Issue #183 | August 13, 2024 | Reading time: 14 mins
Hello!
A proposal has been published to allocate funds to WordCamps for advertising and marketing initiatives. Community discussions are ongoing, and your feedback is valuable. Please share your thoughts before August 19, 2024. Also, the deadline for reactivating inactive meetup groups has been extended to September 16, 2024.
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
This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by Omnisend and WP Job Openings
📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND
All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies
The proposal seeks to update the current guidelines to allow a variable or fixed amount of money in the WordPress event budget to be used specifically for marketing and advertising. The proposal suggests a minimum of $50 and a maximum amount of $400 to be used for advertising. The feedback is open till Aug 19, 2024.
- Help Community Team reactivate inactive meetup groups by Sept 16: The WordPress Community Team is calling for help to reactivate inactive WordPress Meetup groups by September 16. Due to the summer holiday season, the deadline has been extended to allow more time for groups to express their interest in remaining active.
- Plugin review team stats: The stats provided by Francisco Torres reveal that there are 2737 plugins in the review queue, 577 plugins are either new or not processed or replied to yet.
- Introducing offline mode and PWA support for WordPress Playground: WordPress Playground now supports offline mode and can be installed as a Progressive Web App (PWA). These features allow you to explore and experiment with WordPress without needing an active internet connection, making it easier to develop and test your ideas on the go.
- WP-CLI v2.11.0 release notes: WP-CLI v2.11.0, is now available and it brings improved CSV handling, new signup management commands, better plugin management, and more.
- Design share #61 (Jul 15-Aug 9): The design team has shared an update on a few projects they have worked on over the past few weeks.
- Jetpack launches ‘Write Brief with AI’ for WordPress.com users: After the release of Jetpack AI Assistant last year, Jetpack has announced the launch of a new AI-powered writing tool “Write Brief with AI, designed to help WordPress.com users enhance their writing directly within the WordPress block editor. Currently available in beta, “Write Brief with AI” is free for all WordPress.com users who have Jetpack plugin version 13.7 or higher.
- Google declared a monopoly: industry reactions and implications: Digital marketers highlight uncertainties about long-term implications, potential market disruptions, and challenges in determining meaningful penalties.
- Google found in violation of antitrust law, judge rules: A federal judge found Google violated antitrust law in the search market. The ruling cites monopolistic practices, including paid default agreements.
- OpenAI scraps ChatGPT watermarking plans: OpenAI abandons ChatGPT watermarking plans, citing user resistance and technical challenges. The company is now exploring alternative methods.
🚨WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES
A collection of web security and vulnerability news and updates for the past week
There were 63 vulnerabilities disclosed in 56 plugins.
- 5,000 WordPress sites affected by unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in JS Help Desk WordPress plugin: An unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability that can be leveraged to execute code remotely was recently patched.
- WordPress vulnerability report — August 7, 2024: Weekly report from SolidWP.
🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES
Be one of the first ones to explore some fresh plugins and themes
- Eclipsion theme: A multipurpose WordPress theme.
- Fixmate theme: A blog theme designed for individuals focusing on users who are into a side hustle on home improvement and handyperson services.
- Simple Star Rating Block plugin: This allows you to display star ratings either by manually entering the value or pulling it from a custom field.
- Simple Honeypot for Contact Form 7 plugin: A simple honeypot implementation for Contact Form 7 to prevent spam with a time tracker feature and hidden honeypot field for enhanced security.
💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS
- Clay announces partnership with Automattic: The partnership will result in Clay making use of Gravatar to enhance their user profiles.
👥 COMMUNITY NEWS
Updates and News from the WordPress Community
Lainey Feingold, a disability rights lawyer, author, and international speaker with over 25 years of experience working in the digital accessibility space will deliver the keynote at WordPress Accessibility Day 2024. In her keynote, titled Accessibility is a Civil Right: The Digital Accessibility Legal Landscape for the WordPress Community, Lainey will discuss the current legal landscape of digital accessibility from a human rights perspective.
- The WPWatercooler Podcast has wrapped up its incredible journey: Sé Reed on X drew everyone’s attention to the end of the journey for the WPWatercooler Podcast after 12 long years and 485 episodes.
- Automattic is once again on the list of the top 100 biggest private cloud companies of 2024: Automattic is number 71 on the list of the top 100 biggest private cloud companies of 2024.
- Hostinger has reached yet another milestone: Hostinger now has 3 Million active clients, and 5 Million domains, and this milestone is just the beginning. They celebrated this achievement with live events and online lotteries.
- Introducing Yoast AI Optimize: The latest addition to the Yoast AI features is AI Optimize, which can be used to optimize the keyphrase in the introduction, its distribution, and density.
- Introducing WPML AI: This new offering from WPML makes use of Open AI’s API, combined with their proprietary technology to analyze your content to ensure accuracy and context. WPML AI currently supports translating content from English to German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian.
