“I don’t like iPhone version of WordPress,” admitted WP founder Matt Mullenweg during his often candid and funny keynote presentation at Wordcamp RDU this past Saturday.

(Good news–a new version is coming soon, along with one for all of us with crackberries.)

He also discussed other new projects such as:

• Microblogging platform P2. You control it–so you can delete those posts you wished you didn’t make!
• VideoPress, which doesn’t automatically convert files to 30 frames per second (and cause jitters in the visual) and also has friendlier terms of service.
• BuddyPress, which adds social networking features to WordPressMU accounts. (By the way, he says he doesn’t know what he was thinking when he came up with the MU name using the Greek symbol–very few pronounce it right and it will probably be going away.)

What’s not on the list anytime soon–a desktop program for WordPress. He says Microsoft LiveWriter already (surprisingly!) does a good a job of that.

A few off the cuff tips he shared for blog owners:

• The size of your comment box will influence the length of the comments you get.
• In WP under Tools, there’s a button called “Press This” that you can drag onto your browser toolbar which will automatically bring in embedded code for videos, photos, etc.

What’s ahead?

• Possibly a WP-only URL shortener so people can rest assured when they’re clicking it that they’re going to a legit link and not a spam or malware site.
• Posting to WordPress will eventually be as easy as posting to Twitter…

And what’s the deal Hello Dolly?

Hello Dolly was the first ever WP plugin, and he wrote it to show others how easy it is to create plugins. He chose that song because it was the first jazz song to breakout into the mainstream market…obviously hoping WP would do the same.

People have campaigned to have it removed from the default install, but that’s not happening. It’s curently the 12th most active plugin in the world (and yes, that’s people who actually have it on). Plus, it perfectly embodies the soul and quirkiness of WordPress.

Some personal thoughts…

I have to admit, Matt is now on the shortlist of entrepreneurs I truly admire.

He had a vision of creating a company that is fully aligned with the interests of the users and open source community and has worked hard to make that happen.

There are now almost 14 million WordPress blogs (about half .com and half .org) with 10,000 WP plugins and themes. And all commercial themes for WordPress run off the open-source General Public License except one (which he hopes comes back to the “family” soon.)

In fact, when someone asked, “What’s your business model–how do you all make money?” he said he’s glad he still gets asked that a lot because it shows they’re not “in your face” about the way they do it. (Don’t worry, they have four big revenue generators so they’re doing fine.)

Finally, I think a lot of us can definitely relate to his statement, “You can ask me any questions but one–where WordPress will be in five years. I can’t even imagine because I would have never predicted we’d be where we are today.”

Photo courtesy of Social Media Strategist Jeff Cohen

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