Best of WordCamp Jerusalem

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WordCamp Jerusalem had a very strong finish. Here’s the best of the best:

WordCamp Jerusalem
WordCamp Jerusalem

Best Lines:

  • Matt Mullenweg:
    • People have better things 2 do. The tool should be invisible. Take 1 sec from 15 mil users. That’s a lot of time.
    • (Discussing WordPress history): Some of the conversations were a bit combative. But you guys should be fine with that.
    • 3.0 was just meant to be the version after 2.9. It wasn’t meant to signify a major release. [and in response to laughter:] Really!
    • Joel Spolsky said it takes 10 years to make great software. WordPress is 8. So we’re almost there!
    • I don’t mind being on the Titanic, but I want to be steering.
  • Liz Cohen: Don’t go to blog angry
  • Audience member after attempts to get reasonable lighting failed: “This is a tech college, everything is binary. It’s on or off.”

Best Lessons:

  • Barry Abrahamson: 80% of total load time is client side. Tools: Yslow; Pagespeed. To reduce client-side load time Reduce # of http requests; compress (gzip); optimize images (resize, pngcrush, jpegtrans) [hat tip: Charlie Kalech]
  • Barry Abrahamson: Don’t optimize if you don’t have to. Caching can cause complications and often doesn’t help much. Only use it if you need it. [hat tip: Charlie Kalech]
  • Liz Cohen: Step outside your zone. Show that you’re thinking about the whole industry. Example RapidFire Video.

Best Interactions:

  • Barak Danin: Got timid applause as he was introduced. Said “it’s OK” and helped start the clapping. “It’s just that I saw people were a bit embarrassed, so I figured I’d help them.”
  • Matt Mullenweg reacting to positive audience participation enthusiastically shouts “Free blogs for all of you”
  • Audience Member: What would you tell somebody who started a site in WordPress? Matt: Well first, you made the right choice. Second, you’re in the right place. Should we take a survey in this room?

Best Tweets:

  • @frgdr: #BestOf #KvetchingAsSport RT @mdavep #wcjeru not enough tuna in my tuna sandwich
  • @mdavep: man, @photomatt is recklessly giving away free blogs left and right at #wcjeru

Best Stories:

  • Matt Mullenweg: The way people became core developers at WordPress was they kept sending me patches and asking me to commit them. Eventually I had to say “here, have commit rights.”

Best Speakers:

  • Matt Mullenweg
  • Barry Abrahamson
  • Liz Cohen (yes, I’m biased, but still …)
  • Oren Yomtov
  • Miriam Schwab
  • Eyal Sela
  • Jonathan Caras

Best Blog Coverage:

Did you catch something great that I missed? Did I mention you and not link to you? Leave a comment here or Tweet to @GilR.

Also in this series: