When we launched Jetpack a few days ago Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg said to Techcrunch, “If you’re on WordPress you’re part of the family, it shouldn’t matter if we host you or not.”

Today we’re taking that a step further: we’ll actually help you move from WordPress.com to .org.

We’re launching a new upgrade called Guided Transfer where for a $99 one-time fee we’ll handle every detail and tech thingamajig involved in moving your content, theme, domain, and more to any one of the recommended hosts we’ve vetted. (And of course your new site will be Jetpack-powered.)

Of course we love having you here with us at WordPress.com, but we understand that there are situations where a self-hosted WordPress.org site may be a better choice.

What’s included:

• Install the WordPress software at the recommended host of your choice.
• Transfer over your entire WordPress.com site.
• Install and configure Jetpack and a few other plugins to provide features that you have been using on WordPress.com.
• Configure and test permissions so that you’ll be able to have one-click installs and upgrades.
• Switch your domain(s) over.
• Provide full support for you on your new WordPress installation for a two week period.

While we’re doing that–you can:

• Head to the beach!
• Read that novel you’ve been meaning to dig into.
• Chase antelope on the savannas of Africa.
• Work on that rocket ship that is “just a few tweaks” away from liftoff.
• …or do anything else. (Be sure to take pictures and blog it later!)

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WordPress.com has grown into one of the most amazing cloud architectures in the world. This has enabled blogs hosted here to have? features unavailable on self-hosted WordPress installs. This makes us sad, since here at WordPress.com we want every WordPress install everywhere to be amazing.

In this spirit, we have great news. We are now? making the power of WordPress.com available to almost all WordPress blogs, regardless of where they are hosted.

With Jetpack, a new plugin from Automattic, people not on WordPress.com can now access features that depend on WordPress.com. Jetpack also provides convenience features that don’t use the cloud, but are now easier to install, or were unavailable as plugins before.

To start, go to http://jetpack.me and read the backstory from Matt on why Jetpack is so important for WordPress.

(Mozilla Jetpack is a wonderful, but entirely unrelated, open source project run by Mozilla Labs. We checked with them first and we’re mutually cool on the use of the name.)

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Back in the middle of 2009, we launched our very own HD video service called VideoPress. Since then we’ve made a bunch of improvements including the ability to natively share videos in Facebook.

Today we are happy to announce a new set of capabilities that we’ve all been eager to see. Starting right now, all those great videos you’ve created and will be embedding in your WordPress.com site will play back on mobile and touch devices including iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and the new Nokia phones.

Our engineer Mike demonstrates Flash performance on Mobile Safari

VideoPress also now supports Apple’s AirPlay streaming technology to share video between supporting locally networked devices such as iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Apple TV. Videos with associated transcripts, such as WordPress TV, include WebVTT data for display by supporting browsers.

But that’s not all. If you are running any of the new browsers such as Chrome 3.0+, Firefox 3.5+, Internet Explorer 9+, Safari 3.1+, or Opera 10.5+ – and have Flash disabled or not installed – VideoPress videos will automatically fallback to native HTML5 video support and playback without any issues.

Want to see this new capability in action? Here??™s the original VideoPress debut video ??” give it a shot on your HTML5-friendly browser with plugins disabled or iOS device:

For more info check out the support doc for all things VideoPress. And to purchase the VideoPress upgrade, click on the Upgrades panel of your administrative dashboard.

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You’ve probably noticed that the ride has been a bit bumpy on WP.com the past week with a widely covered DDoS attack last week and then another interruption a few hours ago from an unrelated network maintenance issue. Our core mission is enabling the world to publish, and anything that affects the? availability? of your site or dashboard impedes that.

Anything less than 100%? availability? drives us to work harder. Rest assured that behind-the-scenes here at Automattic we’re learning as much as we can from these incidents so we’re even better prepared and more able to adapt next time something unexpected comes our way. (We weather DDoS attacks every day on WP.com and 99.9% of them have no user impact.)

In a previous post I wrote about downtime I ended with the sentence, “For those following along at home, we’re now powered by 152 physical processors, 511 gigabytes of memory (RAM), 174 hard disks with several terabytes of storage, and we’re adding new servers constantly.”

That last part about “adding new servers” was especially true, for WP.com we’re now at 8,921 CPU cores across 2,475 physical processors, 8,200 gigabytes of memory (RAM). We’ve changed how we’ve done storage, but now that layer includes on its own 1.3 terabytes of RAM, 1.3 petabytes of storage, and 8.9 terabytes of solid state disks. (Plus Amazon S3, which we use as backup to our internal systems.) Also, we’re adding new servers constantly.

