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This week in WordPress
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Silver lining
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"📣 We're back! We are excited to announce WordCamp Europe 2020 Online - a virtual event taking place on 4-6 June 🎉 Add the dates back into your diaries and stay tuned for more details coming soon 📅." And with that tweet, the WordCamp Europe organising team announced this week that WordCamp Europe is moving online!
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More details are still to come, and to clarify: "This new version of #WCEU 2020 does not change our plans for 2021: we're looking to see you in Porto 🇵🇹 on 3-5 June next year!" tweets WordCamp Europe.
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This good news comes after the 2020 event in Portugal was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. As Justin writes, "The silver lining in this news is that everyone can attend WordCamp EU at no cost, albeit virtually rather than in person."
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Keep calm and carry on
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Other business owners who share insights into how they've changed how they work, as well as their hopes for this year, include Incsub CEO James Farmer, who says WPMU DEV is providing not just WordPress support to its members, "but also emotional support on a personal level. Many live chat sessions have gone down over the last 30 days with members who often just want to talk about what's going on in the world. We're fine with that. In fact we'd encourage it."
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Tom Zsomborgi encourages companies to follow Kinsta's lead and get employees to "Meet and Have a Coffee with your Team member ☕" via Slack or Zoom to help maintain social ties. "You have a go-as-you-please 15-20 minutes conversation on anything, work or not work-related, hobbies, tips, books, movies whatever," he shares.
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Barbara Saul from WP&UP reveals the mental health initiative has experienced a "significant rise" in support requests in the past couple of weeks, with peer support also growing within the community.
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Meanwhile, Yoast CEO Marieke van de Rakt, who has been vlogging since she started working from how (with her four children!) says the SEO company has experienced a drop in sales. "However, we're still profitable. When we started Yoast in 2009, the economic situation wasn’t that good either. We've managed to grow — even in times of recession. And, I’m positive that we'll keep on growing, perhaps not as fast as we would have if this pandemic did not happen," she adds.
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The new normal
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GoDaddy-owned ManageWP is also doing its part. In Supporting Our Customers During Coronavirus Outbreak general manager Marko Tanaskovic announces all premium add-ons for the platform will be free for March and April. "We understand that cash flow is a pressing issue for many of you right now. As you stay on top of things, we want to ease the pressure in your day and help you deliver for your clients," writes Marko.
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The move has proved popular with users. "…I’m a freelancer and I live on a touristic little place, 7 km from Montalcino (Brunello wine) in Italy and you know… Last few days of February I lost 100% of my new just made clients and after that in only the 3 first days of March I lost 8 of 10 of my established clients, not very lost I hope, just stopped for now…" comments SEOwi alias Sergio. "Now, your decision is the best thing I read on the internet space in the last 60 days. Thank you so much…"
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More than a single person
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"This is an announcement I never thought I'd make. As much as it saddens me, I have decided to sell the Kirki #WordPress plugin. If you're interested PM me. If you're not, then please RT," tweets Ari Stathopoulos, the developer behind the Kirki Customizer Framework. He adds: "With 500.000+ installations and included in hundreds of themes I no longer have the ability - as an individual developer - to maintain it."
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"If it's strictly a time vs money thing, how about making it a paid library, or get sponsors via Patreon?" asks BizBudding lead developer and product manager Mike Hemberger. But Ari says, "It's not just time vs $... I've been accepting donations on the repo for months via GitHub sponsors. I was always passionate with kirki and I want to believe it has helped a lot of people. But it needs more than a single person... It deserves more than I'm willing to give."
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Ionut Neagu, who heads up VertiStudio, was quick to reply. Will Kirki join the same family as ThemeIsle, CodeInWP and Revive Social? Time will tell.
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Showcase your best work
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There's no slowing down Elementor. The page builder has launched Elementor Experts, a new discovery network for web creators, designed to help connect designers, marketers, and developers. On Twitter: "🎉 Introducing Elementor Experts 🎉 Experts will help you showcase your best work, get hired or hire professional designers, marketers, and developers, all in one place. Create your own profile now! 💻"
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Evangelist and head of content Ben Pines said the launch date was brought forward following the COVID-19 outbreak. "With freelancers and SMBs particularly vulnerable, we decided to launch the Experts network ahead of schedule. We’ve been working on Experts for over a year, and the release of the product was initially scheduled for Elementor’s 4th Birthday in June. Following the outbreak, our team buckled down to reach the newly set deadline," Ben writes.
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Hacks and attacks
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"SEO spam is the most common type of malware. Last year, 62% of the sites we cleaned were infected with it," tweets Sucuri, along with the hashtags #websitesecurity, #infosec and #washyourhands.
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"A lot of people are suddenly working remotely. We're fully remote, so I wanted to go beyond working-from-home tips and share some of our processes," tweets Alex Denning from Ellipsis Marketing.
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"Great writeup. I love working through remote-work challenges. Recently installed 'Krisp' to block out any background noises when I am on Zoom calls. Baby crying? Can't hear that! Oh, and Apple Park looks insane :-)" tweets digital marketing strategist Wiehan Britz.
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In other news...
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- – Lazy-loading of images has been committed to WordPress core. WordPress lead developer Andrew Ozz notes that based on "preliminary testing there seem to be no conflicts with most plugins that implement lazy-loading for images."
- – Denis Žoljom, the automation representative for the WordPress theme review team, has proposed moving much of the theme review system over to GitHub. Justin Tadlock has the details in Proposal to Move WordPress Theme Review Process to GitHub at WP Tavern.
- – As part of the WordPress Core Privacy team’s roadmap, work has started on a Consent API as a feature plugin. As Justin Tadlock writes in Proposal to Add a Consent API to WordPress, Feature Plugin Available at WP Tavern, if merged, the plugins would establish a standard method for core, plugins, and themes to obtain consent for various privacy-related features
- – Automatic is Re-introducing Jetpack Search for WordPress Sites as a standlable service with all new pricing, as data wrangler Greg Ichneumon Brown explains. Justin Tadlock digs into the details in Jetpack Re-launches Search Feature as Standalone Service at WP Tavern.
- – WPMU DEV tweets: "Call us crazy, because we’re giving away $10K this April... ALL in the name of hosting." Find out more in Rick Crawshaw’s write-up WIN a Share Of $10K This #HostingMonth!
- – 10up president and founder Jake Goldman shares insights from his experience working at home and leading a remote agency with one of his clients, T-Mobile, in Pants or No Pants? That Is the Question!
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