WordPress News Roundup August 2008: WordCamp San Francisco 2008 and the WordPress 2.6.1 Update

August 2008 belonged to the community. WordCamp San Francisco, the flagship WordPress event, took place on August 16, a day after the WordPress 2.6.1 maintenance release. The month also saw the new Theme Directory settling in, Olympic athletes using WordPress during the Beijing Games, and a growing recognition that spam defences built on CAPTCHAs were breaking down.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

No WordPress-related acquisitions or investments were announced in August.

WordPress Core Updates

• WordPress 2.6.1 betas: Testing builds of 2.6.1 circulated from August 8, giving users a chance to check fixes before release.
• WordPress 2.6.1 (August 15): A maintenance release that fixed bugs found after 2.6. The team said users who were happy with 2.6 did not need to upgrade.
• Next up, 2.7: Development attention began turning to WordPress 2.7 and another rethink of the admin, informed by the spring usability tests.

Other WordPress News

• WordCamp San Francisco 2008: The event was held on August 16, preceded by a dinner the night before. Matt Mullenweg collected coverage from attendees and shared photos afterward. Earlier in the month he previewed the event’s badges.
• Theme Directory interview: A month after launch, Mullenweg pointed to an interview about the Theme Directory and how themes were being reviewed.
• Olympians on WordPress: As the Beijing Olympics got under way, Mullenweg highlighted athletes who were blogging on WordPress.
• SXSW 2009: Panel voting opened for the next South by Southwest, and Mullenweg encouraged readers to take part.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

There were no WordPress security releases this month. The bigger warning was about spam. In “Captcha is Broken” on August 28, Mullenweg argued that the distorted-text challenges many sites relied on were no longer stopping spammers. For WordPress, it reinforced the case for content-based filtering such as Akismet over puzzles that burdened real visitors.

Industry Trends and Insights

WordCamp San Francisco’s growth from a one-day event in 2006 to a fixture of the calendar mirrored the spread of WordCamps worldwide, with events being planned in Asia, Europe and North America for the autumn. Premium themes were also gaining attention: ProBlogger interviewed Chris Pearson about his newly released Thesis theme early in the month.

Theme of the Month: Thesis

Released in July, Chris Pearson’s Thesis brought an options panel, typography controls and search-friendly markup to a premium theme. It became one of the best-known commercial WordPress themes of the period and helped prove there was a market for paid themes with ongoing support.

Plugin of the Month: Akismet

With CAPTCHAs under fire, Akismet’s approach of judging comments by their content rather than asking visitors to prove they were human looked increasingly sensible. It was still bundled with every WordPress download.

Founder of the Month: Chris Pearson

The designer behind earlier free themes such as Cutline, Pearson launched Thesis through his company DIYthemes and quickly became one of the most prominent figures in the premium theme market.

Looking Ahead to September 2008

September was set to be packed with WordCamps, including events in China and a busy weekend in North America and the UK. Work on WordPress 2.7 was expected to become more visible as the team sought community input on the new admin layout.