WordPress News Roundup June 2010: WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious” Merges MU, Adds Menus and Twenty Ten

June 2010 delivered the most important WordPress release since the project began. WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious,” named after jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, shipped on June 17 after about six months of work by 218 contributors. It merged WordPress MU into core, introduced custom menus and the Twenty Ten default theme, and gave developers proper tools for custom post types and taxonomies.

The release turned WordPress from a blogging platform with CMS ambitions into a genuine content management system. Around it, Automattic picked up the Plinky writing-prompt service, VaultPress sent out its first invitations, and the theme review team expanded its work on the WordPress.org directory.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

• Automattic acquires Plinky: Reported on June 25, Automattic bought Plinky from Thing Labs, the company behind the Brizzly social media client. Plinky sent users a daily writing prompt and let them publish answers to a WordPress.com blog. Thing Labs said the sale let it concentrate on Brizzly. Terms were not disclosed, and it was Automattic’s only acquisition of 2010.

WordPress Core Updates

• Release candidates: RC3 arrived on June 11 and was expected to be the final release candidate, with plugin developers once more asked to test.
• WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious”: Released on June 17, 3.0 was the thirteenth major release and included 1,217 bug fixes and enhancements.

The headline changes in 3.0 were:

• Multisite: WordPress MU’s features merged into core, so any install could be turned into a network of sites through a new Network setup screen and a Super Admin menu.
• Custom menus: A drag-and-drop menu manager combining pages, posts, categories and custom links, built on code from WooThemes.
• Twenty Ten: A new default theme replacing Kubrick, with support for custom headers and backgrounds.
• Custom post types and taxonomies: Admin interfaces and new APIs, including hierarchical taxonomies, that made it practical to model content beyond posts and pages.
• Installation and admin: Choosing an admin username and password during install instead of defaulting to “admin,” bulk theme updates, contextual help on every screen and a lighter admin colour scheme.

Other WordPress News

• Theme review expands: On June 9 WordPress.org announced it was expanding its theme review experiment, bringing more volunteers into checking themes submitted to the directory.
• Upgrade reports: In the days after 3.0, the support forums collected common upgrade problems, mostly plugin and theme conflicts, and the community shared fixes.
• VaultPress invites: At the end of June VaultPress began sending its first batch of beta invitations to users who had signed up after the March announcement.
• Summer of WordCamp: A June 29 post encouraged users to spend a summer weekend at a local WordCamp.
• Andrew Nacin interview: Core developer Andrew Nacin, one of the most active contributors to 3.0, talked about the release on WordPress Weekly.
• Front-end Editor 1.9: scribu released a version of his front-end editing plugin to coincide with 3.0.
• Mainstream coverage: Fast Company ran an article on why small businesses should use WordPress, a sign of the platform’s reach beyond the tech press.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

June had no core security release, but 3.0 carried meaningful hardening. Letting users choose their own administrator username at install removed a predictable target for brute-force attacks, security keys were now generated automatically during installation, and new constants allowed administrators to disable file editing and file modifications from the dashboard.

Industry Trends and Insights

WordPress 3.0 changed the competitive picture. With custom post types, menus and multisite in core, developers could now build directories, catalogues and networks of sites without heavy plugins, ground that had previously belonged to Drupal and Joomla. The announcement also noted more than 10.3 million downloads of 2.9, underlining the scale of the audience receiving these tools.

• WordPress MU retires: Networks such as university blog systems faced a migration path to standard WordPress, consolidating the community around one codebase.
• Theme quality: Expanding theme review reflected concern that a directory installable from every dashboard needed consistent standards.

Theme of the Month: Twenty Ten

Twenty Ten shipped as WordPress’s default theme on June 17, the first new default since Kubrick in 2005. Its customisable header images, background support and built-in menu location demonstrated 3.0’s features out of the box, and it began an annual tradition of default themes named for the year.

Plugin of the Month: Custom Post Type UI

WebDevStudios’ Custom Post Type UI let users register custom post types and taxonomies through an admin screen rather than code. The official 3.0 documentation pointed to it as a way to explore what the new content types made possible.

Host of the Month: Media Temple

Agencies building client sites on 3.0 needed hosting that could handle multisite networks and custom configurations. Media Temple, long popular with designers, was a common home for that kind of professional WordPress work.

Founder of the Month: Jason Cohen

Jason Cohen, previously the founder of SmartBear Software, launched WP Engine in Austin in 2010 to offer premium hosting built only for WordPress. With 3.0 making WordPress a serious option for businesses, his bet on a high-end managed platform was well timed, and WP Engine would grow into one of the largest companies in the ecosystem.

Looking Ahead to July 2010

July was expected to bring a 3.0.1 maintenance release to address issues reported after launch. Plugin and theme authors were also expected to ship updates for 3.0 compatibility as the summer WordCamp season got under way.