The VideoPress upgrade, which allows you to upload and embed your own videos on your blog, now comfortably handles videos from iPhones and iPads. You can shoot vertically or horizontally, and we’ll take care of rotating it for you so that your video looks great when it’s published on your site.

If you don’t already have VideoPress on your WordPress.com account, head on over to VideoPress.com, we’ll get you up and running in no time. And don’t forget to install the free WordPress App on your iPhone or iPad!

Duotone: Now Video-Friendly

If you’re a photoblogger, you’re probably familiar with the cool Duotone theme, which changes color to match the first image in every post and page. The big news is that Duotone now seamlessly supports VideoPress videos, so now you can engage visitors with photographs and videos!

Learn More about VideoPress

If you use VideoPress on your self-hosted WordPress site, keep an eye on the VideoPress Blog – we have some exciting annoucements coming out soon, just for you!

You can find more details about VideoPress by checking out the following resources:

• VideoPress.com
• WordPress Support: VideoPress

Designed by Andy Rutledge, Currents, is a responsive, minimal yet attractive premium theme from WooThemes.

Currents is perfect for news driven sites. The phrase, “less is more” couldn’t be more true. This clean and minimal design maximises your reader’s focus on the content. Having said that, the theme is packed with many customization options — a wide featured post slider, custom news areas, six alternative color styles, and more. Together, all of these features help you to control how to present current events you want to share with your readers.

Think your readers might check your site on a mobile device? No problem! Currents makes your site look great on an iPad, iPhone or any other mobile device.

This is not all about this great theme, Currents — so be sure to read about it on the Theme Showcase.

Next up is Debut – a beautifully designed theme by Luke McDonald of Press75.

Debut is a mobile-ready theme custom tailored to present your content in a professional and eye-catching manner. Five beautifully designed post formats provide you the flexibility needed to display media of all types. Musicians may be specially interested in the audio post format which expands into a multi-track playlist. Highlighting specific content couldn’t be easier with Debut’s Home page template which includes an innovative, customizable content slider as well as a featured area that can display in both grid and list styles.

Read about its features in detail in the Theme Showcase!

Authenticate with Tumblr

To bring your tumblelog’s content to WordPress.com, head to Tools → Import in your WordPress.com dashboard and look for the Tumblr importer. If you don’t already have an account here on WordPress.com then head over and sign up first.

Click the link to get started and then enter the email address you used to sign up to Tumblr, your Tumblr password and click Connect to Tumblr.

Start the Import

The importer will then fetch a list of your blogs and let you pick which one to import. Click Import this blog to get going.

Once you have started, the import progress will be shown on the import page and you will be sent an email when the import is finished. We try super hard to make sure that all your Tumblr content, including your Videos, are imported into your WordPress.com blog. Videos you had uploaded to Tumblr are imported into VideoPress and other embeds are converted to use shortcodes. Sometimes the importer finds an embed it can’t convert and a list of these is included in the import completion email for you to check.

If your Tumblr site has a custom domain (like you.com instead of you.tumblr.com), then you’ll need to disable the custom domain temporarily while the import is processed. You can do this by going to your Tumblr Dashboard, clicking on the Settings button and then un-ticking the “Use a Custom Domain” checkbox:

Then you’ll want to set up Domain Mapping on your WordPress.com blog so that your readers can use the same domain to reach your site as before.

Style Your New Site

WordPress.com supports Post Formats which allow you to distinguish between the different types of content you post on your site. While you wait for your content to be imported why not customize the design of your site by picking one of our post-format-enabled, Tumblelog-ready themes.

If you have any trouble importing your blog  you’re welcome to contact support where one of our Happiness Engineers will be glad to help out. To learn all about WordPress.com’s features, we encourage you to check out our handy tutorial. We also provide comprehensive feature documentation at our support site.

Within my first 24 hours in Ubud (the spiritual, artistic and cultural center of Bali) I knew I was on a different frequency.  Things didn’t work the same as I was accustomed to, in a way that is difficult to describe.  Less linear.  More fluid.  From a place of feeling rather than intellectual process.  It was very easy to let go and let things happen.  For letting go and doing nothing, a lot began happening deep inside me.  I experienced a wealth of adventure and much of it does not translate into ‘what I did on my vacation’.

