

Cloudup acquired by Automattic - bpierre
https://cloudup.com/blog/cloudup-automattic

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photomatt
Next up: WordPress in Node.

(j/k, but looking forward to getting more node.js services running as part of
WordPress.com.)

~~~
csomar
_Next up: WordPress in Node._

Can you expand more on this?

~~~
jacobbijani
[https://github.com/visionmedia](https://github.com/visionmedia), one of the
most prolific node developers, works for cloudup.

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leokun
As siong1987 mentioned, Cloudup was previously LearnBoost, creators of
socket.io which came from heaven and replaced the horror that was Orbited for
real time abstractions around websocket.

I'm happy for them that they ended up at an awesome company.

~~~
neovive
Was Cloudup a spin-off servic? LearnBoost still seems to be available
([https://www.learnboost.com/](https://www.learnboost.com/))

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tg3
IIRC, they were going to keep LearnBoost running but without continued
development on it. I wonder what the acquisition means for LearnBoost though -
did Automattic acquire that as well, and if so, what will they do with it?

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neovive
Just noticed a blog post regarding the announcement on learnboost.com
([https://www.learnboost.com/blog/learnboost-
automattic/](https://www.learnboost.com/blog/learnboost-automattic/)). They
mention "LearnBoost’s amazing classroom software will not be changing, and the
entire suite of apps will remain free. Aside from ramping up performance
enhancements, you’ll enjoy all the wonderful, free services that you’ve come
to love. For the most part, it’s business as usual, but we’re excited to have
more manpower behind scaling our infrastructure to make sure LearnBoost
remains lightning fast and reliable."

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rabino
I'm getting tired of repeating this every time. WordPress.com does NOT power
the 20% of the internet. The open source WordPress project does. WordPress.com
represent a small % of all the WordPress installations.

~~~
photomatt
I'd estimate WP.com is about half of all WP installations, maybe more.

~~~
rabino
> WordPress powers 20% of the Internet (yes, you read that correctly!),
> meaning they’ve got a ton of experience scaling services

My point is that these two sentences are totally true, but put together like
that are misleading. And that's a bit discouraging for the non-automatticians
contributing to core.

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DigitalSea
It's pretty obvious why Automattic acquired Cloudup and it's a one worded
competitor: Ghost. With this acquisition Automattic have just obtained some
highly talented Node.JS developers who no doubt will be vital to the survival
of Wordpress in the coming months and years. This is actually what Wordpress
needed, they've become somewhat comfortable in their own skin in many ways.

I think the reality of Ghost being a serious contender in the blogging space
forced Automattic's hand here. When a product gets the backing of not one, but
two of the most popular companies currently churning out commercial Wordpress
themes (Envato's Themeforest and Woothemes) you know you've got a potential
fight on your hands. Not to mention the backing of Microsoft, with Internet
Explorer being a support partner of Ghost as well.

Could we potentially be seeing a Node.JS powered version of Wordpress in the
coming months as well? A more stripped back and super fast interpretation of
the blogging software running a NoSQL database and at the same time, give
Ghost a run for their money? I certainly hope so, because it would mean I
wouldn't have to spend so much time and money scaling Apache/NGINX/MySQL
servers all the time because Wordpress likes to chew RAM and smash MySQL
databases.

~~~
jacques_chester
> _I think the reality of Ghost being a serious contender in the blogging
> space forced Automattic 's hand here._

I don't think you understand how well entrenched Wordpress is.

> _Could we potentially be seeing a Node.JS powered version of Wordpress in
> the coming months as well?_

In case you were wondering, ShitHNSays was shut down by Twitter. So there's no
point trying to get syndicated, sorry.

~~~
DigitalSea
* > I don't think you understand how well entrenched Wordpress is. *

As someone who makes a living from Wordpress, yes I do realise. However, I
also realise there is a market for a better alternative to Wordpress for
blogging. Medium I think has shown there is a demand for a nicely designed
blog application with focus on content.

Have you ever tried scaling Wordpress to thousands of visitors per day before?
It takes a whole lot more than installing a caching plugin... Using Wordpress
as a blog from a cost perspective is expensive, especially once you install a
few plugins to make the overall experience better. A Node.JS powered version
of Wordpress would be something I would jump on if it were to ever come to
fruition.

Wordpress for use just as a blog nowadays is crazy. You don't install
Wordpress if you want a simple blog, you install it if you want a website.
It's a CMS, not a blogging platform any more. People are yearning for
alternatives, Ghost might not reach the scale of Wordpress and usage stats
over night, but I think it will make a splash. It's launch partners
(Microsoft, Woothemes, Envato) have a lot of pulling power to get people on
board.

* > In case you were wondering, ShitHNSays was shut down by Twitter. So there's no point trying to get syndicated, sorry. *

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I just Googled ShitHNSays and didn't
even realise it existed until now. No need for the sarcasm and condescending
attitude. Just because you are obviously against people voicing their opinions
on subjects you deem yourself to be all knowing about, doesn't give you the
right to be a jerk about it.

~~~
jacques_chester
> _Have you ever tried scaling Wordpress to thousands of visitors per day
> before?_

Yes. I've been doing it for almost a decade.

I _hate_ Wordpress. But basically, we're going to be stuck with it for a
while. Network effects and path dependency cannot be shifted by a technology
that is merely a bit better from the POV of commissioning end-users.

Consider: under what circumstances will the thousands of PHP developers who
write the tangled cthulucode which underpins Wordpress and its ecosystem drop
everything and simultaneously rewrite the core + thousands of plugins + tens
of thousands of themes?

Your remarks are wildly wishful thinking. They remind me of "imagine a beowulf
cluster".

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8ig8
See also Matt's recent post on the relaunch of Simplenote:

[http://ma.tt/2013/09/on-the-new-simplenote/](http://ma.tt/2013/09/on-the-new-
simplenote/)

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EvanYou
Interested to see what TJ and Guillermo would do for Wordpress... considering
now there is already a Node.js based competitor (Ghost)

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ehutch79
I'm having trouble understanding why a bandwidth bill for 1.5tb is an
achievement.

~~~
mathrawka
I am thinking it was more for the team, knowing what they are capable of. TJ
and Guillermo are very well known developers in the node.js scene. If you ever
used node.js for web development, you have used some of their work.

[https://github.com/visionmedia](https://github.com/visionmedia)
[https://github.com/guille](https://github.com/guille)

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benastan
Well that was fast.

~~~
siong1987
It took a while. CloudUp was a pivot from LearnBoost which was a product that
they had been running for years.

~~~
rafaelc
Yep. LearnBoost was incorporated from my dorm room on Jan 4, 2010 - but I had
been working on it on my own for months before the incorporation. Then I
raised most of our seed round, merged with Guillermo and Thianh... from which
we built LB, a huge open source presence in Node.js, tried everything possible
to grow on the edtech side, and _then_ launched Cloudup in June 2013

~~~
neovive
Amazing work on LearnBoost and congratulations on the acquisition! I'm on the
PTO board at my son's elementary school and would love to get his school on
the LearnBoost platform. Before pitching to the administration, is the
platform completely Node.js? Is there a paid support option? Is it self-hosted
or hosted on LearnBoost? Do you plan to continue development going forward?

Thanks.

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mcantelon
Congrats!

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ichsoerso
Smart move. I think it's time for Marissa/Tumblr to buy doctape now ;-)

