WordPress 3 beta 1 is in the field! I’ve got it installed on test subdomain (wpbeta.brooklyndesk.org).

So far, as i’ve come to expect from the scary-smart guys at WP HQ, the experience has been a joy. The new WordPress has been merged with MU and only altering a few lines of code enables multisite capabilities.

The next thing to test is custom post-type settings. It would seem WP has taken a page out of Drupal’s playbook with this new feature. Essentially, from where i sit, custom post types is exactly the same as what the CCK enables in Drupal. But in true WP form the key difference is i can readily understand how to put this new functionality to use. The Drupal CCK remains totally inscrutable to me… i need somebody to show me the secret handshake, and that in and of itself is enough to make me never want to manage a Drupal instance.

Which brings me to the second installment of the Higher Ed Experts webinar series discussing the big three open source cms’s out there: DotCMS, Drupal, and WordPress. Today was Drupal as implemented by Duke University. The presentation was engaging, but unlike DotCMS, there were immediate red flags thrown as the fetching Blythe Morrell outlined the resources at her disposal. What made me want to cry was her team and supporting infrastructure, which outnumbers what i have available by about 7 to 1 in terms of people and probably 10,000 to 1 in terms of dollars, is all dedicated to the homepage of Duke. That’s life on a scale i cannot wrap my head around.

Listening to the smorgasbord of designers, programmers, content creators, photographers, videographers and probably caterers in play i couldn’t help but think of the author Susan Minot when she lists all the people who gave her space in their fabu homes in fabu places in which to write. I can’t help but feel if somebody gave me room and space and time i too could crank out a work of fiction that wouldn’t read like a blog post dashed off between eating dinner and doing the dishes. Likewise if i had a talented well-rounded staff in a cohesive department that moved with a sense of urgency i reckon the website such a departement produced would more closely resemble that produced by Duke.