Issue #199 | December 10, 2024 | Reading time: 18 mins
Hello!
Today, we cover Automattic and WP Engine’s dueling proposals, Automattic’s acquisition of WPAI, and several new projects from the community.
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
🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN
Automattic and WP Engine submit new proposals
Automattic and WP Engine have submitted their dueling proposals as they have failed to come to terms mutually. The respective parties put forth proposals that each considers fair. Initially, WP Engine’s proposal was mistaken by many to be a granted injunction because of the way it was drafted. A careful look at the proposal reveals that it is a “Proposed Order” and not a granted one.
Samuel Sidler explored more into this dueling order as well as on Openverse.
📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND
All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies
The post is an open call inviting everyone who contributed to reflect and share their thoughts on the release process to learn, iterate, and improve for future releases.
- The WordPress Core team is gathering consensus around integrating the WP Consent API into Core: The WP Consent API feature plugin was originally introduced in early 2020 to standardize the communication of accepted consent categories between plugins. Automattician Brian Alexander has placed two options before the community: add this feature to Core or make it canonical. Most comments so far favor integrating the feature into Core.
- The WordPress Training Team proposes resegmenting the current Learning Pathways content into shorter courses: This is expected to improve the learner experience and increase course completions. The community can provide feedback on this proposal by 19 December 2024.
- What’s new in Gutenberg 19.8: This release introduces a font family preview in the dropdown, a Section styles selector in toolbar, and more.
- Hallway Hangout: Performance end of year review 2024: The upcoming hallway hangout will be hosted by Emily Clarke, Joe McGill, and Felix Arntz where they will review the work and impact of the performance team in 2024, and look ahead to performance improvements in WordPress for 2025. The session will happen on Tuesday, December 17, 2024.
- Plugin Review Team project updates: As per the project update, the Plugin Review Team processed 166 requests, approved 113 plugins, rejected 113 plugins, and closed 146 plugins as of 9 December 2024.
- Introducing WordPress.com’s new hardened DDoS protection setting: The new DDoS protection introduces a defensive mode. It works by issuing proof-of-work challenges to browsers visiting the site. Legitimate users will briefly see a challenge page while their browser completes the work before accessing the site. The feature is available to sites hosted on WordPress.com. Additionally, sites on Business or Commerce hosting plans have the option to manually manage this feature from the dashboard.
- WooCommerce 9.4.3 and WooCommerce 9.3.4 available now: WooCommerce 9.4.3 release brings security improvements affecting URL handling, event data validation, and guest checkout controls. WooCommerce 9.3.4 (backport) has also been released.
- Cost of Goods sold coming to WooCommerce Core: The Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) feature will allow users to calculate exact profit margins for every product and order, thereby removing the dependency on extensions. Also, Robert DeVore shared on X a list of plugins being shipped as part of the More in Core initiative. Paul Maiorana, the CEO of WooCommerce said that they will clarify things soon and nothing is finalized as of now or have approved this exact list.
- Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation vulnerability patched in Sweet Date theme: The vulnerability that could have allowed any unauthenticated user to increase their privileges and take over the WordPress site by performing a series of HTTP requests was recently patched.
- 6,000,000 WordPress sites protected against payment refund and subscription cancellation vulnerability in WPForms WordPress plugin: The WPForms plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data due to a missing capability check on the ‘wpforms_is_admin_page’ function in versions starting from 1.8.4 up to, and including, 1.9.2.1. Users are advised to update to the patched version 1.9.2.2 immediately.
- Malicious script injection on WordPress sites: The Sucuri team discovered a JavaScript-based malware affecting WordPress sites, primarily targeting those using the Hello Elementor theme. This type of malware is commonly embedded within legitimate-looking website files to load scripts from an external source. The malware injects a malicious external script into the theme’s header.php file, leading to harmful consequences for site owners and visitors.
- Accessibility Champ: Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, Duda, Or…?: The HTTP Archive published its report on the state of accessibility on the web, based on scores generated with the Lighthouse Accessibility Audit. Wix emerged as the winner with a score of 94%, followed by Squarespace (92%) and Google Sites (90%) while WordPress (85%) is at the 10th position.
- Scan of 140K sites reveals best WordPress plugins: An analysis of 140,000 sites hosted on managed WordPress host Kinsta revealed the WordPress plugins that users judge to be the best for SEO and performance. The most popular plugin installed is Yoast (57.95%), followed by the Redirection plugin (26.85%) and the third most popular plugin is WP Rocket (19.10%).
- Google CEO: Search will change profoundly in 2025: Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai struggles to articulate concern for web ecosystem. Says Search will change profoundly in 2025.
- OpenAI releases ChatGPT o1: The OpenAI o1 and o1-mini models are referred to as reasoning models, indicating their underlying purpose for advanced analysis and problem solving.
💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS
- WPAI has been acquired by Automattic: WPAI, the company behind products like CodeWP, AgentWP and WP.Chat has been acquired by Automattic. The team behind it—James LePage, Greg Hunt, and Ovidiu “Ovi” Iulian Galatan will be joining Automattic to lead the exploration of applied AI as an interaction paradigm for WordPress.
- Mediavine partners with BigScoots as exclusive preferred hosting provider: Mediavine a full-service ad management firm in the U.S has partnered up with with BigScoots a fully managed WordPress hosting provider. This collaboration will result in providing ustom hosting packages available exclusively to Mediavine publishers, catering to various experience levels and traffic volumes.
👥 COMMUNITY NEWS
Updates and News from the WordPress Community
Jessica Lyschik and Matt Mullenweg took part in the recent Speed Build Challenge hosted by Jamie Marsland. They recreated the homepage of BobDylanArt.com website in 30 minutes, with Jessica being declared the winner.
Jamie also tweeted that he is looking for 5 participants for a Christmas WordPress Speed Build special.
- WordCamp Asia 2025 Wapuu unveiled: Tahopuu Wapuu created by Andrew dela Serna, a graphic designer from the Philippines has been selected as the official Wapuu of WordCamp Asia 2025. Also, WordCamp Asia 2026 is looking for its next host city and the applications are now open with the deadline being on December 31, 2024.
- WordCamp Europe 2025 is looking for speakers and sponsors: WordCamp Europe 2025 will take place in the vibrant city of Basel, Switzerland, from 5 to 7 June 2025 and the call for speakers and sponsors is now open.
- Event recap: “Let’s Talk Themes with Ellen Bauer”: The recently concluded live community discussion revealed that WooCommerce is working on a new starter block theme to replace the decade-old Storefront. This theme will focus on real-world use cases, such as e-commerce patterns for industries like fashion and food, demonstrating the potential of block themes to inspire developers and merchants alike.
- Jonathan Williams shares his experience building two MVPs—one with WordPress and one with AI/Replit: Despite 15+ years of WordPress expertise, he found it harder and more time-consuming to make the frontend design consistent in WordPress than to complete one of the projects with AI tools.
- Katie Keith on one of their plugins reaching the half a million dollars revenue: The WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin released in 2016, which was their first ever plugin, has now reached a lifetime revenue of half a million dollars.
- Barn2 Plugins to venture into selling Shopify apps: Katie Keith has announced that in 2025 Barn2 Plugins will start to focus on the Shopify platform in addition to maintaining and focusing on their WordPress as well as WooCommerce offerings.
- Patchstack to focus on Drupal and Joomla: Oliver Sild highlighted on X that the Patchstack vulnerability database has now been expanded to focus on Drupal and Joomla as well. They will also soon cover Laravel as they are already in touch with the Laravel team.
- Uniting WordPress YouTubers: This edition of Uniting WordPress YouTubers hosted by Anne McCarthy focused on WordPress Playground from demonstrating its functionality to various use cases and areas that need improvement.
- AI myths busted: What Americans believe vs what’s true: Hostinger surveyed over 800 Americans to understand the current public perceptions, beliefs, and common misconceptions around AI in the United States. According to the survey, 15.79% don’t know anything about AI, while 50.08% are somewhat familiar. Only one-third of the respondents (34.13%) are highly familiar with AI technology.
- Weglot is donating 50% of its Black Friday and Cyber Monday revenue: This year Weglot will be donating €70,000 to charitable organizations. In 2023 they were able to donate €60,000.
🚀 NEW PROJECTS
- Robert DeVore released seven new plugins: Purchase Orders for WooCommerce® adds a purchase order payment gateway to your WooCommerce® store, allowing customers to provide a purchase order number during checkout, and the Test Orders for WooCommerce® plugin adds a “Test Order” payment gateway to your store, allowing you to place test orders without processing actual payments. While the Metadata Import/Export for Yoast SEO plugin allows Yoast SEO users to import and export the Yoast SEO metadata via CSV files. The Table Block Enhancer for WordPress® plugin adds filtering and sorting functionality to the default WordPress Table block and the Media File Versioning for WordPress® plugin allows users to track and manage versions of media files in the WordPress media library. The Maintenance Mode for WordPress® plugin enables a fully customizable maintenance mode with a dedicated landing page, whereas the Persistent Dismissible Notices plugin makes sure that admin notices once dismissed, stay dismissed across sessions for logged-in users.
- Blockera is now available: Blockera site builder is an advanced mode for WP Block Editor that fills the gaps with responsive controls, block states, advanced design options, and more.
- Git Updater Lite from Andy Fragen: A simple standalone library to enable automatic updates to your git-hosted WordPress plugins or themes.
- New cookie consent plugin from Pressidium: Pressidium Cookie Consent is now available and it’s free.
- New podcast series from Brian Coords: The new podcast series is called “Webmasters with Brian Coords”. The first episode with Fabian Kägy is now available where they discuss Fabian’s journey in the WordPress ecosystem, his role at 10up, and the evolution of the Gutenberg block editor.
