Hi!

WordPress 6.2.1 is set to be released today and there have been a lot of acquisitions lately. Two travel grants are also open to those who wish to attend WordCamp US on Aug 24-26, 2023.

You can also subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Until next week,

Bye!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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📰 WordPress & Around

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

The next generation of WordCamps

The WordPress community team has outlined a new approach and goals for the next generation of WordCamps. Feedback on the proposed route is also sought to know how the community feels about the new development.

• WordPress 6.2.1 RC1 is now available: The latest RC build includes 19 fixes on the Core and 10 fixes for the Block Editor. The final version of WordPress 6.2.1 is expected to be released on May 16, 2023.
• FSE program front page fun summary: Automattic sponsored contributor Anne McCarthy has provided an update on the Front Page Fun call for testing for the FSE outreach program. The encountered bugs and feature requests have also been disclosed.
• Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship for WordCamp US 2023: The WordPress Foundation is once again offering the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship for travel to WordCamp US 2023. The scholarship is awarded to someone who identifies as a woman, is a WordPress contributor, has never attended a WordCamp US before, and requires financial aid to attend.
• Design Share: Apr 24–May 5: The design team has shared an update on a few projects they have worked on over the past couple of weeks.
• Introducing PaLM 2: Google I/O 2023 has introduced PaLM2, the next-generation language model. The new model includes improved multilinguality, reason and coding capabilities.
• Supercharging search with generative AI: The latest update to Search brings generative AI which will result in users having access to more information and context.
• What’s ahead for Bard: More global, more visual, more integrated: Google has officially ended the waitlist for accessing Bard. It is now available in over 180 countries and territories and comes with improved image capabilities, coding features, and app integrations.
• Web browsing and Plugins are now rolling out in beta: ChatGPT plus users have early access to experimental features which include web browsing and a new plugin feature.
• The European network usage fees proposal is about much more than a fight between big tech and big European telcos: The European Commission is considering new rules for how networks connect to each other on the Internet. It’s considering proposals that – no hyperbole – will slow the Internet for consumers and are dangerous for the Internet.

🚨WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

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

Critical privilege escalation in Essential Addons for Elementor plugin affecting 1+ Million sites:

An unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability that allows any unauthenticated user to escalate their privilege to that of any user on the WordPress site was recently patched. All users are advised to update to version 5.7.2.

• Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (May 1, 2023 to May 7, 2023): 58 vulnerabilities were disclosed in 43 WordPress Plugins and 3 WordPress themes.
• WordPress Vulnerability Report – May 10, 2023: Weekly vulnerability report from ithemes.
• ACF plugin’s reflected XSS vulnerability attracts exploit attempts within 24 hours of public announcement: Even though the vulnerability was fixed with an update, attackers began attempting to exploit it within 24 hours of Patchstack’s publication. Akamai Security Intelligence Group (SIG) observed significant attack attempt activity, scanning for vulnerable sites using the sample code provided in the technical write-up.
• Xjquery wave of WordPress SocGholish injections: A new wave of SocGholish injections that used the intermediary xjquery[.]com domain was spotted by Sucuri researchers.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

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

Papanek theme

A minimalistic block theme with two style variations and 54 ready-to-use patterns.

• Furnitrix theme: An eCommerce theme with over 17 block patterns, 17 templates, and 11 template parts.
• Ooze theme: A magazine theme that is perfect for online publications of all kinds.
• Image altifier plugin: A plugin to add alt tags to images automatically.
• MIPL wc checkout fields plugin: The plugin allows the users to customize the WooCommerce checkout fields, and create group of custom fields for particular products or category.
• DoubleDome – resource link library plugin: The plugin allows users to create a categorized library of links for various uses such as how-to videos, SEO reports, admin documents, blog posts, etc.

INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

• Automatic.css acquires “Plaster” add-on: The Plaster plugin has been acquired by Automatic.css and its core functionality has been natively integrated into v2.5.
• Rymera acquires WC Vendors: The popular WooCommerce multivendor marketplace plugin has been acquired by Rymera Web Co, the portfolio company of Awesome Motive. As of now over 10,000+ marketplaces uses the WC Vendor plugin.
• Themeum acquires Kirki customizer framework plugin: Kirki, the popular WordPress customizer plugin that was up for grabs has been acquired by Themeum. The initial focus for Themeum will be on enhancing the plugin and the second stage will be about integrating it with their themes.
• WPCS secures investment from Emilia Capital: With the latest investment from Emilia Capital, WPCS is hoping to accelerate its growth and development by offering more and improving its services.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from WordPress Community

Introducing AI-Powered quiz generation from Sensei LMS

The new quiz generator in Sensei Pro leverages the use of AI and is powered by OpenAI. The feature will generate three MCQs based on the current content of the lesson.

