WordPress News Roundup May 2012: WordPress 3.4 Reaches Release Candidate as the Plugin Directory Gets a Refresh

May 2012 was the month WordPress 3.4 crossed into its final stretch. A fourth beta on May 3 was followed by the first release candidate on May 27, the same day WordPress turned nine. In between, WordPress.org gave its plugin directory a major update, adding plugin-specific support forums, favourites and author tools to a directory that by then held more than 19,000 plugins.

The project also looked further ahead. It announced the first WordPress Community Summit, an invitation-only gathering of contributors planned for October, and Matt Mullenweg set out his hope for a radically simpler WordPress by the project’s tenth anniversary in 2013.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

No acquisitions or funding rounds were announced in the WordPress ecosystem in May 2012.

WordPress Core Updates

• WordPress 3.4 Beta 4 (May 3): Beta 4 was described as having fewer bugs and more polish than earlier builds.
• WordPress 3.4 RC1 (May 27): The first release candidate arrived with a clear message to anyone who had not yet tested 3.4: now was the time.
• A simpler WordPress: In a May 23 essay, Mullenweg said WordPress was on its third or fourth pivot and that he wanted a radically simpler publishing experience by its tenth anniversary in 2013.
• New contributors: Mullenweg also welcomed Helen Hou-Sandi of the agency 10up as a core contributor and encouraged other WordPress businesses to give time back to the project.

Other WordPress News

• Plugin directory refreshed (May 19): The update gave each plugin a support tab showing its forum threads and how many had been resolved, made authors more prominent, let authors post sticky notices and gave every committer moderation rights. Users could now favourite plugins and subscribe to commit alerts for any plugin.
• Security scanning: The same update expanded proactive scanning of the whole plugin repository to help authors find security and other problems.
• Community Summit (May 15): The project announced an invitation-only Community Summit for a long weekend at the end of October on Tybee Island, Georgia. Contributor teams would elect representatives, and a one-week survey invited nominations of people and businesses.
• Nine years old: WordPress turned nine on May 27, counting from its first release in May 2003.
• Mobile notifications: WordPress.com launched push notifications for comments in its iPhone and iPad app on May 29.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

May brought no core security release. The most important security change was on WordPress.org itself, where the plugin team expanded its automated scanning of every plugin in the directory to spot vulnerabilities and other issues earlier. With 19,000 plugins and many authors working alone, central scanning gave users an extra layer of protection.

Industry Trends and Insights

The plugin directory update showed WordPress.org treating plugin support as part of the user experience. Linking forum threads to each plugin and showing resolution rates helped users judge which plugins were well maintained, an early step towards the quality signals the directory would add over the following years.

• WordPress and Tumblr: In a PandoMonthly interview in New York, Mullenweg described WordPress and Tumblr as complementary rather than direct rivals.
• Publishing skills: New York Times media columnist David Carr, in advice Mullenweg shared, said WordPress should be second nature to anyone working in modern media, a measure of how central the platform had become.
• Simplicity as strategy: Mullenweg’s push for a simpler WordPress reflected competition from easier tools for casual writers, even as WordPress grew more powerful as a CMS.

Theme of the Month: Headway

Headway, a premium theme built around a drag-and-drop visual editor, appealed to site owners who wanted to design layouts without code. With WordPress 3.4 about to add its own live customizer, Headway showed how far commercial themes had already gone in giving users visual control.

Plugin of the Month: Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads, from Pippin Williamson, reached version 1.0 in April after ten beta releases. Focused only on selling digital products such as e-books, music and software, it offered a lighter alternative to general-purpose store plugins and quickly won a following among creators.

Host of the Month: Bluehost

Bluehost remained one of the most common entry points into self-hosted WordPress in 2012. With one-click installs and low starting prices, it was where many new users began when they outgrew a free blog.

Founder of the Month: Pippin Williamson

Pippin Williamson, a young independent plugin developer, launched Easy Digital Downloads in the spring of 2012. More than 200 people had tested its betas, and it would grow into a sizeable business and one of the best-known commercial plugin projects of the decade.

Looking Ahead to June 2012

With RC1 out, WordPress 3.4 was expected to ship in June. Invitations for the Community Summit were due to go out the same month, and WordCamp San Francisco on August 4 was on the horizon.