Hello!

The WordPress 6.6 Release Squad has been declared and we hope the release will be the best ever. And in a thrilling development, WordCamp Europe has been granted a prestigious Patronage from the European Parliament. 

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.

See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress 6.6 release squad ready

Matt Mullenweg is the project’s Release Lead, with Meher Bala serving as the Release Coordinator and Jb Audras taking on the role of Core Tech Lead. Other members of the squad include Mary Baum (Marketing & Communications Lead), Anne McCarthy (Test Lead), Rich Tabor (Design Lead) and Adam Silverstein (Performance Lead). The Editor Tech Leads (Ella van Durpe, Vicente Canales) Core Triage Leads (Olga Gleckler, Nazmul Hasan Robin) Editor Triage Leads (Fabian Kägy, Damon Cook) Documentation Leads (JuanMa Garrido, Jenny Dupuy, Josep Morán) make the rest of the team.

• Bug Scrub schedule for WordPress 6.6: You can contribute by creating patches, making code review and testing. You can start your own triage sessions too. Currently Alpha Scrubs are scheduled for May 20, 21, 28, 30 and June 04.
• WooCommerce 8.9 has been released: You can now add Custom Product Fields to products via the New Product Editor. This feature allows you to manage custom fields via a new section located at the bottom of the Organization tab. In WooCommerce 9.0, scheduled for release on June 11th, the main HTML tag will be changed from <div> to <main> in several block templates in an effort to improve accessibility.
• Call for testing the new coming soon mode in WooCommerce: The upcoming feature will allow new merchants to build their store in private, while growing their online presence with a coming soon page. It is coupled with a new “Launch Your Store” setup task that aims to give users more confidence taking their store live.
• Proposal: changes to the themes team: The proposal suggests renaming the Themes Review team’s Slack channel to #themes to reduce confusion and better reflect the team’s expanded role, continuing theme review meetings, and introducing a weekly bug scrub for default themes.
• Proposal to update WordPress Event Venue Policy: The new policy proposes to permit the use of venues owned by institutions with religious affiliations, provided these venues are not used for religious worship and maintain a policy of openness to hosting events for all, without discrimination. Share your thoughts by 3 June.
• Matt Mullenweg back after sabbatical: He was taking a three-month sabbatical.
• Google announces two new crawlers: Google revealed details of two new crawlers that are optimized for scraping image and video content for “research and development” purposes. Google also officially launched AI Overviews in the US. It will expand the launch to other countries by the end of this year. 
• Google hints at improving site rankings in next update: Google’s John Mueller says the Search team is “explicitly evaluating” how to reward sites that produce helpful, high-quality content when the next core update rolls out.
• Acquia Survey reveals brands are paying the price for digital accessibility deficiencies: This report contains some shocking stats. For starters, 89% of participants say they encounter accessibility issues that make it challenging to interact with websites or other digital experiences offered by brands. In addition, 62% say they would consider switching to a competitor with better accessibility features. 
• Python Software Foundation announces 5-year sponsorship commitment from Fastly: The sponsorship supports PSF’s activities and events, most notably the security and reliability of the Python Package Index (PyPI). Although Fastly has sponsored PSF for the past ten years, particularly by donating CDN resources that keep PyPI fast and reliable, this new five-year commitment ensures continued support and stability for the community.

🚨 WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

A collection of web security and vulnerability news and updates for the past week

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (May 6, 2024 to May 12, 2024)

Last week, 180 vulnerabilities were disclosed in 142 WordPress Plugins and 6 WordPress Themes.

• Arbitrary SQL Execution vulnerability patched in Visualizer WordPress plugin: This vulnerability allowed authenticated threat actors with subscriber-level permissions or higher to inject malicious SQL queries for deleting, modifying, or retrieving data. The vulnerability has been fully addressed in version 3.11.0 of the plugin.
• Critical vulnerabilities found in XStore Theme and Plugin: If you’re an XStore user, please update the theme to at least version 9.3.9 and the plugin to at least version 5.3.9.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

Be one of the first ones to explore some fresh plugins and themes

Kandinsky theme

Free Block Theme designed to help you create a personal website that looks like ‘bento.me’ using WordPress.

• Unique Blogger theme: A visually striking and highly functional WordPress theme designed to elevate the blogging experience.
• AgencyGrove theme: WordPress Full Site Editing theme designed for businesses, consulting firms, and SEO agencies seeking unparalleled online presence. 
• Simple Login Page Styler plugin: Personalize user login experience and enhance visual appeal of your WordPress login page.
• Product Tabs Manager plugin: Tailor your WooCommerce product tabs effortlessly.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

• Reddit partners with OpenAI to integrate content into ChatGPT: The partnership will grant OpenAI access to Reddit’s Data API, which provides real-time, structured content from the online forum. Ironically, while Google faces backlash for displaying too much Reddit content in its search results, this collaboration suggests that ChatGPT is going in the same direction.
• Permira is taking Squarespace private in a $6.9 billion deal: Website builder Squarespace is being taken private by U.K.-based private equity firm Permira in an all-cash deal that gives the company an enterprise valuation of $6.9 billion. Less than two weeks ago, Permira acquired a majority stake in BioCatch, a Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity firm.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

WordCamp Europe receives patronage from the European Parliament

Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, approved this patronage. The Patronage elevates WordCamp Europe’s stature and highlights WordPress’ pivotal role in driving innovation, empowering businesses and individuals, and fostering community engagement across the world.

