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Happy Friday! It's August 9 and we're covering WordCamp advertising, Woo Express' not-so-new rebrand, and much more.
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Psst: We want to know what you think. Take our annual survey for a chance to win one of two $150 Amazon gift cards. Last chance! Survey closes Sunday.
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Two big headlines
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1. WordCamps to get advertising funds under proposed changes
The current guidelines state that advertising is "very, very, *very* rarely" included in WordCamp budgets and that "Most WordCamps are highly successful without spending money" on things like advertising.
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Automattic-sponsored contributor Rocio Valdivia says the community team wants to welcome more first-time attendees to WordCamps. "We aim for over 50% of participants to be newcomers while celebrating returning attendees. To achieve this, event organizers should focus on attracting new participants through well-planned event design, messaging, and marketing strategies," Valdivia said.
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It's the first time in WordPress' 21-year history that changes to allow organizers to spend part of their budget on advertising is being considered, and comes after WordCamp Netherlands 2024 was recently rescheduled due to low attendee registration, prompting criticism of WordCamp marketing on social media.
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Posting on X/Twitter, SEO consultant Jono Alderson said, "Maybe WordCamp events would sell more tickets if they, say, ran some kind of SEO plugin or, say, did some marketing outside of their existing attendee bubble, or, say, had clear objectives and suitable resources, or, say, updated their guidelines to account for changing realities."
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2. Woo Express rebranded after Automattic reorg
Woo Express was recently shut down, and according to James Kemp, Product Lead for WooCommerce, it's been rebranded as the "Commerce" plan on WordPress.com.
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As Kemp explained on X/Twitter earlier this week, Woo Express was originally built by the WooCommerce team. When Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg's sabbaticcal earlier in the year prompted a card-based reorganization of the company, "it was clear that Woo Express was 'be the host' but everyone working on WooCommerce should have a 'help the host' card, i.e. we shouldn't be building tings that only benefit us," said Kemp. "As such, Woo Express was moved over to the hosting team at Automattic."
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Kemp said there were no plans to bring back Woo Express to WooCommerce.com. "Instead, we highlight all of our hosting partners equally (including wp.com)," he said.
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It’s not a new story – the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine shows the Woo Express landing page was last updated in May to show the news the service was no longer available.
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Woo Express was launched in June 2023, offering a new managed WooCommerce hosting product using WordPress.com's infrastructure, and relieving store owners of the responsibilities of hosting and maintenance. It was first announced at WooSesh in October 2022, just as GoDaddy had launched an open access preview of its managed WordPress Ecommerce Hosting, and after Bluehost had launched a managed WooCommerce offering a month prior.
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In other news
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WordPress project
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> The Plugin Review Team is continuing to whittle down its backlog, with 599 plugins currently awaiting review. As of August 5, the team is reviewing 2,737 plugins, working through 66 conversations per day, and their busiest day is Sunday, according to SiteGround-sponsored contributor Francisco Torres. The current wait for an initial review is at least 42 days (Team Updates)
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> The WordPress Events Venue Policy has been updated to more clearly state the types of venues organizers should avoid, including venues with political affiliations and spaces used for religious worship (such as a church, mosque, or synagogue). According to Automattic-sponsored contributor Julia Golomb, venues must also align with the WordPress Community Code of Conduct Pledge (Make WordPress Community)
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> Several new websites have been added to the WordPress.org Showcase in recent weeks, including Spotify Newsroom and Disney's General Entertainment Content press site (Showcase)
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> WP-CLI 2.11.0 was released yesterday. Maintainer Alain Schlesser says it's "a small release that fixes a lot of small and not so small bugs" and introduces improved CSV handing, new signup management commands, a new site generator command, Gitub release installation support, improved plugin management, the option to delete unknown image sizes, and a new user existence check command (WP-CLI)
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WordPress community
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> Marketer Marc Benzakein talks about potential conflicts of interest in WordPress's governance structure, particularly with the intertwining of for-profit and nonprofit entities, on the latest episode of the Stunning Digital Marketing podcast. He suggests separating co-founder Matt Mullenweg's interests might be necessary for the future sustainability of WordPress: "…I don't know how you govern until the person in charge, the person with all the power is willing to give some of that up and say, 'You know what, this is for the betterment of all of us that I give some of this up.'" The podcast follows Benzakein's recent talk at WordCamp Canada, "The Problem(s) with WordPress." (The SDM Show)
