The team at WordPress, despite the delay, has finally announce that the newest version, 2.5, is ready and stable for release. But not just yet. They’re giving the benefit of a doubt by having a final round of public testing before the stable version is released to the public. You can download the Release Candidate 1 here, or log into the demo site here (username: admin; password: demo).

If you’re a WordPress user, certainly you’ll get a peek into these updates in your dashboard, therefore I will not go into the details hare. If you’re new to WordPress, let me sum up what the hype is all about.

Simply put, WordPress is an open-source, free blog publishing system which enables users to quickly publish their blog. However, the software was initially positioned as a blog publishing tool, meaning it is more suitable for text-intensive, chronologically-based content rather than a full-fledge multimedia website. You can download them here.

It is however, becoming more and more flexible, especially the excellent coding structure which enables complete templating of the look and feel (PHP hacking needed). I’ve seen some websites that managed to completely (almost) disguise the WordPress platform they use.

But certain fields are still left to be desired. The notorious problems with third-party video embed (like YouTube), the absence of a page layout & content management and the lack of plug-and-play accessibility (without any code hacking) still put WordPress way behind other CMSs like Drupal and Joomla.

Will the 2.5 close the gap?

According to the Release Candidate announcement, these are some of the improvements the 2.5 will carry:

1. A customizable dashboard
2. multi-file upload
3. built-in galleries
4. one-click plugin upgrades
5. tag management
6. built-in Gravatars
7. full text feeds
8. faster load

Some of the above hint towards a more capable blog publishing platform, with a better post management system, latest comments and incoming links display, blog stats, and a cool addition of user choice of their own RSS feeds into the dashboard.

But WordPress 2.5 is also pushing beyond the blog format- which will widen the appeal to non-blogger and pure web publishers. Notice the addition of multi-file upload (now you can easily host files or create download directories), built-in galleries (create a media center) and one-click plugin upgrades (thus being more of a platform system rather than a standalone software).

Faster load time will also help (CMSs are not that popular in terms of loading time). 2.5 also simplifies some of its interfaces, and focuses have been given to ease the process of new post publishing.

But sadly, 1-click access to other functions are still unavailable, since the back-end navigational menu still doesn’t incorporate drop-down structure. If you’re in the dashboard, you have to first click “Design” and then click on “Theme Editor” to edit your template. The steps could’ve been simplified by using a drop-down menu. I wonder why they overlooked this.

Summary

Already a milestone ahead of other blog publishing platform like Movable Type, TypePad and B2Evolution (which shares some common DNA), the 2.5 is better equipped to be a full-fledge CMS like Joomla.

But still, they’re still far away. So, I reckon if you do not see blogging as an important element for your business, you’re still better-off in other CMSs. If you’re looking to build a community, boy, WordPress is definitely not for you.

Not just yet. But with the current rate of development and adoption, I can see WordPress will be comparable to the CMS leaders in 3 years time.

They already have their own native forum system, thousands of third-party plug-ins, and millions of widgets - which can transform WordPress sites from being just blogs. They also have membership structure with Access Control Level. They have group publishing features.

So 3 years is a reasonable time.