Matt Mullenweg: Wizard of WordPress, part 1

I sat down last week with Matt Mullenweg, co-creator ofWordPress and kingpin at Automattic, the company that runs the blog host service WordPress.com. As you might expect, Mullenweg has an well-formed perspective on blogging. So what's the state of the blogosphere? He sees the field as "nascent," despite the presence of large and influential blogs that are well on their way toward challenging incumbent media (including CNET).

We talked about blogging, freedom of speech, and how candidates' blogs in the U.S. are usually not much more than platforms for "pre-canned ideas." However, he says, we will eventually get candidates whose entire lives--childhoods and all--are laid out before us on social networks and blogs, and that this will help us see our candidates as fallible humans.

Also in this interview: how to make money from blogs (hint: Google), ICanHasCheezburger, how big the blogosphere can get and what could stop it, the potential integration of Twitter-like services into WordPress, and why Silverlight is a "dinosaur."

Mullenweg is a great interview. He's outspoken, articulate, and has a great perch to see this medium emerge. Part 2 of the interview will run shortly.