Internet access was spotty at best and too weak to sustain a signal consistently.  What a godsend!  I had left my phone at home, did not communicate through my usual computer channels, had no TV or radio, and limited reading materials.  I did have my knitting (sock yarn projects are great for hot, humid weather), which the Balinese found both incredibly interesting and deeply respectable.  The Balinese value spirituality, creativity, and family above all else.  To encounter a tourist calmly sitting and creating art was fascinating to the locals and I learned to tolerate long bouts of inquisitive staring.

Samantha knits.

I made a solid swipe at learning the local language, which is only spoken on the island of Bali.  I learned the phrases to communicate on a basic level as well as the slang that would keep locals giggling with (or at) me.  I did my best to respect local cultural customs, particularly dress, kept my mouth mostly shut, and listened.

Packed away in my essentials were some packets of instant coffee as I didn’t know the coffee situation in Bali.  I drank that my first two mornings (bleah).  On the third morning I tried Balinese coffee….it was a real ‘come-to-Jesus’ moment!  It is simply outstanding, and I laughed at my previous hesitancy.  In Bali the locally grown coffee is finely ground like cocoa powder and hot water is added (most Balinese drink sugar and milk in it).  It’s not instant coffee.  The grounds sink to the bottom, leaving a rich but quite mellow coffee.  I am still drinking my coffee this way.  The Balinese find it hysterical to filter and process coffee.

traditional Balinese market

I made an early newbie error by ingesting the local water and ended up with a highly uncomfortable 12 hours, after which the ghost of all things gone wrong digestively stayed with me for another month.  I relaxed into this discomfort and rolled with it.  It became remarkably easy to deal with.  I was also far more careful with what went into my mouth.

lunch for 2 - completely clean and incredibly fresh!

Food was clean, fresh, and delicious.  The tropical fruit was wild in terms of variety!  I enjoyed not only eating the variety but also figuring out how to get beyond spikes, quills, hard shells, and the like to get to the fruit.  Durian in particular is a hard shelled spiked fruit that I had heard much about in raw food circles.  My Balinese friends offered to help me out with it, but were very evasive about eating it themselves.  The fruit is pried open with a machete or large knife and pulled apart.  Inside are large, white, soft, strong smelling pods of fruit wrapped around dark seeds.  I pulled the pods out with my fingers and popped them into my mouth.  They have a very strong taste to go with the smell. One of my friends produced some mangosteen ‘for getting the taste out’ of the durian. After eating the pods in a section of shell they showed me to pour water into the shell, swish it around, and drink it to rinse my mouth.  The mangosteen helped with the strong aftertaste of the durian.  (I later learned that many hotels and bungalows will not allow durian in the rooms due to the pervasive and persistent odor.)

Fresh chicken, fresh fish, fresh vegetables, and fresh juices rule the local menus.  It is overall fabulously easy to eat fabulously healthily.  Rice grows locally all over the island – this is a staple.  The local spices are complex; both in aroma and flavor.  Both fresh and dried coconut flavors many of the foods along with the spices.

plate of assorted fruits

Ketut Mawa asked me if I liked chicken satay.   I said yes, I was eating a lot of it,  but the peanut sauce doesn’t do me any good.  He laughed and told me that the peanut sauce doesn’t do ANYONE any good, but they keep eating it anyway.  The Balinese cook their locally grown peanuts twice – boiled and then roasted before use.

Motorcycles are the main mode of transport due to low cost,  low emissions, low use of petrol, and narrow streets.

Ubud was my primary home; I left the area only twice.  One of those days Samantha and I lost track of time on a perfectly gorgeous isolated beach.  On another day I roamed the northern side of the island with Ketut Mawa and his childhood best friend, Jaya.  We had a gigglin’ blast. Sharing language and culture, we visited temples and rice fields that Jaya had never seen himself.   Ketut Mawa asked me, as a tour guide, how to respectfully deal with Christians who pointedly demand to know where he stands with Jesus Christ – and I asked him to teach me about Balinese village structure.

with Jaya at his family temple

I was invited into a local ceremony, into several family homes, and met smiling faces anywhere I attempted the local language.  The Balinese love the attempt.  I mean, they LOVE it.  One young man asked me, via a Blackberry translator device, to help him find an American to volunteer to teach English at the local school.

