#206-Joost De Valk Removed From WCAsia 2025 Speaker Lineup, WordPress.com Domain Given To Matt For Free

Issue #206 | February 11, 2025 | Reading time: 17 mins

Hello!

Today we cover Joost de Valk being removed from the WordCamp Asia 2025 speaker lineup, WordPress.com domain being given to Matt for free, Woo’s rebranding, and new projects.

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter, 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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🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN

WordPress leader Mullenweg silences Joost De Valk

Mullenweg bars Joost de Valk from speaking at WordCamp Asia, saying he feels Joost “stabbed” him when he was down. Joost de Valk was announced as a speaker where he was to speak on the topic, “Launching or Finding a WordPress Product in 2025”. Mullenweg also stated, “ I will not interact with him any further or participate with anything he’s involved with, he’s persona non grata.”

📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress.com domain was given to Matt Mullenweg by Ric Johnson

Ric Johnson stated that he transferred the WordPress.com domain for free to promote open-source. A user on X named “sneakytits85” brought everyone’s attention to Mullenweg v Ric Johnson was for TM infringement filed in 11/2025.

Roadmap to WordPress 6.8: Krupal Lakhia has published the roadmap for WordPress 6.8 set to be released on April 15th, 2025. The focus will be on design enhancements, bringing speculative loading to the core, and so on.
WordPress 6.7.2 RC2 is now available: This RC features fixes for 35 bugs throughout Core and the Block Editor. This also includes one fix for the Twenty Twenty-Five theme.
Introducing Core Team Reps for 2025: The new core team reps are Francesca Marano and Jb Audras with Benjamin Zekavica joining them in a mentorship role to start the year.
What’s new in Gutenberg 20.1 and 20.2: The recent Gutenberg releases introduced content preview for pages in DataViews, color pickers in Navigation, Social Icons and Post Featured Image, color options for headings added to content block, and many more enhancements and bug fixes.
Sé Reed accuses Matt Mullenweg of retaliation after WordPress.org ban: Reed claims Mullenweg’s “overt retaliation and defamation” continued after she first reported him to the WordPress Incident Response Team in September 2023.
For 20 years, WordPress existed without much drama—now it’s at the center of a big fight that won’t be over soon: Ernie Smith covered the WordPress project’s timeline from the start to recent drama and stated, “ For the first time in nearly 20 years, WordPress no longer feels like a sure bet if you need to get a website online.”
Woo revealed its new branding update: The rebrand introduced a new logo and a new refreshed website. Along with this rebrand, the product strategy is also changing as said by Woo Artistic Director Beau Lebens, “ Based on what we’ve heard from our customers and the community, we’ve shifted from building a collection of plugins and services toward creating a more comprehensive, integrated platform that will power the future of online selling.”
WooCommerce 9.6.1: Dot release: This release unveils elements of Woo’s new logo, color palette, and related brand updates.
Matt Mullenweg reflects on the early days of Gutenberg: Matt Mullenweg upon reading Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull of Pixar, was reminded of the early days of Gutenberg in WordPress, which faced strong resistance from the community to how ClassicPress emerged as a fork in opposition. Matt also responded to Kevin Geary’s inquiry about proof of Gutenberg’s widespread acceptance by sharing the statistics on the Gutenberg block editor.
Rare case of privilege escalation in ASE plugin affecting 100k+ sites: The vulnerability was recently patched and all users are to update to the latest version immediately.
Gravatar’s 2025 roadmap unveiled: The roadmap has stated that they will be rolling out a host of developer tools in which Mobile SDKs will receive a major upgrade, introducing an email verification service that works like CAPTCHA but for emails, and various other enhancements to user profiles.
Google Search testing ‘AI Mode’: Google is reportedly internally testing a new feature called ‘AI Mode’, which is a new way to ask open-ended and exploratory questions.
Google confirms review count issue – Working on fix: Google is currently working on restoring the review counts.
Google market share slips, AI referrals & regional search engines rise: Google is still the leading search engine, but new data shows the market is changing. A study of 13,700 websites by SE Ranking found that Google generated an average of 94.8% of organic traffic last year. At the same time, ChatGPT and Perplexity are showing up more in referral traffic reports, which means they’re gaining traction.
Google Ads update: Misleading landing pages now demoted: Google’s new ads rules demote confusing landing pages and reward those aligned with user intent.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

WPGivesAHand 2024 recap

In 2024, 10 companies participated and donated $6,985 to 8 charities – SOS Children’s Villages Latvia, UNICEF, World Bicycle Relief, Associazione Rinascendo, Sonrisas Canarias, Monte Adentro, ENPA Mira, and Hope Community Village. This year’s participants were Visual Composer, WPBakery, Indystack, Amelia, wpDataTables, Trafft, Bookster by YayCommerce, Dynamic.ooo, YITH, and WP Job Openings.

