Sucuri launched a new free performance tool today. The Global Website Performance Tester allows anyone to enter a URL and get a quick assessment of how fast the website is loading from 13 globally distributed testing stations. Results include three key metrics: connection time, time to first byte (TTFB) and total load time. At the…
Kyle Newsome, creator of Postcard, announced over the weekend that the project will be discontinued. The free social sharing app for iOS launched in February of 2014 with the aim to make it easy to share content from your phone to multiple social networks, including your own website. Postcard’s chief selling point was the idea…
In light of Automattic’s recent acquisition of WooCommerce (and all of WooThemes), estimated to be in the range of $30M, WordPress business owners have been infused with a fresh perspective of the value and potential in creating strong GPL-licensed products. Automattic’s acquisition of Woo, colloquially referred to as the “WooMattic” deal, is the company’s first…
Last April, Christopher Sanford launched Hookr, a WordPress hook/API reference for developers. He initially wrote the parser/indexer for his own use, to improve efficiency in his work, and was inspired to make it a public resource. “I have been professionally working with WordPress since 2.8, but most of which I would describe as ‘superficial development,’”…
Happy Joe, a 501 c3 non-profit organization that helps U.S. veterans with entrepreneurship and employment opportunities using WordPress, has announced a new round of sponsorships and dates to upcoming boot camps. When I talked to James Dalman, founder of Happy Joe in late 2014, he emphasized how important financial assistance is to the organization, “We…
One trend at recent WordCamps is that any session on the WP REST API will undoubtedly pack the room with attendees eager to learn more about using it. This was certainly the case at WordCamp London 2015 where more than 200 people crammed into a small room to hear Jack Lenox’s presentation on Building Themes…
The WordPress community is filled with resources to learn about WordPress but finding them can be difficult. WordPress is developed around the clock and locating material that keeps pace can also be a challenge. Lynda.com is an online learning center devoted to teaching topics such as, business, technology, design, and photography. For more than five…
WordPress.org is making strides towards fully localizing the project’s official theme and plugin directories. Dion Hulse posted this morning that he has enabled localized theme directories for all Rosetta sites. For example, the Romanian themes directory is available at: ro.wordpress.org/themes/. Theme filters, directory sub-navigation, info and download buttons, and other aspects of the details page…
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg announced today that the company has acquired WooCommerce, WordPress’ most popular e-commerce platform. The plugin recently passed seven million downloads and stats from BuiltWith show that WooCommerce is dominating global e-commerce platforms, powering roughly 30% of all online stores. This is Automattic’s largest acquisition to date, bringing 55 new employees into…
Last August, the WordPress Cape Town meetup group experimented with hosting its first charity hackathon to benefit local charities. The do_action( ‘wordpress-charity-hackathon’ ); event was so successful in 2014 that organizers were inspired to make it an annual event. The 2015 hackathon is scheduled for June 20th from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. “With a…
Japanese WordPress users were some of the earliest to see the project’s potential and help bring the software to the non-English speaking world. At the end of 2003, just six months after Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little decided to fork b2, a Japanese version of WordPress was available. The version was originally called “WordPress ME”…
WordPress developer Nick Haskins is hoping to revolutionize the way users publish content with Lasso, his commercial front-end editing plugin. Lasso is sold through his storefront and is also in use on Story.am, the hosted platform for Aesop Story Engine. Haskins recently made accounts on Story.am available for free in hopes of garnering more feedback…
SiteGround is organizing the first ever Bulgaria PHP conference to be held in Sofia, September 25-27, 2015. The company is headquartered in Sofia and its Head of Development, Mihail Irintchev, has been working hard to develop the local PHP community with the eventual goal of hosting a global PHP event. Irintchev was one of the…
LoopConf, a new WordPress conference created for developers, was held in Las Vegas last week with a world-class lineup of speakers. The event was such a success that the organization team is already planning for 2016. #loopconf 2016?! We’ve committed to year 2 and are already making plans! Get on the super early interest list…
WP Engine is currently beta testing WP-CLI support with approximately 200 select partners. Those who serve clients that host with the company are eager to see it rolled out to more customers, as WP-CLI has become an indispensable part of many WordPress developers’ workflow. WP-CLI on @wpengine! From the entire WordPress Community, THANK YOU!!!!! —…