• WooCommerce Blocks 10.2.0 released: The version comes with improvements made to the product block, new patterns, mini cart improvements, and various other enhancements.
• WooCommerce 7.7.0 released: The new release supports multichannel marketing, updated shopper notices, styling option for product blocks, a new product reviews block, and other improvements.
• Michelle Frechette on WordCamp Europe speaker diversity: Michelle Frechette draws attention to the lack of speaker diversity for WordCamp Europe and notes that only 25% of the speakers announced for #WCEU are women and only three appear to be non-white.
• Impress your clients with enhanced features to MainWP Pro reports extension: A new update for the Pro Reports extensions has introduced a host of new features. This includes added support for more data, a new default template, more styling options, added REST API support, and more.
• Meet Yoast’s new leader: Kimberley Cole: Kimberly Cole will be the new torchbearer at Yoast and has replaced Thijs de Valk. Previously she has worked with Reuters and Thomson Reuters in various roles, from product management to sales and marketing.
• Magic in minutes: how to build a ChatGPT plugin with Cloudflare Workers: Cloudflare has officially open-sourced their ChatGPT plugin quickstart repository for Cloudflare Workers, designed to help users build awesome and versatile plugins for ChatGPT with ease.
• Travel grants for WordCamp US 2023: MasterWP is providing travel grants for WordCamp US to selected speakers from underrepresented groups. The selected speakers will receive a grant of $1000. The main goal is to increase the diversity of the speakers at WordCamp US on Aug 24-26, 2023.
• Nozzle.io is now available with WordPress:  Nozzle.io has officially been relaunched with WordPress as confirmed by co-founder Tanner Linsley.
• GitHub dumps frustrating code search engine for Rust-powered Blackbird: GitHub has launched its all-new code search engine dubbed Blackbird. It has been three years in the making and is part of the corporation’s enduring effort to make text-based search techniques more effective on queries of computer code.

🔖INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

• For WordCamp, the challenge of diversifying tech takes center stage: From MasterWP
• Are we digging our own hole with generative AI?: From Yoast
• Happy Anniversary, WordPress!: From WP Briefing
• How WordPress stole our hearts: A love letter: From Yoast
• What is directory traversal?: From ithemes
• 9 Proven ways to drive traffic to your new WordPress site: From Kadence WP
• An SEO’s guide to understanding large language models (LLMs): From Search Engine Land
• Social media branding: How to elevate your strategy in 11 steps: From Jetpack
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework – All you need to know: From Astra Security
• How I started a WordPress meetup group knowing no one in town: From MasterWP
• Mark Westguard on launching a plugin into an already competitive market: From WP Tavern Jukebox
• 24 Social media tips for businesses looking to maximize ROI: From Jetpack
• How Google’s Hreflang x-default enhances website navigation: From Search Engine Journal
• Key malware statistics in this decade: 2020–2023: From Astra Security
• Diversity in conference speaker line-up: From Job Blog
• An SEO guide to nofollow, UGC, and sponsored links: From Search Engine Land
• AI tools are scraping your website. Is that a good thing?: From Speckyboy
• 20 Years of WordPress: The impact on freelancers: From WP Minute

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• WordPress A/B testing: How to run split tests in WordPress: From Torque
• How to display code in WordPress (and make It look pretty): From Kinsta
• Troubleshooting ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR: How to fix this pesky error in 6 Steps: From Sucuri
• Laravel API: create and test an API in Laravel: From Kinsta
• How to quickly change the date and time format in WordPress: From RankMath
• A complete guide to using WebPageTest (and interpreting the results): From Kinsta
• WordPress editor modes for streamlining content creation: From Learn WordPress

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• php[tek] 2023 on May 16-18, 2023: It is the longest-running web developer conference in the United States that focuses on the PHP programming language.
• WordCamp Lisboa on May 19 & 20: It is one of the largest WordPress conferences in Portugal.
• WordCamp Europe 2023 on June 8-10, 2023: Tickets are available now.
• Call for Mentors – WordCamp Europe 2023 on June 8-10, 2023: Call for speaker mentors is out.
• The WordPress Community Summit on August 22-23, 2023: In the early planning stages, the Community Summit is an “unconference,” without slides, selected speakers, or planned presentations. 
• WordCamp US 2023 on Aug 24-26, 2023: Call for sponsors is now open.

🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK

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

EXCLUSIVE DEALS

• 4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
• 15% off yearly plans at Videvo (Coupon Code – WPV15)

OTHER DEALS

• 33% off on Paid Memberships Pro plugin (Coupon Code – LOVE23)
• Up to 50% off on plugins & PHP scripts at CodeCanyon
• Up to 40% off on Astra theme
• Up to 40% off for CartFlows
• Up to 75% off on plugins, themes and hosting at WP Hive
• 50% off Web Hosting Packages at StableHost (Coupon Code – 50OFFYEAR1)
• 80% off for plugins at WPPool
• 40% off at OceanWP
• Up to 75% off hosting plans at HostPapa
• 50% off for Advanced Giftcards for WooCommerce plugin
• 33% off for Annual Hosting plans at Nexcess
• 83% off at AtlasVPN 
• 30% off for Fluent Forms plugin
• 50% off at Formidable Forms
• 20% off for FluentCRM plugin
• 50% off for WP Social Ninja plugin 
• 10% Store Wide Discount for PitchGround products (Coupon Code – PG-D7WCAD75F)
• 68% off WordPress Hosting plans at InMotion Hosting
• 73% off hosting plans at SiteGround
• 60% off at Hostgator India
• 75% off VPS Monthly Plans at Liquid Web
• 50% off on Managed Dedicated Server Hosting at Liquid Web

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