• The Blueprint Gallery: A new community initiative that allows WordPress developers and extenders to share their setups as blueprints with others on GitHub. Blueprints are the configuration files for a Playground instance, written in JSON format. The Blueprints 101 page has the technical details. Contributors shared a few blueprint files and methods in an early version of the Blueprint Gallery.  
• WordPress.com introduced scheduled updates for plugins: you can set the exact time and day for updates to occur, ensuring they happen when it’s most convenient for you and your clients. This feature is free for users with Creator and Entrepreneur plans. 
• Ionut Neagu looking to acquire plugins with $60k-350k per year revenue: He has shared details of his ​fair deals and smooth transitions.
• Elementor 3.22 beta is out. It has a new Off-Canvas Widget and includes some drastic performance improvements. Memory usage will be reduced from 3MB to 8KB, and the Time To First Byte (TTFB) metric will improve by 33%- 70%.
• InstaWP v2.35.0 is out: It included improved 2-way sync, custom InstaWP Live Plans & more
• 28th Annual Webby Awards: The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. The Webbys now honors excellence in 9 major media types and you can read the winners here.
• Crocoblock turns 6: Congrats team! Lana Miro is also celebrating 6 years as a Partnerships Manager. To remember this experience, she has shared a free eBook, WordPress Partnerships: Basics.
• WP Builds “WordPress Turns 21” podcast special: WP Builds wants to capture some of your thoughts about what WordPress means to you / has enabled for you / your WordPress journey. Record and share your thoughts.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

More blog posts and podcasts from WordPress Community you don’t want to miss

• The biggest threat to the growth of WordPress: perceived security: From Post Status
• Open source is neither a community nor a democracy: From David Heinemeier Hansson
• Building the optimal WordPress development environment and hosting stack: From WPShout
• 4 Reasons to love the WordPress Gutenberg Block Editor: From WordPress VIP
• Gutenberg dialogues and monologues: From Brian Coords
• Was OpenAI GPT-4o hype a troll on Google?: From Search Engine Journal
• Diversity isn’t for the naked eye: From Underrepresented in tech
• Are Google’s new AI Overviews the future of search?: From Yoast SEO
• Turning a Adobe XD design into a WordPress block theme: From Jessica Lyschik
• Why start a WordPress Media Corps (and why now?): From WordPress.org
• Alexander Gilmanov on transitioning from developer to entrepreneur: From WPTavern

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• How to optimize a WordPress landing page for organic traffic: From Nav Themes
• PHPCS configured for WPCS on MacOS using PHP 8.3: From Jonathan Bossenger
• How to design a sign-up form in Elementor: From WP Manage Ninja
• Pushing a WordPress site through development using Kinsta API endpoints: From Kinsta
• Solving a Google Indexing Emergency: From SEOPress

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• WordCamp Europe on 13-15 June 2024: The organizers have arranged for a free workshop for children during Contributor Day
• Uganda Website Projects Competition 2024 on July 5th, 2024: Organized under the theme, “Problem Solving With WordPress”, it is a dynamic next-gen event that brings together high school and university students. The call for sponsors and projects is now live.
• WordCamp Canada on July 11-13, 2024: The call for volunteers, and sponsors is now open.
• Stellar Spark on July 19, 2024: A free online event with a focus on growth, creativity, collaboration, and more. The call for speakers is now open.
• WordCamp US on 17-20 September 2024: The tickets are now available. You can now apply for The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship.
• WordPress Accessibility Day on Oct 9-10, 2024: The call for speakers is now open.
• WordCamp Asia on February 2025: The event is in the early planning stages and the call for organizers is now open.

🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK

Just the best deals of the week, again, handpicked by yours truly!

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• 50% off for Advanced Giftcards for WooCommerce plugin
• Upto 55% off hosting plans at Nexcess
• 20% off for Fluent Forms plugin
• 50% off at Formidable Forms
• 20% off for FluentCRM plugin
• 50% off for WP Social Ninja plugin 
• Upto 95% off for PitchGround products 
• Upto 69% off WordPress Hosting plans at InMotion Hosting
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• 60% off at Hostgator India (Coupon Code- SUNSHINE)
• Up to 74% off at Liquid Web
• 52% off on Managed Dedicated Server Hosting at Liquid Web

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Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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