WordPress News Roundup March 2009: P2 Relaunches Prologue and WordPress Recruits for Summer of Code

March 2009 was about people rather than releases. With no new core version due, WordPress.org used the month to explain how the project worked and how others could join in, publishing the first entry in a “Contributing to WordPress” series and opening its Google Summer of Code 2009 program to students.

The most talked-about product news came from Automattic, which relaunched its Prologue group-blogging theme as P2 on March 11. Elsewhere, the community argued about whether WordPress should ship a default theme framework, and WordPress.com was named a finalist in the Webware 100 awards.

WordPress Core Updates

WordPress 2.7.1 remained the current release throughout March while work on 2.8 continued in Trac. The month’s core-related news was about process and participation.

• Contributing to WordPress, Part I: On March 12 WordPress.org published the first in a series based on a WordCamp Denver presentation, setting out plans to create more ways for people to contribute. It pointed to the 2.7 icon design contest as evidence that non-developers had valuable skills to offer.
• Google Summer of Code 2009: On March 23 the project announced its Summer of Code plans, inviting students to propose projects. Applications closed in early April.
• The theme framework debate: A proposed Summer of Code project around a theme framework sparked discussion, with theme developer Nathan Rice among those arguing against a framework in core.
• IRC governance: Matt Mullenweg polled regular visitors to the #wordpress IRC channel to help choose new channel operators.

Other WordPress News

• P2 replaces Prologue: Automattic launched P2 on WordPress.com on March 11 as the successor to Prologue. It added posting from the front page, threaded comments shown inline and in-place editing of posts and comments, with a self-hosted version following shortly afterwards. Matt Mullenweg would later describe how P2 changed the way Automattic itself communicated.
• Webware 100 finalist: WordPress.com reached the finals of CNET’s Webware 100 awards in the social networking and publishing category, and the community was encouraged to vote.
• ThemeLab returns: Leland Fiegel announced that the ThemeLab theme site would continue after a period away.
• New community sites: Stefan Vervoort launched WPToy, a WordPress news and resource site, part of a wave of independent WordPress blogs appearing in 2009.
• Developer tools: Sudar Muthu released an online generator for plugin readme files, and Vladimir Prelovac published ten plugin development tips on Mashable.
• WordPress and phpBB: Brad Williams sought beta testers for a plugin to link WordPress and phpBB accounts.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

March passed without a core security release, and WordPress 2.7.1 remained the recommended version. The quiet period was a useful window for site owners still running 2.6 or earlier to move to 2.7, whose built-in updater would make applying future fixes far simpler than the manual FTP upgrades many were still used to.

Industry Trends and Insights

March showed WordPress growing up as an open source project. Summer of Code participation, a structured approach to contribution and public debates about what belonged in core were all signs of a project that needed more hands and clearer rules.

• Beyond blogging: P2 demonstrated that WordPress could serve as internal communication software, not only as a public website.
• CMS comparisons go viral: A widely shared joke compared WordPress, Joomla and Drupal to Mac OS X, Windows and Linux, a sign of how often the three were now being weighed against each other.
• Support as a business model: Theme sellers were openly debating how much support to give away and how much to charge for, a question that would define the premium theme market.

Theme of the Month: P2

P2 was the obvious pick. Launched on March 11, it turned a WordPress install into a real-time team discussion board with front-page posting and inline comment threads. It became Automattic’s main internal communication tool and inspired many companies to run their own status blogs on WordPress.

Plugin of the Month: Twitter Tools

Alex King’s Twitter Tools connected a WordPress blog to Twitter, posting tweets about new articles and pulling tweets into the site. As Twitter’s popularity surged in early 2009, it was one of the most practical ways for bloggers to bridge their long-form writing with the new microblogging audience.

Host of the Month: Media Temple

Los Angeles-based Media Temple was a favourite with designers and agencies, and its Grid-Service shared hosting was a common home for WordPress client sites. As WordPress moved into professional design work, hosts with a reputation among creative agencies became an important part of the ecosystem.

Founder of the Month: Vladimir Prelovac

Vladimir Prelovac was one of the most prolific plugin authors of the period, and in March he shared ten plugin development tips on Mashable and appeared on WordPress Weekly. His focus on making WordPress easier to manage would later lead him to found ManageWP, an early multi-site management service.

Looking Ahead to April 2009

April was set to bring the Summer of Code application deadline and the selection of students. The core team was also preparing a push to clear the large number of open tickets for 2.8, and BuddyPress was approaching its 1.0 release.