It is interesting to note that WordPress brands like Patchstack and Barn2 plan to diversify beyond WordPress while keeping the existing focus on WordPress intact. WooCommerce core is getting new features and more features will join this flow.
✅ The WP Awards 2024. Don’t forget to… Submit your Vote and let your favorite WordPress things shine! This event is sponsored by: GoDaddy, 20i Hosting, Pressable, Crocoblock, WP Division, & Dynamic.ooo.
Rapyd Cloud is a high-performance managed WordPress hosting platform designed to power mission-critical sites and support from real humans.
SureTriggers is a powerful automation tool designed to help you save time, boost productivity, and increase revenue.
Platform InMotion with high performance servers for serious WordPress websites, comes with hassle free deployment tools and expert support.
20i® Next-Gen WordPress Hosting – Blazing-fast cloud platform with free Staging, Cloning, WordPress Manager, CDN & Edge Cache. No plug-ins required!
↑ Community Sponsors supporting this weekly
What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- New Podcasts… the Greyd team has launched a new Greyd Conversations podcast (video) show. The first episode is live and features Felix Arntz from Google talking about WordPress performance. Brian Coords has launched Webmasters .fm podcast with a focus on exploring WordPress via conversations with leading developers and creatives.
- WP + Expanding to… Oliver Sild from Patchstack teased about expanding to (Links X) Drupal, Joomla, and even Larvel for inclusion in their security and vulnerabilities checking service. Katie Keith from Barn2 Plugins is planning to diversify into (Links X) selling Shopify Apps as well as continuing to focus on existing WordPress and WooCommerce plugins.
- Free Domain & BlueSky Profile… Ronnie Burt shared (LinkedIn) about Gravatar’s partnership with Identity Digital Inc. and Nova Registry to offer free domain for one year. As explained here, you can use that domain name as your Bluesky username easily, for a consistent online presence.
- CMS Accessibility Scores… The HTTP Archive has published the state of accessibility on the web report, with Wix at the top with a 94% score. It is followed by Squarespace (92%), Google Sites (90%), and WordPress at the 10th spot with 85% score.
More is WooCommerce Core + Update
COGS Coming in Woo Core… the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) feature will be introduced in the WooCommerce core, possibly around Q1. This feature enables you to calculate profit margins for every product and order.
More Features for Woo Core… there is no public roadmap of features that will be added to the WooCommerce core. However, Robert DeVore shared (Links X) a few that might be included, like Product Addons, Product Bundles, Gift Cards, Min/Max Quantities, and Product Recommendations.
WooCommerce Update… 9.4.3v update for WooCommerce is now available that focuses on security improvements affecting URL handling, event data validation, and guest checkout controls.
New Updates: Boards, Loop, Social, & Error Notify
FluentBoards… the 1.35v update has added a View-only member role, which enables you to allow someone to only view your board. Also, now you can set default assignees for specific stages, which was done manually earlier.
Advanced Query Loop… Ryan Welcher has introduced (Links X) a new Taxonomy Query Builder with the 4.0.0v update of the Advanced Query Loop plugin. It allows easy to use finer control over taxonomy queries.
WP Social Ninja… 3.15.0v update has made review feeds completely GDPR compliant and added a reordering option in the chat widget. This update has also added a language-specific review collection option for Booking .com and Tripadvisor websites.
Fatal Error Notify Pro 1.13v has added an integration with EchoDash, a new event monitoring service for WordPress and other connected online business services.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- New Free Themes… Roman Fink has released (Links X) a new free Anastasi Theme in the WordPress org theme directory. Hans-Gerd Gerhards has released the Circles WP Theme, which features a white on black background color scheme with an orange circle.
- Re-architected Managed GoDaddy… GoDaddy’s managed hosting has been re-architected from the ground up to deliver the benefits of a VPS with easy-to-manage and optimized WordPress hosting.
- Hardened DDoS Protection… WordPress .com has introduced new hardened DDoS Protection with the defensive mode feature. This will be available for all WordPress .com website hosting plans. Business or Commerce hosting plan users can manually manage this feature depending on their requirements.
- Gutenberg Update… 19.8v update has added a section styles selector in the toolbar, success notices for image editing with an undo link, and the font family preview in the dropdown.
- WP Milestones… Katie Keith shared (Links X) about their WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin reaching the half-million dollar lifetime revenue milestone.
- State of the Word… the 2024 edition of State of the Word will be held on December 16, 2024, in Tokyo, Japan. WordPress project co-founder Matt Mullenweg will deliver the annual keynote address to the invited audience. The event will be live-streamed on the WordPress YouTube channel.
- WordCamp Asia 2025 Wapuu… out of ten submissions from designers representing India, Malaysia, Nepal, Lithuania, the Philippines, and Ukraine, Tahopuu has been selected as the official mascot for WordCamp Asia 2025. It has been designed by Andrew dela Serna from the Philippines.
New Free Plugins: Cookie, Analytics, Media, & Tables
New Cookie Consent Plugin… the team at Pressidium has released a free Pressidium Cookie Consent plugin. It promises to be a lightweight solution designed to help you meet regulations like the EU GDPR and CCPA.
Free WordPress Analytics… Robert DeVore has released a free analytics plugin called Stats for WordPress. It promises to be a simple yet powerful analytics plugin that tracks visits, page views, referrals, and more while keeping your data on your website server (database).
Media Copyright Scanner… another plugin released by Robert DeVore in the form of Media Copyright Scanner. This free tool allow website owners, content managers, and developers to identify potential copyrighted images being used on their WordPress websites.
Table Block Enhancer… one more plugin by Robert DeVore is Table Block Enhancer. This free plugin extends the default table block with more features like sorting, searching, and paging.
Quick Bits 👍
- Oooh Boi’s video for creating cool text fillers in Bricks builder.
- Check Video of “Building Your First WordPress Gutenberg Block”.
- Learn about reverse proxies for load balancing. caching, & more.
- Matt Mullenweg appeared (YouTube) in WordPress Speed Build.
- WordCamp Asia 2025 invited speakers, Christy Nyiri and Matias.
Business of WP: Investment, Acquisition, Partnership
BlackRock’s investment in Automattic… Ivan Mehta at Techcrunch reports that BlackRock has cut the worth of its stake investment in Automattic by 10%. They invested in Automattic during its Series E round in 2021, valued at $37.5 per share, down from $41.7 per share earlier this year.
Acquisition Train… the team at ClikIT has acquired Infinite Uploads and Big File Uploads plugins from UglyRobot LLC, which is owned by Aaron Edwards, the former CTO at WPMU DEV.
Hosting Partnership… Mediavine, an ad management firm in the USA, has announced a strategic partnership with BigScoots, a fully managed WordPress hosting provider. This will enable the offering of custom hosting packages available exclusively to Mediavine publishers.
Kinsta managed WordPress hosting with unparalleled speed, leveraging Google Cloud and the latest C3D servers, it ensures lightning-fast performance.
SleekPixel to create dynamic Open Graph images for WordPress with our intuitive drag-and-drop editor. Automatically update visuals as your content evolves.
Merchants love Omnisend. So will you – Omnisend is trusted by 125,000+ brands who love using it for email & SMS marketing. Sign up now
mySites .guru is the Ultimate Toolkit for managing multiple WordPress sites with the award winning Site Audit, Backup, Update, Secure, Monitor, & Alerting features.
↑ Community Sponsors supporting this weekly