Keep blogging, and we’ll keep doing our best to make sure you never have to think or worry about this stuff.

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Next week a bunch of us from Automattic, the makers of WordPress.com, will be attending South by Southwest Interactive. It’s one of our favorite events of the year, and we hope to see many of you there in person.

This year WordPress and Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg will be interviewed by John Battelle live onstage at 3:30pm on Friday, March 11. Matt will be talking about “The Future of WordPress” — more details here.

The WordPress community will also be staffing a WordPress Genius Bar at the SXSW trade show, where we’ll answer your toughest WordPress questions and give away great swag. We’ll be at booth 829, right across from the SXsaloon.

Come join us next week for Matt’s talk and at the WordPress Genius Bar — it’ll be another homecoming for WordPress, which was born in Texas.

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There’s only one thing more exciting than an amazing new WordPress theme available for your site and that’s even more amazing new WordPress themes. With that in mind, I’m excited to announce that today we have three new Premium Themes ready for you! Each one features custom support direct from the theme providers themselves and, of course, stunning designs and cool features. Let’s get right to them and check them out.

First of all, we’re happy to introduce a beautiful and fresh new theme from popular theme provider, StudioPress. It’s called, Pretty Young Thing, and I think you’ll find that it lives up to its name. Underneath the pretty surface is StudioPress’ customizable Genesis framework. It’s available now for the one-time price of $75.

The Pretty Young Thing Theme

From WooThemes, designers of the Headlines theme, comes the appropriately named, Crisp. A handsome and sharp-looking theme designed specifically for Tumblelogging. To do that it takes advantage of eight of our new special Post Formats, giving you special styles for Image, Link, Quote, Video, Audio, Aside, Gallery, and Status posts. It’s available now for the one-time price of $45.

The Crisp Theme

And last, but certainly not least, from The Theme Foundry, who brought you Shelf, comes the Traction theme. Traction is a richly-designed magazine theme with a featured post slider, multiple color schemes, and even more features! It’s available now for the one-time price of $68.

The Traction Theme

While you’re previewing any one of these themes on the theme showcase check out the sidebar. If you love a premium theme you can purchase and activate it right from the showcase page! (In fact, you can activate any theme from the showcase ??” premium or free ??” if you’re logged in. Check it out!)

More fantastic and amazing new themes — premium and free — are, as always, on the way. We hope you’re as excited about them as we are. Let us know what you think!

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Say hello to our newest theme, Choco. If I had to sum this theme up in just one word, it’d be stylish.

With dark colors and stitched borders Choco will give your site a classy, contemporary feel. It is well-suited for any site but works especially well for journal-style blogs: the traditional two-column layout with a right sidebar frames your stories in familiar??”yet beautiful??”style.

Choco is chock-full of style.

Choose from three color schemes and further customize the look with your own background, menu, and sidebar widgets. Learn more about Choco on the Theme Showcase.

Designed by CSSMayo, Choco is now available for WordPress.com, and for self-hosted WordPress.org sites, from the WordPress.org Themes Directory.

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One of my favorite shows is How It’s Made. I love seeing how things I use every day are actually created. In that spirit, here at Automattic we’ve thought about sharing more about how we work and think. For starters, here’s a recap on a few things.

Where are we? Everywhere.

People are surprised to learn we are a distributed company. Most of our employees live in different cities and countries around the world. We have a headquarters in San Francisco, but most of our employees are elsewhere. This means we are working round the clock and we’re informed by many cultures, places, and cuisines (we like food).

How do we work?

Toni, our CEO, has written about the advantages of distributed work before. We are a publishing and services company, and we passionately believe in the power of blogs as group communication tools. We use a WordPress theme called P2 for much of our internal communication, and they function as a combination of specifications, bug reports, brainstorms, watercooler chats, and more. You can read Matt’s take on how P2s changed the company (includes of a video of P2 in action).

Everyone at Automattic is organized into a team of 5-10 people, each team focused on different areas. For example, I’m the lead for Team Social, and we work on improving things like comments, publicizing posts to social networks, and other features. We have teams for Systems, Themes, VIP services, and more.

On a daily basis, everyone works with high autonomy. We do this by choice, since we’re distributed by time as well as distance. We use P2s, IRC chat, and Skype to communicate, picking the right medium depending on how time sensitive a message is. One surprise is how little we use email. I’ve been at Automattic for 7 months and have received only a couple hundred emails, many from people outside the company.

How are new features and improvements made?

A high percentage of improvements come entirely from the WordPress.org community, the open source project WordPress.com is based on.

Here at Automattic we implement, test, and release changes to WordPress.com dozens of times a day. We do it with love, trying to make it so you don’t always know why, but definitely feel your blog gets better and better all the time.

