Warning for WordPress Website Owners - use caution with NextGEN Image Galleries

WordPress has become one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) available.  The basic core is relatively easy to use for the newbie and they innovated the process of connecting the website to the plugin database to add updates without having to manually download and upload them.

NextGEN gallery is one of the most popular plugins for WordPress.  It has been used worldwide for creating multiple image galleries with captions and slideshow features.  I use it for one of my client's sites as an "image museum" of sorts.  See RikEmmett.com.

Now with this said:

IF YOU USE NEXTGEN GALLERY ON YOUR WORDPRESS WEBSITE, USE EXTREME CAUTION IF UPGRADING TO THE 2.X VERSION

WordPress has been upgrading its core to rely more heavily on jQuery - specifically a responsive admin bar that can be utilized on any device including phones and small tablets, and smoother slide and fade animation.

Photocrati has tried to keep pace with a massive upgrade that not only makes greater use of these animated features, but added more features to the management of the galleries themselves.

The response has been mixed to say the very least.  The support forum on WordPress.org reports everything from extremely slow load times and random error messages to complete site crashes that required admin support from the hosting provider to restore the website from an archived snapshot.  I tested the latest 2.x version on a WordPress 3.8 install (the latest release) and while it didn't crash the sandbox, I saw the slow page loads and error messages.

The leader of the development team issued an open letter to the WordPress community acknowledging the problems with an apology and an explanation of how to proceed next.

In SDOC's opinion, it's best not to make this upgrade.  Consider the last stable release of this plugin to be version 1.9, which can be manually downloaded here.

So what did we learn from this WP plugin problem?

1)  The "simplicity" of WordPress is not always so simple when you start adding on additional functions.  Simplicity and ease of use on the front end for the user is always matched by increasing complexity and hands-on management for the administrators.

2)  WordPress is not the ideal solution for every website, in spite of its popularity.  I use it myself in some very complex installations (espcially RikEmmett.com and Atlantapanhellenic.org).  But it also has big limits, especially in the frequency of major updates to its core and spotty quality control in plugin releases.

3)  ALWAYS back up your files and database before adding or upgrading plugin functionality.  Better yet, test them in a non-production sandbox site (if you have one available) before adding it to your "live" site.  Most of all, ask your web host if they can automatically back up your site on their side on a regular basis (read:  nightly, if you have a high-traffic site with frequent new content.)  This advice has saved my bacon more times than I care to remember.  If the worst thing you have to do is restore your database and reupload your files after a crash, consider yourself blessed.

Best of luck to your website owners and be careful out there.

Last Five Days Before Christmas

To Yelp or Not to Yelp

Online ratings can make a big difference in a small business' bottom line.  But are they still trustworthy?

When ratings sites first opened, they were a boon to small businesses looking to improve their street cred.  Even a negative review was an opportunity to demonstrate great customer service in less than ideal circumstances and still come out a winner.

Business review sites like Yelp, Angie's List, Kudzu, etc are the original "crowdsourcing" sites.  Recently Yelp has come under fire for allegedly hiding positive reviews under a "not recommended" label if the business in question did not purchase advertising with Yelp.

From Channel 46 today:

Woo said their impressive Yelp review became less impressive after they decided not to pay $299 a month to advertise with Yelp.
"They're kind of extorting us to pay the $299 a month or otherwise our ratings go down and we can't do anything about it," Woo said.
Woo also pointed out that at the bottom of Yoon Sushi's profile there's a link to 15 other reviews that are not currently recommended, the majority of which are perfect 5 star reviews.
"One of our customers came in and told us that he put a 5 star review and then noticed the review went straight to the filter and was under the un-recommended section," Woo said.

From Huffington Post

Complicating the issue further is the growing role of "reputation managers":  firms that regularly review the Internet for content about their client.  Then, if they find anything, they issue press releases and reviews and blog articles and a flood of links to "bury" the incriminating material so far down in search engine results that they are unlikely to be read.

Some of these "managers" have no trouble taking the next step and writing glowing positive reviews on Yelp, etc for their clients and negative ones for their clients' competitors.

A publication from my alma mater ran their own analysis of Yelp and other crowsourced review sites.

How can consumers view these sites more critically?
I think there are many signals on Yelp that consumers can combine to make up their minds. The way I use Yelp is, I read individual reviews, trying to be aware not just of whether they’re fake, but beyond that, whether they come from consumers who are like myself. There are plenty of biases in reviews besides their being fake or real. The other thing I look at is the number of reviews a business has. I have a lot more faith in a business with 3½ stars and 100 reviews than I do in one with 4 stars and just 3 or 4 reviews. That’s common sense. Also, when available, you can use sites, like Expedia, that allow consumers to review a business only once it’s confirmed that they are paying customers.

Comments are open:  do you use Yelp or similar sites for your business?  Have you experienced having certain reviews hidden?  Has crowdsourced reviews helped or hurt your enterprise?

Not small questions at the end of our Christmas shopping season when shoppers either shop online or check out store information on the internet.