Jetpack’s Contact Form module hasn’t seen too many changes since its first release (version 1.3) in 2012. It is easily one of the most compelling features included in the plugin and has long been overdue for a refresh. Today’s 5.2 release brings major improvements to the Contact Form module. Previously, (more…)
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I are joined by Cody Landefeld, Senior web strategist and founder of Mode Effect. Landefeld describes some of the challenges that shop owners face and provides insight into a couple of WooCommerce projects Mode Effect has recently built. We discussed the future of (more…)
Automattic has been teasing its plan to add commercial themes to Jetpack for several months after introducing theme installation for self-hosted users from WordPress.com. In March, the plugin opened up access to all of WordPress.com’s free themes via the Jetpack Manage interface. All signs pointed to Automattic developing the infrastructure (more…)
WordPress.com is venturing into the realm of social media management applications with its latest feature that allows users to schedule Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn updates for individual posts. This goes beyond the basic Publicize functionality that automatically shares posts to connected accounts as soon as they are published, giving users (more…)
Late last year, Jetpack 4.3 unveiled a new admin interface written in React.js. The Jetpack team received feedback from more than 8K users before it was publicly released. While the old interface displayed all modules on one page, the new interface breaks up module management into sections. You can also access (more…)
Jetpack 4.9 gives self-hosted WordPress users access to some of the widgets that are available on WordPress.com. One of the most useful ones for European websites is the new EU Cookie Law Banner widget. The WordPress plugin directory has dozens of plugins related to cookie consent, but Jetpack users can (more…)
“Alexa, tell Blog Helper to create a new post called ‘Granny’s banana bread recipe.’” Imagine logging a new draft on your WordPress site using only your voice while working in the kitchen. That’s what Blog Helper, an Alexa skill, enables for WordPress.com and self-hosted Jetpack users. It is available for (more…)
Jetpack 4.8 was released this week with a settings redesign that is a continuation of the React.js-powered admin interface introduced last September. The new settings screen has been completely rearranged under a more simplified menu. “We went through every setting on WordPress.com and Jetpack to make sure it was necessary (more…)
Automattic’s mobile engineers released a major update to WordPress for Android this week. Last year the app’s users saw a growing disparity between the features available to self-hosted sites and those available to WordPress.com users. Not having the WP REST API in core was holding the app back from providing (more…)
Today Jetpack announced that its users now have access to a collection of 165 free themes from WordPress.com. Jetpack users can browse, preview, and activate themes by visiting the WordPress.com Theme Showcase. WordPress.com has also added the ability for Jetpack users to upload a theme from its interface as well, (more…)
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 (more…)
W3Techs published its Web Technologies of 2016 report today, compiling technologies that saw the largest increase in usage last year. The survey pulls data from the top 10 million sites (according to Alexa rankings) and compares the number of sites for each technology by measuring the difference from January 1, (more…)