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> On a recent episode of Do the Woo, Robert Jacobi and Courtney Roberts discussed the difficulties contributors face, the need for organizations to support them financially, and the complexities of governance in open source projects (Do the Woo)
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> WP Tavern founder Jeff Chandler has highlighted the frustration felt by developers who contribute patches to WordPress, only to see them ignored for weeks or years or, worse, see a sponsored contributor create a similar patch that is greenlighted and committed (WP Mainline)
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> The Yoast team celebrated Amsterdam Pride last week on their very own YoastBoat (X/Twitter)
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> U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s new campaign website is powered by WordPress. The site was built by Studio Mosaic, a Black and women-owned digital agency (Kamala Harris)
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Business, enterprise & acquisitions
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> Kyle Van Deusen from The Admin Bar joined the WP Builds this week to unpack the results of his 2024 survey, which found 68% of businesses reported gross revenues under $100,000 in 2023, and only 10% of freelancers and agency owners are making $100,000 per year (WP Builds)
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> Corey Maass and Michelle Frechette are creating a plugin directory that will provide a community marketing resource for small plugin owners. In a discussion on the Post Status podcast, the pair say the project will emphasize collaboration over competition, explore the potential for cross-promotion among members, and potentially include a summer sale (Post Status)
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> The business directory on The WP World is now free (X/Twitter)
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Plugins, products & themes
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> Automattic has launched Write Brief with AI, an AI writing tool for WordPress.com that aims to make blogs more readable and succinct. It complements a generative AI writing assistant the company launched for WordPress.com last year (TechCrunch)
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> Gravatar is continuing to evolve its link in bio features with the latest version introducing the ability to easily exchange contact info on mobile, a simple contact form, and new developer tools, in addition to the product's website getting a fresh design (Gravatar)
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Conferences & events
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> Lainey Feingold, a disability rights lawyer, author, and international speaker, will deliver the keynote address for WordPress Accessibility Day. In 2000, Feingold helped to negotiate the first web accessibility agreement in the U.S. The 24-hour virtual event will be held on October 9-10, 2024 (WordPress Accessibility Day)
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> Dates for WordCamp US 2025 were released this week. The four-day conference will kick off on August 26 for its second year in Portland, Oregon (WordCamp US)
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> WordCamp US 2024 organizers have reopened their call for volunteers for this year's event, which will be held September 17-20 in Portland, Oregon. Applications close today. Organizers have also revealed the after party will be held at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (WordCamp US 2024) | Omnisend's Bernard Meyer hosted a special episode of Do the Woo covering everything folks need to know about WordCamp US 2024, including this year's Showcase Day (Do the Woo)
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> Nominations are now open for The WP Awards 2024. The annual awards celebrate the WordPress community's favorite products and services (The WP Weekly)
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Help diverse voices in WordPress be heard! Support Inclusion in Tech removes barriers for speakers at WordCamps. Donate and empower SiNC.
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Meanwhile...
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Listen
👩🏼🎨 Long-time contributor Abha Thakor on her love of cricket and being a renaissance woman (Seriously, Bud?)
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🧑💻 Content creator Doc Pop on open source technologies and the fediverse (The WP Minute+)
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🌍 Automattic's Abraham Waita his work introducing WordPress to Ugandan high schools (WP Tavern)
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🫧 Do the Woo's BobWP on why folks should step outside the WordPress bubble (Do the Woo)
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Watch
🪐 WordPress.com launched its Fediverse Files series with Doc Pop this week (WordPress.com)
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Play
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🚲 Jason Cosper, a WordPress product advocate at Dreamhost, has created a fun site celebrating U.S. Democratic Vice President pick Tim Walz's quirks (Tim Walz Fixed Your Bicycle)
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The Repository is a weekly email for the WordPress community by Rae Morey. Mike Johnston is our proofreader. Thanks to Kinsta, our hosting sponsor, and MailPoet, our email sponsor.
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Send your feedback to [email protected] and help us provide high-quality news written entirely by humans that matters to the WordPress community.
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