Each team works differently, but each developer, working with a team lead and a designer, decides what changes to make and when to release them. Bigger projects like VaultPress require the work of a dedicated team for weeks or months. Other things like bug fixes or minor features are often finished in days or hours.

We get ideas from many different places. Our stellar Happiness Team constantly reviews issues and discovers ways to make things better, and they’re one primary source for what to work on next. But we also keep lots of data on which features get used, and where it seems people have problems. As a result, every day on our blogs many ideas get pitched, sketched, and prototyped. As productive as we are, we only get to a fraction of them. But when we do ship something, we get feedback instantly on what we’ve done, and often respond quickly to small things we missed, or realize didn’t work quite right, despite our best efforts.

What’s next?

We hope to share more about how we work, and how we think about the future of the web. We have opinions and ideas to share.

If we do this, what would you like to know? No promises, but we’ll sneak around here behind the scenes and see what we can do.

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I am rather pleased to announce the birth of a new Automattic theme designed and developed by the Theme Team. It goes by the name of Duster and is quite an interesting theme ??” if I may say so myself.

Apart from the custom possibilities you’re already acquainted with in most of our themes ??” features like custom backgrounds, headers, and menus ??” Duster is also equipped with a unique Showcase Page Template that can propel your site up to a new level.

Showing how Duster looks.

With the help of the Showcase Template you can make your front page display an introductory text message, a featured post with an image ??”big or small, your call??” at the top, a recent post column showing the latest post and a list of other recent posts below, and a sidebar with a custom widget that displays your Aside or Link posts.

It also has several details hidden all around, like a responsive and fluid design to accommodate smaller views. We hope you like it and create beautiful sites with its help. We like it so much we’re using it for our team blog, ThemeShaper. Go exploring and read more about it at the Theme Showcase (you now can even activate the theme from there)!

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Which comment would you rather receive?

“Great post! Check out my blog at someblog.wordpress.com.”

or

“Well said! I know exactly what you mean about X, and I’m glad that I’m not the only one who thinks so. I would even say that A, B, C! Your candor is greatly appreciated.”

The second one, of course. Why? For one thing, it follows the etiquette guidelines below. But even more importantly, it was written with the intent to forge a relationship, not to self promote.

Relationship building is a much more effective and rewarding strategy for attracting new visitors to your site than spamming, so if you’re interested in boosting your readership, keep the following tips in mind when you leave comments on others’ posts:

1. Be specific. Personalized comments show authors that you’re genuinely interested in what they have to say, and that you actually took the time to read what they wrote. This doesn’t mean you need to write a long comment, just be sure to articulate why you felt compelled to say something in the first place. Did you learn something new? Did you have a similar experience? Do you want to voice a different perspective? Quote the author directly if you need to clarify what specific sentences you’re responding to.

Even if you simply want to compliment someone’s work, explain what you liked about it. Avoid vague comments like ???Awesome! Thanks for sharing.” If you’re not sure what to say, consider using the Like button to show your support.

2. Don??™t leave a link to your blog. When you leave a comment on a WordPress.com blog post, your name will automatically link to your blog, so there’s no need to include it twice. (This setting can be found under Users ?†’ Personal Settings in your dashboard, in the Account Details section.) Blatant self-promotion is generally frowned upon and is likely to be ignored, so be careful not to tarnish your reputation by creating the perception that you??™re a spammer.

On a related note, when you mention another author’s post on your own blog, do include a link, instead of just mentioning the post title or blog name. This will generate a pingback and inform the author that you mentioned their post.

3. Stay on topic. Take care not to diverge too far from the subject of the original post. If you end up in an off-topic exchange with other commenters, message them directly to avoid distracting from the comments left for the post author.

It??™s perfectly acceptable to share relevant links, just be sure to explain how they relate to the original post.

Bonus trick: Turn text into links with HTML by using the following code:

text

For example,

My favorite blogging platform

creates My favorite blogging platform when published as a comment.

4. Be nice. Even if you disagree with someone, it??™s never appropriate to use insults or other offensive language. Rude comments don??™t add any value to a discussion, and only divert attention away from the author??™s work. It??™s perfectly fine to offer constructive criticism, just be polite. If you see others writing disrespectful or incendiary comments, or you receive such comments on your own blog, ignore/delete them. Acknowledging them will only encourage the aggressor, so don’t waste your time.

5. Keep it brief. The more concise your comment, the easier it will be for others to read and respond to. In most cases, a few sentences is plenty.

But what if you feel strongly about a topic and have a lot to say — is it appropriate to leave a long-winded comment? Or should you write a response on your own blog, then leave a comment that summarizes your post?