isolated stretch of beach outside Candidasa

An angry monkey in the Enchanted Monkey Forest bit me.  After playing ‘human scaffold‘ for 5 others – one monkey DEMANDED a banana.  Unfortunately a freaked out Samantha ran screaming with the bananas (purchased just for this occasion)- and that last one, he was pissed.  He climbed up my body, sat on my shoulder, climbed back down and quickly grabbed my left hand and bit.  HARD.  Held it long enough for me to understand the situation very clearly.  When he let go I stood up and roared at him, he roared at me, and I walked away unwilling to keep arguing with the mind of a banana crazed monkey.  My souvenirs from the Monkey Forest were a swollen, bruised hand and valuable impressions of the monkey-mind.  I kept thinking about the unpredictability of monkey- mind and continued to let go of my own.

I was done with monkeys after that and definitively not enthralled to encounter them on the street.

I did a variety of yoga while in Ubud.  I started out with the mainstream, popular yoga at the Yoga Barn.  They offer a menu of highly attended trendy classes in their large studio. I left 3 unused punches on my punchcard of 10.

Guru Ketut Arsana’s yoga at the BodyWorks Centre is another breed entirely.  The tiny yoga studio can hold 8 students.  Guru Ketut teaches a vigorous Kundalini/Tantric combination with an emphasis on opening the tailbone along with the mind.  I felt highly resistant the first class (‘you want me to WHAT?  I can’t do that!  I have this blah blah that keeps me from blah blah blah and so blah blah…’) – it mattered not, as I was the only student that afternoon.  I was pushed and it changed me. After three classes I was losing track of both time and resistance. After a final 2.5 hour session I knew I’d never see yoga (nor my self) in the same way.

at the Bat Cave Temple

Sheri w/ Ganesha (knitting bag in hand)

Samantha had made appointments for the two of us to see a healer at the recommendation of a friend.  I showed up not knowing what to expect.  When Mr Arsana, a beautiful, friendly older Balinese man touched me on the shoulder, I felt an uncommon surge of compassion.  He led me into his treatment room and asked me “What is your problem?”

“Um,” I said, “I guess if I had to come up with one, I would say it is that there are so many foods that make me ill.  Wheat, corn, soy, dairy, sugars, all grain, nuts…it seems like a lot.”

“So what do you eat?” he asked me.

“Meat, vegetables and fruit.  And some seeds.”

Mr Arsana stared at me.  Then he roared “WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT?”

We locked eyes and I felt a giggle start.

“Look,” he said, “Everyone different.  You know what keep you in balance.  Keep doing that.  Stay balance.  You know what works.  This big.  This enough.”

He looked at me again.  “No rice?” he asked.  “No rice”  I replied.   We regarded each other again and both burst out laughing and laughing.   This island is covered in rice fields.

Then he gave me a thorough, unusually intuitive massage and walked on my back.  At the end he pronounced me healthy.  “You have no problems” he reported to me “all problems are in the mind, anyway.  You have clear mind.  Drink coconut water for balance while here.”

Then he gestured at my heart.  “I did little, you know, thing, to help with that.”

I thanked him and floated through the next 48 hours not really knowing which end was up.  Samantha was in similar shape after her session. The next week I started taking his yoga classes.

I learned in Bali that no matter where I am in the world my body seeks equilibrium by waking up pre-dawn for my meditation practice.  I learned to feel the change in the air on my skin when the tropical sun rises.  I learned that when free of all the distractions of Western living I absolutely adore who I am and I enjoy my own company.

Ceremonial Temple built in the 1400's

The most challenging aspect of Bali is the sheer travel (9 time zones) to get there.  The recovery on the home side was intense but passed very quickly.  By the time the jet lag passed I felt not only internally transformed – but stronger and more rested than I have been in many years.

Shrine for Rice Fields

Add the new WordPress.com extension for Chrome and as soon as you get a new follower or a new like on one of your posts, a notification will appear in your browser:

Simply click the icon to view your latest WordPress.com notifications:

Start following new blogs without visiting WordPress.com

The Chrome extension also makes it easy to follow sites from your WordPress.com account by displaying a Follow button whenever you’re browsing a site that has an RSS feed.

Clicking the Follow button will add new posts from the website to your reader, and send you an email each time an update is published. (You can change your default email settings if you like.)

When you visit a WordPress.com site, you’ll notice that the extension icon will turn blue, but keep in mind that you can follow blogs on Blogger, Tumblr, and other services, too.