How is SEO changing in the AI Era survey: The survey is co-organized by RankMath, Weglot, and WP Rocket and seeks to understand how AI is changing the SEO landscape.
WP Publisher Success Week: The second annual WP Publisher Success Week will occur from February 24-28, 2025. This will be an online event.
WordCamp Asia 2025, venue PICC, has a strict dress code: In the traveler’s guide that was published, the team has highlighted that Philippine International Convention Center, the venue where WordCamp Asia 2025 is being hosted has a strict dress code, “ Appropriate attire is required for entry to PICC. Guests wearing shorts, undershirts (sando),or slippers/flip flops will not be allowed to enter. PICC reserves the right to refuse entry of any person who is not appropriately attired.” Also, this year’s WordCamp will introduce the all-new Solutions Spotlight session, which will delivered by the various sponsors.
Jamie Marsland looking for participants for an upcoming speed build series: A new Speed Build series is in the works for Cursor WordPress fans, and the goal of the challenge is to recreate a popular plugin in one hour using AI.
Does WordPress need a radical rethink in 2025?: Jamie Marsland compares the site editing experience with classic themes and block themes and notes how new users can find classic themes easier to start with than Block themes and FSE. He also proposed a way to bridge the gap between classic and block themes by sharing a prototype he created. Brian Coords and Jonathan Jernigan have posted their own response videos respectively.
WordPress.org plugin pages no more considering the Author and Author URI fields mentioned in a plugin’s main file: Satinder Singh noted this recent change and now the plugin page only shows the primary owner’s name with a link to their WordPress.org profile.
Contact Form 7’s future plan for captchas: Contact Form 7 will update its reCAPTCHA integration in version 6.1 (expected in the first half of this year), requiring users to migrate their reCAPTCHA keys to Google Cloud before upgrading. This is a direct result of Google transitioning all reCAPTCHA users to reCAPTCHA Enterprise on Google Cloud by the end of 2025. The team is also planning to introduce the integration module for Cloudflare Turnstile, an alternative CAPTCHA solution, to Contact Form 7 6.1.
WPML 4.7 released: The latest release introduces a new dashboard, enhancements for advanced translation editor, a new automatic glossary retranslation feature and so on.
Document Library Pro plugin has reached a lifetime revenue of $1 million: Katie Keith on X shared about this milestone and this is their second plugin to reach this milestone.
Tutor LMS achieved a major milestone: Tutor LMS has recently surpassed 100K+ active installations.
Patchstack crossed the 10,000 virtual patches milestone: Oliver Sild on X announced this achievement as Patchstack crossed the 10,000 virtual patches milestone for WordPress vulnerability-specific security rules.
Ollie Quick Start wizard v2 in the making: Mike McAlister has announced that the next iteration of quick start wizard will be arriving soon.
Brian Coords stepping into a new role: Brian Coords is joining WooCommerce as a Developer Advocate.

🚀 NEW PROJECTS

Introducing Digg This: A social sharing plugin for WordPress®: Robert DeVore has launched Digg This, a lightweight, customizable, and modern social media sharing plugin for WordPress®.
SureMails has been launched: SureMails, an SMTP and email logs plugin that was previewed earlier by Adam Preiser has been launched and is now available to everyone.
Gato Multilingual for Polylang: Leonardo Losoviz has released Gat Multilingual for Polylang which allows users to automatically translate their WordPress site content using multiple translation APIs.
Announcing Simply Static Studio: Simply Static Studio is an all-inclusive platform for creating, deploying, and managing static websites with WordPress. It includes everything in Simply Static Pro, hosting along with magic link login, team management, easy migration, and priority support. Early access is now open and users can sign up and join the waitlist.
Introducing deep-research: David Zhang has introduced deep-research, his own open-source implementation of OpenAI’s new Deep Research agent.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