It depends. Some bloggers feel that long comments are overwhelming and disruptive. Others prefer to keep the conversation all in one place. What do you think?

Speaking of building relationships with other bloggers, it’s not too late to join the Post a Day/Post a Week challenge if you’re interested in interacting more with other members of the WordPress.com community. Check out The Daily Post for details.

Have questions about comment settings and management? Find the answers you need in our extensive support documentation on comments.

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Was geschah in der Playboy Mansion? Inzwischen berichteten viele verschiedene Zeitungen und Blogs ??ber den mysteri?¶sen Vorfall in der Playboy Mansion von Hugh Hefner. Von ??ber 700 geladenen Partyg?¤sten erkrankten kurz nach der Party etwa 100 an merkw??rdigen grippe?¤hnlichen Symptomen. Inzwischen kuriseren aller Hand Ger??chte im Internet und verschiedenen Print Medien ??ber die r?¤tselhaften Krankheitserscheinungen.

Dem Promi-Blog Klatsch.de gelang es nun ein exklusives Interview mit einem der Betroffenen zu ergattern, das auf dem Blog nachzulesen: Was geschah wirklich auf der Playboy Mansion? ist.

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Niemand geringeres als Justin Bieber ist auf dem Cover der neusten Vanity Fair zu sehen. F??r die Zeitschrift gab es mit dem Teenie Idol Justin Bieber nicht nur ein umfangreiches Fotoshooting, sondern sogar ein interessantes Interview. Dort spricht der Teeniestar nicht nur ??ber seine privaten Angelegenheiten (Stichwort Selena Gomez) sondern auch dar??ber wie es mit ihm beruflich weitergehen soll, denn auch da ist der Pop Zwerg ziemlich eingespannt.

Besonders lassen sich aber die Sexy Fotos von Bieber sehen. Zum Interview gehts hier.

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Irene Hoek ist unter den Playmates der Januarausgabe des M?¤nnermagazines Playboy vertreten. Die hei??e Br??nette darf sich nun ganz offiziell Miss Janaur 2011 nennen und ist schon jetzt auf der Internetseite des Playboy zu sehen und zu bewundern.

Ab Januar ist die s????e Irene Hoek im Playboy auf vielen Bildern zu bewundern und auf der Website kann man jetzt bereits einiges ??ber sie erfahren und auch schon viele hei??e Bilder ansehen.

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Miriam Markov ist das Playmate, das sich den Titel Miss Dezember 2010 verdiente. Die 22 j?¤hrige Berlinerin lie?? f??r den Playboy die H??llen fallen und verriet dem M?¤nnermagazin im Interview ihre Likes & Dislikes.

Auf 16 XXL Bildern kann man das hei??e Playmate schon jetzt im Playboy Cyberclub bewundern und in der Dezember Ausgabe des Playboy Magazines erf?¤hrt Mann dann alle Details ??ber das Fotoshooting auf Mauritius.

Doch schon jetzt berichtet die Onlineausgabe des Playboy ??ber die s????e Halb-Kroatin Miriam Markov, die in Berlin auf den richtigen wartet. Der Mann ihrer Tr?¤ume soll ein richtiger Gentlemen sein und auch optisch einiges zu bieten haben. Miriam Markov steht auf durchtrainierte M?¤nnerk?¶rper, gutes Benehmen und einen guten Sinn f??r Humor.

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Anneke D??rkopp, eigentlich Wetterfee f??r N24 zier die Novemberausgabe des Playboy Magazines. Bei einem exklusiven Fotoshooting auf Teneriffa l?¤sst die wohl sch?¶nste Wetterfee Deutschlands f??r den Playboy alle H??llen fallen und zeigt sich mit wallendem Haar zwischen den Vulkankratern Teneriffas. Passend zu diesem Ambiente ist auch die Story zum Fotoshooting entstanden, Anneke D??rkopp soll in diesem Shooting wie Barbarella, die Science Fiction Figur des franz?¶sischen Regisseurs Roger Vadim, wirken, die auf einem neuen Planeten landet.

Passend dazu erschien auch bereits in der Online Version des Playboy Magazines ein Interview mit der freiz??gigen Wetterfee in dem sie sich ??ber ihre Vergangenheit ausl?¤sst und ??ber ihren Job als N24-Wetterfrau erz?¤hlt.

Wer nun Lust bekommen hat, weitere Bilder der sexy Wetterfee zu sehen, dem sei die Novemberausgabe des Playboys w?¤rmstens zu empfehlen. ??brigens wurde Anneke D??rkopp schon im Jahre 2008 in einer Umfrage von Men`s Health mit 29% zur zweitsch?¶nsten Wetterfee gew?¤hlt.

