Right, for the longest time now, alot of us hardcore wordpress users have been hearing a lot of things about how WordPress is going to turn into a company. Now that rumour in the wind has finally turned into a reality with the new WordPress.com. But then there is a very important question that a lot of people and even I have been asking.

What the hell is WordPress.com?

How is it any different from other blogging applications out there?

Now as far as I have gathered information about this from all sort of sources out there namely here and here. This is the gist that I have summed up for this much anticipated blogging application.

1. It's powered by WordPress Multi User. WordPress's answer to having a single blogging application for multiple blogs which can number from dozens to thousands.
2. It's developed using WordPress 1.6 Alpha. Which means while it's still currently being beta tested, when opened to the public…knowing what version 1.6 may have…to coin a common phrase. It's going to rock our socks off. The fact that it's got all the features as its predecessors is a good reason to salivate anyway.
3. It's currently by invite only. Every user has one invite to give away unlike Google mail's invite "storm". Which basically means that as of this date, WordPress.com grows "linearly". This also means that the WordPress.com core community is going to be a very close one pretty much like how it already is in its current state. No word yet whether this invite system would change.
4. Think of it as Typepad meets Blogger. Also to date, WordPress.com is meant to be free. Though none of us except Matt knows how they're all going to earn revenue from this. As far as I know…like Typepad which runs on Movable Type, it's for those of you who want WordPress but can't afford the hosting for it. Unlike Typepad, it's free. How this is going to be any different from WordPress powered hosted blogs like Blogsome. I'm guessing it's in the code because come on…it's developed by the people who brought you WordPress.org anyway.
5. It's designed for simplicity. That's probably a catch more than anything else. I moved to WordPress under my own host because it gives me complete control over my blog. WordPress.com like so many other blogging applications seems to concentrate more on the ease of use rather than the flexibility of customisation but this may be a temporary thing because it is still in beta and new features are being added daily as the system is being built. I'm guessing and hoping there is going to be an ace up the sleave somewhere.

That's all I can gather from what's out there anyway. At least it answers a lot of questions anyway about WordPress.com and its upcoming release. Now, from the top of my mind, the way I see this is going is that WordPress is trying to solidify the sense of community in blogging with their new dot com.

Which is not surprising anyway.

After all, WordPress was built on the community that ran it. Well…mostly the geek community in general but still a community nevertheless and that's what makes it as strong as it is today. So I'm still going to say that the ace up the sleave for this whole project is something that's going to connect us all together using current technology that most of us casual bloggers rarely use.

I could be wrong about this. But then again, I'm sure the core developers are well aware of the compatition that they are facing even against their own WPMU systems like Blogsome. So that ace has got to be something no one else has done before and that the only thing I can think off.

So that aside, I can't wait to be authorised to use WordPress.com anyway. I know it's going to be good. I just want to know how good.

Still it's a long wait.

But I guess its going to be worth it.