Quickly post cool stuff you find while browsing the web

Press This is a lightning-fast way to publish content on your blog without ever visiting WordPress.com. Click the WordPress.com extension, then select Press This whenever you find something on the web that you’d like to share on your blog, and a pop-up editor will appear:

Select the blog you’d like to post to, then hit publish to share a link to the site. Your blog will be updated, and you can continue browsing the web from wherever you left off.

If you’d like to publish an excerpt of text along with the link to the site, simply highlight the material with your cursor before clicking Press This:

And it will appear in the editor for you to publish along with the link:

We hope this makes it easier for you to share cool stuff on your blog quickly! If there’s anything you’d like to see in future versions of the extension, be sure to let us know.

With the WordPress.com front page evolving into a one-stop shop for posting, exploring, following and reading blogs, it seemed natural to put your blog stats there, too.  Stats are becoming more and more about interacting with your readers and other bloggers.

You’ll still see your summary stats and chart on your main dashboard, and the full stats page in your dashboard will remain for a while, but the My Stats tab on the WordPress.com front page will soon become the home for the most comprehensive view of your stats.  Stats will also continue to be available by clicking on the sparkline in the admin bar at the top.

While adding the My Stats tab to the front page, we also gave it an updated look by making the panels regularly spaced, using rounded gravatars for your commenters, and giving it an overall lighter feel:

We’ll be adding even more features to your stats and the WordPress.com front page soon.  We’re working on adding country stats of your visitors, which many of you have requested.

If you’d like to attract more visitors to your site, check out these great resources on boosting your blog readership:

• Learn WordPress.com: Get Famous
• WordPress.com Support: Getting More Traffic

(Note to Jetpack users: Your stats will still be available in your wp-admin dashboard. However, you may still enjoy viewing your stats on WordPress.com.)

We’ve also brought the reblog button back to the toolbar that appears at the top of the screen when you’re logged into WordPress.com. Note that you’ll only see the like and reblog options while you’re looking at individual posts.

For example, you’ll see this on the left side of your toolbar while viewing http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/read-blogs:

And your toolbar will look like this while you’re browsing the home page of en.blog.wordpress.com:

How does reblogging work?

Reblogging is a quick way to share posts published by other WordPress.com users on your own blog. People have been reblogging others’ posts since blogging started, but our new reblogging system enables authors to retain greater control over their content.

When a post is reblogged, it shows up with a link back to the blog it came from, the first image in the post, an excerpt of the post’s introduction (if it contains text), and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains. It also shows any comments left by the person who reblogged the post:

Reblogs published on blogs you follow will also appear in your reader:

What happens when my posts get reblogged?

An excerpt of your post will be published on the reblogger’s site (with a link back to your original post), and you’ll receive a reblog notification in the post comments (you might need to approve it first):

You’ll also receive an email notification of the reblog.

Do I get credit when someone else reblogs one of my posts?

Absolutely! All reblogs contain a link back to your original post, so the more people reblog your posts, the more likely it is that you’ll attract new visitors (and perhaps new followers, too!).

What happens if I reblog a reblog?

If, for example, Stephane reblogs a WordPress.com announcement on his site and Lori reblogs Stephane’s reblog, Lori only re-publishes any comments Stephane made about the announcement. If Lori wants to share the original announcement, she should reblog the post from en.blog.wordpress.com, not from Stephane’s reblog. But if Stephane leaves a really clever comment, Lori might want to share it by reblogging his reblog on her site.

Can I edit a post I’ve reblogged?

You can go back and edit the comments you left when you reblogged a post, but you cannot edit any parts of the original post excerpt (including the post title). If you like, you can add categories or tags to the post. Reblogs show up under Posts → All Posts in your dashboard, and they can be edited the same way you edit your own posts.

Newsy is a versatile business and news-friendly theme that offers up to ten different layouts, four footer columns, custom link and accent colors, and a custom site header. Brand and content-focused editorial teams will love publishing with this theme.

Newsy: Home Page

Designed by Themify, Newsy comes with an impressive set of Theme Options that afford you a great deal of flexibility with how you choose to display your website. Easily control your site’s sidebar positions, home page and archive page post layouts, and navigation bar search box visibility.

You also have the ability to change your site-wide link and accent colors. A few quick adjustments via the options panel will truly have the effect of individualizing your site and making it stand out from the crowd.

