10up launched ElasticPress.io this week, its new Elasticsearch SaaS product with plans starting at $299/month. Elasticsearch is an open source, distributed search engine that speeds up searching by using JSON documents to store data in indices. The indices store mapping fields to the corresponding documents and the engine searches the index instead of a site’s…
If you’ve been wearing out Unsplash images on your blog, it’s time to take another look at Creative Commons. The site has just launched the beta of its new multi-source search interface. Unlike the current search tool, which will only search one source by sending the visitor offsite, CC Search loads the results from multiple…
WordCamp Miami is sporting an 80’s theme this year for its 9th year running. The team of 12 organizers is expecting more than 800 attendees and will host 60+ local and global speakers, including new speakers from India, Australia, Poland, Canada, and other international locations. As in previous years, WordCamp Miami is a multi-day smorgasbord…
OSTraining has launched a free 40-video WordPress Beginner course on YouTube, thanks to a sponsorship from GoDaddy. The open source software education site has created more than 3,000 videos for PHP platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and Drupal. This particular course, which has all new information for WordPress 4.7, was inspired by the company’s success…
The WordPress mobile app for Android is shutting down its beta testing community that was hosted on Google+ for the past three years. The mobile team switched to a completely open beta last year, enabling them to recruit 1,500 new testers. The Google+ community, which currently has 1,152 members, has been the main channel for…
One of the main drawbacks of Google AMP has been brand confusion when viewing and sharing articles. Google launched the AMP project to speed up the mobile web, but in exchange publishers have had to give up control of how their AMP’d content appears. One of the most irksome aspects of interacting with AMP pages…
At the end of January, WordPress 4.7.2 was released to fix four security issues, three of which were disclosed at the time of the release. These included a SQL injection vulnerability in WP_Query, a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the posts list table, and the Press This feature allowing users without permission to assign taxonomy…
In October 2016 Mozilla Telemetry showed more than 50% of page loads were encrypted with HTTPS. This week Let’s Encrypt is reporting that more than 50% HTTPS page loads is now the norm, a major milestone for HTTPS adoption across the web. Per @Firefox Telemetry, more than 50% HTTPS page loads is now the norm!…
WP-CLI 1.1.0 is now available, two months after 1.0.0 was released. The project shifted after 1.0.0 to focus on its package ecosystem, encouraging new features to be built as standalone packages instead of rolling them all into WP-CLI core. Daniel Bachhuber, the project’s maintainer, moved WP-CLI in this new direction to better distribute the maintenance…
At the end of October 2016, Morten Rand-Hendriksen created a proposal on WordPress trac for adding telemetry to core, an opt-in feature that would collect anonymized data on how people are using the software. He proposed that the new feature be displayed on first install or update, disabled by default in the admin with a…
With one week remaining on its Kickstarter campaign, the Micro.blog indie microblogging project has surged past its original $10K funding goal with $66,710 pledged by 2,381 backers. This puts project creator Manton Reece closer to his stretch goal of $80K, which would enable him to develop a Safe Replies feature to preemptively combat abuse on…
WordCamp Europe 2017 opened its call for sponsors at the end of 2016. The organizing team is embracing the challenge of delivering value to sponsors with workshops for those purchasing the two highest sponsorship levels: This year, for the first time, we are introducing a third track during both conference days. The third track will…
In October 2016, Matt Mullenweg called out Wix for using GPL-licensed code from the WordPress mobile app and distributing it in its proprietary app. After identifying a path for Wix to comply with the license, Mullenweg confirmed he would be willing to go to court to protect the GPL. Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami’s response to…
The Obama Foundation launched its new WordPress-powered website today. The future presidential center, which will be located in Chicago, will manage projects both in the city and other places around the world. “More than a library or a museum, it will be a living, working center for citizenship,” President Obama said. “That’s why we want…
Jetpack is starting 2017 with a major release that is heavy on enhancements and improvements. Version 4.5 includes more than a dozen new shortcodes and widgets, along with revamped support for VideoPress. One of the most intriguing new features announced in this release, however, is the integration with WordAds, WordPress.com’s advertising program. Jetpack users are…