Hello!

WordPress 6.5 beta 3 has been released and we can expect the RC1 later today. Automattic is facing scrutiny over its decision to sell Tumblr and WordPress.com users’ content to Midjourney and OpenAI.

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!

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📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress 6.5 Beta 3

The latest beta is now available for download and testing. We can expect the RC1 later today.

• Help test WordPress 6.5 beta 3: Since beta 3 is now available, a few of the key features that need to be tested are highlighted to ensure that all issues are identified and cleared before the final release.
• Automattic faces scrutiny over AI access policy: After unconfirmed reports of Google entering into a content licensing agreement with Reddit for training its AI, 404 Media claimed that Automattic is set to sell Tumblr and WordPress.com users’ content to Midjourney and OpenAI.
• WordCamp Asia 2024: Q&A with Matt Mullenweg: WordCamp Asia 2024 will feature a closing Q&A experience with WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. If you want to participate, please submit your question via Slido from March 7 until about 10:00 a.m. UTC on Friday, March 8.
• Interactivity API in 6.5: This dev note covers the APIs included in 6.5 and how to use the Interactivity API.
• Unification of the site and post editors in 6.5: In WordPress 6.5, the site editor has been refactored to match the post editor UI and behavior closely.
• What’s new in Gutenberg 17.8: The latest version introduces a new layout option for the group block, bulk export selected patterns, and more.
• Performance improvements for registering block variations with callbacks: The upcoming change in WordPress 6.5 introduces a $variation_callback as a new attribute in WP_Block_Type. This feature allows developers to register variation-building functions as callbacks rather than building variations before registration.
• Updates to the HTML API in 6.5: WordPress 6.5 brings significant updates to the HTML API. Notably, the Tag Processor received a major overhaul allowing it to scan every token in an HTML document and unlocking a broad array of new functionality.
• Block metadata viewScriptModule field in 6.5: From WordPress 6.5, the Block API will recognize the viewScriptModule field in block.json metadata.
• Connect with the GitHub outreach group to request feedback or further testing: Birgit Pauli-Haack expands on an idea that came up during the Hallway Hangout: What’s next to the outreach program, to create a GitHub group called “outreach” that can be pinged when a PR, a discussion, or an issue needs some further input from the outreach group.
• I18N improvements in 6.5 (Performant Translations): An in-depth explanation of the various internationalization (i18n) improvements coming in WordPress 6.5.
• Translation events prototype: To tackle the challenges when it comes to conducting a WP Translation Day, a prototype has been created that will be first tested out on translate.wordpress.org at the polyglots table of the WordCamp Asia 2024 Contributor Day.
• The block bindings API brings dynamic data to blocks: Brian Coords explains the upcoming block bindings API in WordPress 6.5.
• Welcome to a more powerful WP-Admin experience: WordPress.com users on the Creator and Entrepreneur plans will receive a new dashboard experience, with the classic WordPress dashboard replacing the existing “Calypso” interface.
• WordPress, Wix & Squarespace show best CWV rate of improvement: A comparison of January 2024 core web vitals scores of the top content management systems (CMS) shows that all platforms are improving, with Squarespace, WordPress and Wix showing the strongest year over year rate of growth in improvement when compared to the previous year.
• Google addresses third-party cookie deprecation concerns: ‘It’s time to move’: Google advised advertisers to take urgent action by investing in AI as it addressed potential third-party cookie deprecation delays.
• Google faces $2.27 billion lawsuit by publishers over advertising practices: A group of 32 publishers in Europe filed the lawsuit, alleging Google’s advertising practices have caused them financial losses.

🚨 WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

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

XSS vulnerability in LiteSpeed Cache plugin affecting 4+ million sites

The vulnerability was recently patched and all users are to update to the latest version immediately.

• Phobos ransomware aggressively targeting U.S. critical infrastructure: U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies have warned of Phobos ransomware attacks targeting government and critical infrastructure entities, outlining the various tactics and techniques the threat actors have adopted to deploy the file-encrypting malware.
• Avada WordPress theme patches arbitrary file upload vulnerability: The vulnerability that makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to upload arbitrary files on the affected site’s server which may make remote code execution possible was recently patched.
• Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (February 19, 2024 to February 25, 2024): There were 78 vulnerabilities disclosed in 53 plugins and 1 theme.
• WordPress vulnerability & patch roundup February 2024: Monthly report from Sucuri.
• WordPress vulnerability report — February 28, 2024: Weekly report from SolidWP.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

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

Rambha theme

 A versatile business corporate theme.