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In ihrem jetzt erscheinden Buch deckt Maureen Callahan die irren Di?¤t-Exzesse von Lady Gaga auf. In dem jetzt in den USA erscheinenden W?¤lzer “Pokerface: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga” kommt unter Anderem David Chimny, der ehemalige Tour-Manager von Lady Gaga zu Wort.

Wenn wir David Chimny Glauben schenken d??rfen, hungert sich Lady Gaga mit radikalen Methoden in ihre knappen Outfits. Mal isst sie angeblich wochenlang nichts, um in neue Kost??me zu passen. Dann kann die 24-J?¤hrige wieder bei Fastfood nicht Nein sagen und stopft sich regelrecht voll. David Chimny berichtet, dass Lady Gaga wegen ihres extremen Essverhaltens 2009 sechsmal im Krankenhaus lag.

Nur fetter Stoff f??r ein Buch, das sich gut verkaufen soll? Tats?¤chlich sagte Lady Gaga Anfang des Jahres verschiedene Auftritte aus gesundheitlichen Gr??nden ab und brauch 2010 zudem auf der B??hne zusammen.

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Am letzten Wochenende sorgte Partygirl Paris Hilton mal wieder f??r unliebsame Schlagzeilen: Bei Paris und ihrem Freund roch es im Auto nach Gras. Dann purzelte ihr vor den Augen der Polizeibeamten auch noch etwas Koks aus der Handtasche.

Paris Hilton hat nach diesem Vorfall angegeben, dass ihr das Gramm Koks nicht geh?¶rt. Angeblich machte es sich aus der Handtasche einer Freundin heraus, die Paris bei sich trug, selbst?¤ndig. Ein Kartenhaus, das jetzt jedoch in sich zusammen fiel.

Spitzfindige Follower entdeckten die Handtasche von Paris jetzt bei Twitter. Zur Designer-Clutch schreibt Paris dort: “Ich liebe meine neue Chanel Handtaschen, die ich heute bekommen habe”. Das US-Magazin Radar berichtet, dass es sich hierbei um die Handtasche handelt, die Paris im letzten Wochenende mit einem herausfallenden Gramm Koks in Erkl?¤rungsnot brachte. Dumm gelaufen.

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Im queitschgelben Badanzug l?¤chelt Sophia Thomalla jetzt ihren Fans auf dem Cover der FHM am Zeitungsstand entgegen: Die 20-J?¤hrige Schauspielerin posiert in allerlei knappen Teilen f??r das M?¤nnermagazin.

Erst vor einem halben Jahr hat sich Sophias Mama, die stets perfekt geschminkte Tatort-Kommissarin Simone Thomalla, f??r den Playboy ausgezogen. Jetzt bekam auch das T?¶chterchen sein Shooting, zeigt mit ihren 20 Lenzen aber nicht ganz so viel wie die Frau Mama.

Chic. Aber dieses Simone-Tattoo mit Heiligenschein…mensch, Sophia.

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Schauspielerin Demi Mooe l?¤sst mit diesen sensationellen Bikini-Schnappsch??ssen in ihrem heimischen Badezimmer keinen Zweifel daran, dass sie noch immer eine Wow-Frau ist. Wer mit 47 noch so cool drauf ist und gut aussieht, muss sich wirklich keine Sorgen um etwaige Altersunterschiede – Gatte Ashton Kutcher ist 32 – machen.

Twitter-Fan Demi Moore postet ihre privaten Schnappsch??sse wie diese Bikini-Session jetzt auf dem Foto-Blog Dailybooth.

Wie sie so gut in Form bleibt? Demi Moore h?¤lt streng Di?¤t. Vor etwa vier Jahren investierte die Schauspielerin zudem 420.000 Dollar in ihren Body – beim Sch?¶nheits-Doc.

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Bei einem Musikfestival am Wochenende in Warschau ??berraschte der sonst so durchtrainierte Wirbelwind Nelly Furtado seine Fans mit einigen Extra-Kilos: Auf der B??hne performte eine deutlich rundere Nelly.

Mit ihrem hautengen Catsuit machte sich Nelly Furtado gar nicht die M??he, ihre neuen Pfunde zu verstecken. Selbstbewusst und bestens gelaut wie immer rockte die S?¤ngerin ihre Fans in Polen. Nelly Furtado bringt noch in diesem Jahr ein neues Album raus.

Wie gef?¤llt uns Nelly Furtado besser? Als schlanke Amazone mit Killer-Abs oder kurvige Powerfrau mit B?¤uchlein?

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