WordPress Co-Founder: Lessons from controversy, navigating backlash, & future of open source AI: Logan Bartlett and Matt Mullenweg recently discussed managing through crisis, open source and AI, employee liquidity, the future of WordPress, and more. From The Logan Bartlett Show.
EmpowerWP Bhopal 2025: Women, this is for you!: Astha Jain on EmpowerWP Bhopal 2025 an initiative to empower women to step into the digital world through workshops, discussions, and community contributions.
From spark to stage series: How Raquel launched PressConf: Raquel Karina recently shared the story and vision behind launching PressConf in a conversation with Matt Medeiros. From PressConf.
Post Status cache up with Tamara Niesen and Beau Lebens: In this podcast episode, host Michelle Frechette and guests Tamara Niesen and Beau Lebens discuss WooCommerce’s recent rebranding, emphasizing the distinction between “Woo” and “WooCommerce.” From Post Status.
Post Status cache up with Mary Hubbard: In this podcast episode, host Michelle Frechette interviews Mary Hubbard, the newly appointed Executive Director of WordPress. They discuss Mary’s professional journey, including her roles at Automattic and TikTok, and her recent move to the Pacific Northwest. From Post Status.
In conversation with Brian Gardner: Bud Kraus is joined by Brian Gardner, where they cover various aspects of his life and career such as his contributions to the WordPress community, the inception and growth of StudioPress the influential Genesis framework, and more. From, Seriously Bud?
Becoming the technologist, education entrepreneur mentor series: In this LMScast, Chris and Jason talk about how LMS technology has advanced and how LifterLMS revolutionized online learning by fusing course administration and content production in a seamless manner.
4 benefits of a hybrid headless CMS with WordPress: Simon Cooke explains the benefits of adopting a hybrid headless CMS with WordPress and why it’s a strategic choice for enterprise businesses looking to optimise performance, cost, and flexibility. From Human Made.
A retrospective on 4+ years of Faust.js: The road ahead involves building better documentation and code that’ll empower developers to learn headless WordPress and grow with them as their knowledge, experience, and needs evolve.
Francesco Carlucci talks about an SSRF (Server Side Request Forgery) vulnerability that he reported three months ago: The vulnerability he reported was dismissed as “a fix for this has been in the works for a few years, due to complexity and low severity.”
Invoker Commands in WordPress: Pascal Birchler explores the new Invoker Commands API and what it means for WordPress.
How to get the most out of cursor for WordPress code: Remkus de Vries discusses how to maximize the effectiveness of Cursor for WordPress development.
How a security audit can save your e-commerce store from disaster: Robert DeVore explains why a security audit is important and how skipping it can have dire consequences.
Getting ready for WordCamp Asia 2025 in Manila, Philippines: Birgit Pauli-Haack has put together a guide on what attendees can anticipate at WordCamp Asia 2025. From Gutenberg Times.
How WordPress block patterns improve your workflow: Eric Karkovack explores how WordPress block patterns can enhance your workflow. From The WP Minute.
The challenges WordPress professionals face in 2025: In this episode of the WP Minute+ podcast, Matt sits down with Victor Ramirez, an experienced technologist working at the intersection of WordPress and data analytics. The conversation explores the challenges WordPress professionals will encounter in 2025, from increasing competition in the CMS market to the impact of AI on development and marketing. From The WP Minute.
Brian Gardner’s open letter to folks on minimalism: Brian Gardner redefines minimalism as more than just an aesthetic or a rejection of material wealth. Instead, it is about clarity and intention—removing the unnecessary to make space for what truly matters.

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

How to use header tags for SEO and Accessibility: From WordPress.com
Advanced strategies for WooCommerce optimization and scaling: From Kinsta
Your comprehensive website migration checklist: From planning to launch: From InMotion Hosting
Using ARIA roles for accessibility in WordPress: From Delicious Brains

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

WordCamp Asia on February 20-22, 2025: Tickets are out now.
The Dutch PHP Conference 2025 on March 18-21, 2025: The tickets are now available.
EmpowerWP Bhopal on March 9, 2025: The event is in the early planning stages.
PressConf 2025 on April 23-26: A conference for WordPress Professionals and the tickets are now available.
WordCamp Lisboa 2025 on May 16-17, 2025: Tickets are now available.
WordCamp Europe on 5-7 June 2025: Tickets are expected to be available soon.

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