• FSE SEM Agency theme: A theme suitable for search engine marketing (SEM) agencies.
• Rockbase theme: A theme for digital creators.
• Figura theme: A multipurpose theme.
• Pop and Convert plugin: A pop-up and notification WordPress plugin for bloggers, marketers, and business owners.
• Order Splitter for WooCommerce plugin: The plugin allows users to split an order into multiple orders within the WooCommerce admin panel. This is particularly useful for managing large orders that need to be divided for processing.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

• WordPress VIP and rtCamp partner to help businesses adapt to new web privacy standards: The collaboration is a proactive step to help more businesses understand and align with the Privacy Sandbox initiative, which promises to embed privacy into the fabric of the web.
• Kestrel acquires several plugins: Kestrel has acquired Lightspeed POS and several plugins from KoiLab and Barn2 Plugins.
• Yoast announces partnership with KrishaWeb: Krishaweb is a web and digital agency with over 14 years of experience in various fields and has delivered over 1950+ projects.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Cwicly announced the discontinuation of development

Cwicly a popular design & block toolkit has alerted the community that it has ceased further development. Several community members voiced their thoughts on X about the turn of events that led to this decision.

• A 2024 update about walk to WordCamp Europe: Marcel Bootsman has decided to donate the remaining €5673,52 to the PHP_CodeSniffer project as DonateWC is no longer active.
• A decade of MainWP: Celebrating version 5 and our 10-year journey: A look back at the 10-year journey of MainWP and the exciting launch of MainWP Version 5.
• New milestone achieved by Presto Player: Adam Preiser has announced via X that his Presto Player, a video-focused WordPress plugin is now used by over 100k websites.
• 20,000 active installs for Advanced Coupons: Josh Kohlbach via X has shared the recent milestone achieved by Advanced Coupons of achieving 20k active installs.
• Gravity SMTP RC 4 released: Gravity SMTP makes it easy to connect your WordPress website to email service providers (ESPs) like SendGrid, Postmark, Mailgun, and Brevo. With RC4 users can now integrate their site with Google Workspace.
• Introducing MarkDowners: Gobinda Tarafdar announced his new project MarkDowners, a full-fledge markdown editor that can convert Google Doc content as markdown text with one click.
• Vikas Singhal is selling a WordPress theme portfolio: Vikas Singhal via X announced his plan to sell a WordPress theme portfolio, consisting of three premium themes, and a page builder.
• Brent MacKinnon shared an update for all Woo developers: Brent MacKinnon the developer experience lead at Woo, via X provided a quick update on the recent developments at Woo.
• Launching Tyche Softwares’ custom plugin development & website migration services: The service is set to launch by the middle of 2024 and those who are interested can join the priority list to secure exclusive access to heavily discounted introductory pricing during the launch.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

• My condolences, you’re now running a billion-dollar business: From WordPress.com
• You don’t need to know code to build a successful WP plugin business: From WP Tavern
• Cleaning up WordPress option clutter: From Joost de Valk
• Where I’m at on the whole CSS-tricks thing: From Chris Coyier
• Plugins: Not your circus, not your gold mine: From Half-Elf on Tech
• Search engine optimization techniques in 2024: From WPBakery
• You won’t believe WordPress can do this: From Jamie Marsland
• Thoughts on the WordPress Interactivity API: From Mark Howells-Mead
• Remote code execution: A guide for WordPress users: From SolidWP
• The birth and death of a framework: From Stitcher
• Thomas J. Raef on the shift in how hackers attack, and how to protect your site: From WP Tavern Jukebox
• WordCamp Asia’s ambition to go beyond regular WordCamps: Q&A with organizer Jon Ang: From The Repository
• Ten questions for Matt Mullenweg Re: data ownership and AI: From Morten Rand-Hendriksen
• WCAG 2.2 explained & how to test for it: From Equalize Digital
• Marc Benzakein: WordPress comeback journey: From The WP Minute
• Understanding XML-RPC in WordPress: From Patchstack
• Perfect prompts: 10 tips for AI-driven SEO content creation: From Yoast
• Architecting a WordPress plugin to support extensions: From Kinsta
• Advancing AI responsibly: From Microsoft
• How to clean a hacked WordPress site & fortify its security: From Jetpack
• How one Google featured snippet is killing commercial list-based content: From Search Engine Land

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• An introduction to block-based mega menus: From WordPress Developer Blog
• How to use WordPress as a headless CMS for Next.js: From Kinsta
• How to create & manage block patterns in WordPress: From Speckyboy

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• WordCamp Asia on March 7-9, 2024: The schedule has been published.
• WPEngine Decode 2024: The registrations are now open and the event will take place on March 19 in the U.S. and March 21 in EMEA.
• WordCamp Europe on 13-15 June 2024: The call for speakers, volunteers and sponsors is live. The call for photographers is now open.
• WordCamp Canada on July 11-13, 2024: The call for speakers, volunteers, and sponsors is now open.

🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK

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

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• 53% off for NordLocker
• 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
• Up to 77% off hosting plans at HostPapa
• 50% off for Advanced Giftcards for WooCommerce plugin
• Upto 55% off hosting plans at Nexcess
• 86% off at AtlasVPN
• 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 75% off WordPress Hosting plans at InMotion Hosting
• 83% off hosting plans at SiteGround
• 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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