- Nyasha Green explains how she created a course on building a website: The building blocks that she used were LocalWP, a Figma file, WordPress Full Site Editing, Ollie Theme, Crosswinds Framework, and NinjaFroms. She highlights that with these, users can create a functional website in just 1 and a half hours.
- Table leads required for WordCamp US2024 Contributor Day: Courtney Robertson is looking for interested folks who can be table leads for Support, Polyglots, and Themes (Twenty Twenty-Five) for the upcoming Contributor Day at WordCamp US. Also, interested members can sign up for Contributor Day.
- Several plugins require an update to ensure compatibility with WordPress 6.6: Felix Arntz alerted the community that certain plugins that perform direct database queries related to autoloaded options will need code changes to be compatible with WordPress 6.6. He’s also provided a list of plugins that may need an update.
- Grab the limited-time offer from Day One App now: Day One, the personal journaling app from Automattic, is now offering 30% off! Use the code “SUMMERJOURNAL” before September 30, 2024, to avail this offering.
- Luis Miguel Climent receives the Yoast Care fund for his contribution to the WordPress community: Luis Miguel Climent, a member of the WordPress Community Team is the latest recipient of the Yoast Care fund.
- Node v22.6.0 released: This version introduces experimental TypeScript support via strip types, a new experimental network inspection support in Node.js, and more.
🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS
More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss
- The battle of the bots & bad actors: From Kitchen Sink WordPress
- WordPress governance with Marc Benzakein: From Stunning Digital Marketing
- Marketing a WordPress product live: From Post Status
- Protecting content creators from corporate overlords: From The WP Minute
- Abraham Waita on nurturing young WordPress enthusiasts in Uganda: From WP Tavern Jukebox
- Tools I install on every WordPress website as a web designer: From WPBakery
- What’s next for open source?: From Linux Foundation
- Beyond avatars: How Gravatar is transforming online identity: From WordPress.com
- Making the switch from Webflow to WordPress: From WebDevStudios
- The ramblin’ presser – WordPress patches: From Jeff Chandler
- Let’s talk WordCampUS 2024 with Julia, Aaron, Katie and Bernard: From Do the Woo
- The future of open source: From Scott Chacon
- Paving the way for massive scale: From Rocket.net
- A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs: From TechCrunch
- Google ruled a monopoly; search industry braces for change: From Yoast
- Minimizing DNS propagation issues with a reverse proxy: From Delicious Brains
- Survey: 92% of SEOs suspect their competitors buy links: From Search Engine Land
🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE
Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle
- How to build a responsive WordPress website: From Learn WordPress
- Using a CDN to enhance performance: From Learn WordPress
- Automated vs. manual accessibility testing, and what about AI?: From WordPress.tv
- How to change and customize permalinks in WordPress: From Melapress
- Edit your WordPress site’s header without plugins: From Kinsta
- How to create a password-protected page on WordPress: From WPMarmite
- How to customize a WordPress theme (4 ways): From WPBakery
📆 SAVE THE DATES
Do not miss a WordPress event ever again
- WordCamp Minneapolis/St.Paul on August 16, 2024: The call for sponsors is now open.
- BlackPress meetup, Making the most of WCUS 2024 on Aug 26, 2024: This a free online event that will focus on the actions one should take to prepare for WCUS, mindsets to keep in mind during the event, and recommendations for when it’s all said and done.
- WordCamp US on 17-20 September 2024: The tickets are now available.
- WordPress Agency Summit 2024 on September 27, 2024: The call for speakers is now open.
- WordCamp Nagpur on September 28, 2024: The call for sponsors is now open.
- WordPress Accessibility Day on Oct 9-10, 2024: The call for speakers and volunteers is now open.
- Rome Core Days on November 8-9, 2024: This will be a two-day event dedicated to WordPress Core developers with round tables, open discussions, and contribution rooms.
- WordCamp Romania on November 14-15, 2024: The event is in the early planning stages.
- WordCamp Malaysia on November 22-23, 2024: The event is in the early planning stages.
- WordCamp Netherlands on 29-30 November 2024: The call for speakers is now open.
- WordCamp Asia on February 20-22, 2025: The venue will be the Philippine International Convention Center, Manila, Philippines. The call for speakers is now open.
- WordCamp Europe on 5-7 June 2025: The call for organizers is now open.
- WordCamp US 2025 on August 26-29, 2025: The event is in the early planning stages.
🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK
Again, these are the best deals of the week, handpicked by yours!
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- 50% off Web Hosting Packages at StableHost (Coupon Code – 50OFFYEAR1)
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- 50% off for Advanced Giftcards for WooCommerce plugin
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- 20% off for Fluent Forms plugin
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- 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
Issue #183 | August 13, 2024 | Reading time: 14 mins
This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by Omnisend and WP Job Openings
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