Andre recently blogged about how many people are using wordpress as more than just a blog engine, they’re using it as a full blown content management system (CMS). I’m pretty well versed in Wordpress and what’s available for it and today I was looking around today for new themes and plug-ins we could integrate with the AppliedI One-Click Wordpress installer and came across a couple items that caught my attention, Mimbo an online magazine theme by Darren Hoyt and WP e-Commerce, an e-commerce solution for wordpress by Instinct Entertainment.

Creating your online magazine with Wordpress

Mimbo is a magazine-style Wordpress theme that makes use of the WP template tag system to create a very non-traditional layout. You can see a live demo of mimbo here to get a feel for just what it does out of the box.

On Darren’s blog you’ll see many posts of sites that are based on the Mimbo design. Here’s a few links to some of the sites that are mimbo powered:

• http://idahoforronpaul.com/
• http://tricvoice.medianewsonline.com/
• http://www.sakejournal.com/
• http://www.douglasturner.com/

So with wordpress, a theme like mimbo and a little creativity you should be able to launch a pretty impressive online magazine yourself.  Mimbo isn’t the only magazine style wordpress theme out there as there are a number of commercial solutions available too:

• http://www.wpremix.com ($$$)
• http://hyalineskies.com/wordpress/gridlock/ (FREE)
• http://sandbox.limpag.com/ (FREE)
• http://news.revolutiontheme.com/ ($$$)
• http://www.wp-magazine.com/ ($$$)

And that’s just a sampling of the vast number of magazine style themes out there for wordpress. Not to mention the thousands of other themes available.

Creating your Wordpress powered online store with WP e-Commerce

Let’s face it, the Internet has completely changed the way today’s consumer shops and has made virtually every brick and mortar store with an online store an International business.  E-Commerce is here to stay and as technology changes and evolves so does E-Commerce.  Enter, the Web 2.0 era of E-Commerce, blogs/CMS applications merging with shopping carts.

WP e-Commerce is a new plugin for wordpress that allows you to e-commerce enable your wordpress powered website.  WP e-Commerce is available as both a free version (for personal use), an upgraded version (GOLD version, $15) and a business class solution ($250).  For the features you get, even at $250, it’s a reasonably priced product.

Here’s a quick run down of the features:

• New - Search Engine Friendly URLs / Permalinks (latest RC)
• New - Marketing options under shop options (latest RC)
• New - Members Only Module
• Customizable pagination for product listing
• Unlimited products & categories
• AJAX powered Sliding Shopping Cart
• Shop front highlighting for newly added products
• AJAX powered Web 2.0 DropShop - additional gold module
• Grid View - additional gold module
• Fancy AJAX Alerts on Add to Cart
• Purchase history for logged in users
• New and improved Audio Player Module for selling MP3 files
• Chinese Language file
• Share this / Digg Product social networking promo tools
• Downloadable CSV files
• Detailed Purchase Log & Filters
• Configurable Tax settings including USA & Canada
• PayPal IPN
• URL linking to products and images
• – Next version
• RSS product feed widget
• Google Cart

Best of all, WP e-Commerce can integrate into your wordpress based site as either separate pages or widgets and the available widgets currently include:

• AJAX Shopping Cart Widget
• Categories & Brands Widget
• Donations Widget
• Product Specials Widget

A few sites based off of WP e-Commerce include (this list was taken from their website and may change at any time):

• www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk
• www.tabletalk.com
• www.imagecubes.com
• www.koloroo.com
• Eden Ripley
• Ochblog
• Crafty Designs
• Standard Electronics

Best of all, the installation of WP e-Commerce couldn’t be easier, upload the plug-in, enable it and configure it. That’s it.

I can see WP e-Commerce being used by people selling online e-books or audio files, subscription based services, donations, merchandise (it includes the ability to assign attributes like size, color, etc to products) and any number of simple e-commerce needs. So if you’re looking for a low cost, easy to use e-commerce solution and already have a wordpress enabled site or plan to use wordpress, give WP e-Commerce a peek. It may not have the features and functionality of the larger, more expensive solutions but for the price, it packs a pretty nice punch.

I encourage you to visit the WP e-Commerce site and experiment with it today.