario would eliminate the equality among WordPress users that some enjoy and some resent.

5. QA of Themes, Plugins and Extensions

As the missions depending on WordPress become more critical, users are going to demand higher standards. WordPress development standards are on the way. Don’t be surprised to see a vetting and certification process that identifies themes and plugins that are compliant with these standards too. Another trend you will see in WordPress development is a reduction of independent developers in favor of small team development. This approach will not only result in faster development, but better quality control in released products.

Although exciting things are in store for WordPress in its 3.x release, the real excitement is the future the product holds for developers, and users. If the past is in any way predictive of the future, one of the greatest open source projects of all time will continue evolve in spectacular ways.

About the Author

This is a guest article from James Adams who is a writer working with an online store offering HP 363 ink and supplies. You can read more of his posts about design and technology on their blog.