I’ve been following John O’Nolan on twitter for a few years now. I admire him and the work he does. He has been an active developer, contributor and member of the core WordPress team in the past and has been building on WP for years.
Last November, he wrote about an idea he had – Ghost. WordPress has become more than just a blogging platform. With each new release or iteration, WordPress is becoming more of a CMS, but if all you want is a blogging platform, WP is becoming bloated.
Johns idea was for a WordPress lite, a fork of the current WordPress repo, but with all the CMS stuff taken out. Kind of taking WordPress back to its roots. A great idea I thought. I tend to use WordPress as a blogging engine (anything on top is bloat) and if I need a CMS, I use my favourite, Textpattern.
The concept of Ghost really resonated with our industry and it seemed as if everyone was talking about it. John also blogged a few days later to say how big the reaction to Ghost had been. But it was just a concept.
On Monday 29th April, John posted a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to make Ghost a reality. Within 12 hours, it was funded. Fully funded to the tune of 120%. Less than 3 days later and the pot is fast approaching 250% of that goal.
Ghost is becoming a reality.
For me though, it’s more than just the software. More than just another blogging platform. Its the team behind it that really sold it for me and if I had more money to throw at it, I would!
John is a great UI designer, he’s designed and built blogs for some incredible companies. Hannah Wolfe is overseeing the code. Rob Hawkes & Scott Riley are behind the code. Both are fantastically knowledgeable and passionate about what they do. Photography is by Rick Nunn, need I say more? The guys at Simple As Milk are behind the UX, and I’ve never seen a more talented bunch of folk. And with the equally talented Matt Hojo & Gilbert Pellegrom providing more code support, I know Ghost is going to be good on every single level.
Seriously, I’m trying my hardest to not turn this into a massive ego-stroking orgy but if I had to put together a team of designers & developers to build a piece of software for me, these guys behind Ghost would be the team I would select.
So yes, I’m all for Ghost. The idea and team behind it are rock solid and I think it’ll do a fantastic job of turning the blogging software space on its head. Please do go and check out the video on Kickstarter and if you like the idea, back the project too! It’ll be set up as a not-for-profit organisation so any money pledged will go into making Ghost a better product.
I can’t wait to get my hands on Ghost.