- Greyd launches new vodcast: The all-new Greyd Conversations vodcast is now live and the first episode includes Felix Arntz and Jakob Trost, where they talk about how to interpret core web vital metrics and take a closer look at different tools to measure and improve performance.
🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS
More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss
- Gutenberg editor vs. Full Site Editing (FSE): what’s the difference?: Richard Goodwin explores the difference between Gutenberg and Full Site Editing (FSE) and also explains how Gutenberg focuses on content editing while FSE expands block-based design to your entire WordPress site. From OllieWP.
- How Wix, Canva, Shopify, and Webflow are growing in the education market: Jamie Marsland notes how Canva, Webflow, Shopify, and Wix are not only growing in the education market but are also strategically positioning themselves as gateways for future use and how WordPress appears to be lagging behind its competitors in actively targeting the education sector.
- Stephen Dumba on empowering Uganda with WordPress education and community initiatives: Stephen Dumba a high school teacher in Uganda since 2007 and also the National Coordinator of the ICT Teachers’ Association of Uganda discusses how WordPress is shaping communities and education in Uganda and the broader implications of ICT education in different regions. From WP Tavern.
- Talking demos, onboarding, pricing and social media with Katie Keith and Marcus Burnette: BobWP joins hosts Katie and Marcus to chat about their business highlights, challenges, and strategies from the past year and their plans for 2025. From Doo the Woo.
- Support over price? What matters most when choosing a hosting company: Marcus Burnette recently conducted a poll to better understand what truly matters to people when selecting a hosting company for their WordPress websites. The deciding factor for many as per the poll was Support followed by Specs, features, and Price. From Doo the Woo.
- I filed an ADA grievance against my city, best maid pickle sour: In this episode of the Accessibility Craft Podcast, they talk about Amber’s experience filing an ADA grievance against the City of Georgetown, TX, and what she learned going through that process. From Accessibility Craft Podcast.
- Researching website vulnerabilities – interview with bug bountie hunter Mat Rollings: Mat shares his journey from development to uncovering over 500 vulnerabilities this year, offers insights into the role of AI in security, and uses tools such as Semgrep and Psalm for open source analysis. From Osom to Know.
- Coding with AI for noobs: Matt Medeiros and Mark Szymanski discussed their perspectives on AI tools and how their view has shifted from skepticism to seeing AI as a powerful assistant in our work. From The WP Minute.
- In conversation with Aaron Campbell: Bud Kraus is joined by Aaron Campbell who currently serves as the Director of Product at A2 Hosting. They discussed Aaron’s journey as an outgoing introvert, his struggle with running a business while realizing his introverted nature, how running his own web development agency, gave him valuable insights into the needs of clients seeking to establish their online presence, and more. From, Seriously Bud?
🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE
Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle
- Bridging the gap: Hybrid themes: From WordPress Developer Blog
- Utilize the Gallery block: From WordPress.tv
- WordPress application passwords: Creating & troubleshooting: From Melapress
- 5 Ways to create a WordPress plugin settings page: From Delicious Brains
📆 SAVE THE DATES
Do not miss a WordPress event ever again
- WordCamp Netherlands on 29-30 November 2024: The schedule is out.
- The Power of Patterns webinar on December 9, 2024: The webinar will cover how patterns are redefining web design & dev workflows in WordPress and will be hosted by Vikas Singhal, Mike McAliste,r and Brian Gardner. The registrations are now open.
- WordCamp Ahmedabad on 3-4 January 2025: The schedule is now out.
- WordCamp Asia on February 20-22, 2025: Tickets are out now.
- PressConf 2025 on April 23-26: A conference for WordPress Professionals and the tickets are now available.
- WordCamp Europe on 5-7 June 2025: WordCamp Europe 2025 is looking for speakers and sponsors
🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK
Again, these are the best deals of the week, handpicked by yours!
EXCLUSIVE DEALS
- 4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
- 10% off on monthly & annual plans at SureTriggers (Coupon Code- WPCONTENT10)
- 15% off yearly plans at Videvo (Coupon Code – WPV15)
MORE DEALS
- 50% off for the first 6 months on all monthly standard plans at Kinsta
- 50% off 3 months on Liquid Web’s Bare Metal server hosting
- 40% off for Constellation plugin
This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by awesome WordPress Companies 🦸♂️🙌
Last but not least, updates from WP-CONTENT.CO 👇
In a significant development, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín indicated she might grant a preliminary injunction in the ongoing case…
If we had to summarize the WordCamp experience, it would be this: “One event, countless opportunities—a gathering designed…
How often you can communicate with your customers plays a vital role in your growth. Even then, one…
Black Friday is around the corner, and it’s the perfect time to score incredible deals on WordPress products!…
Team WP-CONTENT.CO
Issue #199 | December 10, 2024 | Reading time: 18 mins
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