6 months ago I came across a concept article written about by John O’Nolan (web designer and former deputy head of the WordPress User Interface group) that grabbed my attention (and the attention of many others). In the article John dreamed of a new blogging platform – Ghost.
In the article John spoke about the changes in WordPress over the year that have seen it evolve from a humble and relatively simple blogging platform into something a lot bigger and more complex – a content management system.
While the evolution of WordPress has been wonderful for many – John pointed out that its complexities and clutter has gotten in the way of him just publishing great blog posts.
John went on to describe a fictional and idealistic blogging platform – Ghost. You can read his initial post here.
At the time of writing that article Ghost was just an idea – but due to the overwhelming response John received it is fast becoming a reality – particularly in the last 24 hours with the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to see it completed.
11 hours and 56 minutes after the Kickstarter campaign launched it was funded (you can still join in for the next 28 days).
Check out this video in which John shares the vision:
It has been fascinating to watch the reaction to Ghost – with people particularly been drawn to the idea of a simply, elegantly designed and useful interface.
There’s still a lot to be revealed about Ghost and we’ll not really know all the details until it’s released later in the year but the current Kickstarter program gives you options to jump in early and see what it is all about – or if you want to contribute more to partner with the Ghost team.
I’m really excited to see this developed and so have accepted an invitation from John to be on the Ghost advisory board. Others on the board include Vitaly Friedman of Smashing Magazine, and Frederick Townes – Founding CTO of Mashable.
Oh – last of all, this is a non-profit project with it being developed for the love of blogging rather than to make its developers rich. Profits will be reinvested back into making the platform better.
UPDATE: as the initial funding goal has been met so easily – John has shared plans of a ‘stretch goal’ and what that will mean for backers here.