Newsy: Accent and Link Color Examples

Up to ten different layouts in Newsy can be achieved by simply altering your widgets and Theme Options. A wide sidebar, narrow sidebar, and two mini sidebars come rolled into Newsy, as well as additional post display and sidebar alignment options.

Newsy: Wide Sidebar Left, Narrow Sidebar Right Option

All of this is controlled either from within Appearance → Widgets or Appearance → Theme Options. The goal with Newsy is maximum flexibility without the headache of manually configuring a thousand theme options. In this case we really can say that less—well, fewer (options)—is more.

Newsy is a premium upgrade for your blog at $85 for a lifetime subscription. Read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

Your reader displays all the posts across all the blogs you follow in the order they were published, with the most recent content appearing at the top. You’ll see an excerpt of the introduction to each post, the first image in the post, and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains.

You can even like and reblog WordPress.com content directly from the reader (we’re working on bringing reblogs back to the toolbar!) using the icons in the top right corner of each post:

Whether you’re at the computer or using the WordPress app on an Android or iOS mobile device, having all the posts from the blogs you follow in one place makes it easy to find the updates that are important to you, and skip over the ones that aren’t.

Click in the toolbar at the top of any WordPress.com site (you must be logged in to see it) to add new blogs to your reader. For directions on adding blogs from Tumblr, Blogger, and other services to your reader, check out the support document on managing the blogs you follow.

Discover New Blogs, Too

To find some awesome new WordPress.com blogs you might like, check out the Recommended Blogs section of the reader:

Right now you can browse blogs in twelve different categories, and we’ll be adding more very soon.

Use WordPress.com as a Real-Time Information Network

If you want to see what people are saying about your hometown, favorite sports team, or a concert you attended last night, add any topic to your reader to create a stream of all posts published with that tag.

You can add as many topic streams to your reader as you like. You’ll notice frequent updates being published under general topics like “art” and “books,” but you can also add more specific topics like “Picasso” or “J. K. Rowling.”

Want less email?

Each time you follow a blog, new posts from that site will appear instantly in your reader, and you’ll also receive them by email. If you prefer to receive email notifications on a daily or weekly basis, or not at all, you can change your default email settings from the bottom left corner of your reader. You can also change your email notification preferences on a per-blog basis.

Find Friends on WordPress.com

Want to see if any of your Facebook and Twitter friends are on WordPress.com? Give the Friend Finder a try:

So, how will you use the reader, and what can we do to improve it?

On January 18, 2012, sites all over the internet will be blacking out to protest and try to mobilize more people to speak out against this bill coming up in the Senate next week — S. 968: the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — in an attempt to let U.S. lawmakers know how much opposition there is. WordPress.org, Wikipedia, and even WordPress.com VIP I Can Has Cheezburger? will be participating in the blackout to raise awareness and spur you to action.

Here on WordPress.com, we want to participate as well. Freshly Pressed will be blacked out during the strike.

Sorry to take away your daily fix of yummy web content, but this bill threatens to do that on a much wider scale. You don’t want that, do you?

More importantly, we are making it possible for you to participate in the protest. There are two options: a “Stop Censorship” ribbon and a full blackout. The blackout portion will be in effect January 18 from 8am to 8pm EST, while the ribbon will be displayed until January 24. Here’s how to join in:

1. Go to Settings → Protest SOPA/PIPA in your dashboard.
2. Select if you want to join the blackout or show a ribbon.
3. If you choose to join the blackout, you can edit the message that will be shown on your site during the blackout.
4. Preview what your protest will look like.
5. Click “Save Changes” button to activate your protest.

That’s it! Easy-peasy activism right at your fingertips.

The “Stop Censorship” ribbon will display in the upper corner of your site and links to americancensorship.org. It will display until January 24, 2012 (the Senate vote date).

If you choose to do the blackout in addition to the ribbon, then we will black out your site from 8am to 8pm EST along with the official strike. You can customize the message that will appear on your blacked-out site to tell people why this issue is important to you. Your site will return to just displaying the ribbon after the strike is over.

I hope that a significant number of you on WordPress.com will join in this protest. Publishing freedom is a right we must protect.

And one last pitch: whatever you decide to do about your site, please take a few minutes to head over to americancensorship.org and take action. It only takes a few moments of your time to be an agent of change!