WordPress News Roundup October 2014: State of the Word Says WordPress Powers 23% of the Web

October 2014 was WordCamp San Francisco month. In what Matt Mullenweg called the last WordCamp San Francisco in its current form, his State of the Word reported that WordPress now ran 23% of the web and that, for the first time, non-English downloads of WordPress had overtaken English ones. He also announced that WCSF would be succeeded by a new flagship, WordCamp US, in 2015.

Development of WordPress 4.1 picked up speed with Twenty Fifteen in trunk, and the agency world saw another acquisition.

Outside WordPress, a severe vulnerability in Drupal served as a warning about how quickly attackers move once a CMS flaw is public, a lesson WordPress site owners would be reminded of again in December.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

• WebDevStudios acquires Maintainn: On October 7 WebDevStudios announced it had bought Maintainn, the WordPress maintenance and support company founded in 2012 by former WebDevStudios employee Shayne Sanderson. Maintainn gave the agency a dedicated support and retainer arm.
• iThemes Training: iThemes renamed its WebDesign.com training service as iThemes Training.

WordPress Core Updates

• Twenty Fifteen in trunk: On October 15 Twenty Fifteen was officially added to the development version of WordPress, ready for 4.1.
• 4.1 features take shape: Work focused on a redesigned distraction-free writing mode, inline image editing tools, query improvements for meta, date, comment and taxonomy queries, and a cleaner way for themes to handle title tags.
• Customizer API: Core developers posted plans for a more complete JavaScript API for the Customizer, including contextual panels.
• Contributor tools: The State of the Word highlighted new tools for contributors, and a troubleshooting handbook for new support forum volunteers went live.

Other WordPress News

• WordCamp San Francisco and State of the Word: WordPress.org promoted a livestream of the event, whose speakers included Andrew Nacin, Helen Hou-Sandí, Mark Jaquith, Jenny Lawson and Jeff Veen. In his State of the Word to roughly 1,000 attendees, Matt focused on internationalisation, mobile and contributor tools, and confirmed WordCamp US for 2015 as the event outgrew the Mission Bay conference centre.
• Rate and Review a Plugin Day: The first Rate and Review a WordPress Plugin Day took place on October 17 to encourage feedback for plugin authors.
• Jetpack 3.2: Released at the end of October, Jetpack 3.2 introduced a Site Logo feature for theme developers.
• JSTOR Daily: JSTOR launched its online magazine, JSTOR Daily, on WordPress.
• New events: LoopConf was announced as a conference for WordPress developers, and the first PodsCamp was held.
• Stream becomes a service: The Stream activity-logging plugin moved to a hosted service model.
• Theme Review growth: The Theme Review Team gained 27 new reviewers from WordCamp Europe’s contributor day.
• Matt and Om Malik: Video of Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A with Om Malik at WordCamp Europe was published online.
• AppPresser Reactor: AppPresser introduced Reactor, a WordPress-powered mobile app builder that used the JSON REST API.
• BuddyPress and Composer: BuddyPress said version 2.2 would add support for the Composer dependency manager.
• Conference season: Several WordPress conferences ran on the same weekend in early October, including the Prestige Conference for WordPress businesses, and WordCamp Ann Arbor drew positive reviews.
• Unsplash in the media library: A new plugin brought one-click uploads of Unsplash’s free stock photos into the media library.
• HostingReviews.io: A new site launched offering web hosting reviews without affiliate links, a response to the affiliate-driven review culture around WordPress hosting.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

• WP eCommerce: A security vulnerability was discovered and patched in WP eCommerce at the end of the month.
• Slider Revolution aftermath: Many themes bundling Slider Revolution still had not shipped fixed versions, leaving sites exposed.

Industry Trends and Insights

• Drupageddon: On October 15 Drupal disclosed a highly critical SQL injection flaw in Drupal 7 core. Attacks began within hours, and Drupal later advised that unpatched sites should be assumed compromised, a sobering reminder for every CMS community.
• A global WordPress: Non-English downloads overtaking English confirmed that WordPress’s growth was coming from outside the English-speaking world, making translation and language packs a strategic priority.
• Regional flagships: Moving from WordCamp San Francisco to WordCamp US, after two successful WordCamp Europes, pointed to a future of large continental events.

Plugin of the Month: Stream

Stream gave administrators a detailed log of who changed what in their WordPress sites. Its move from a standalone plugin to a connected service reflected a broader trend of plugins becoming front ends for hosted products.

Founder of the Month: Brad Williams

Brad Williams co-founded WebDevStudios, one of the best-known WordPress agencies. Buying Maintainn this month gave the company a recurring-revenue support business and showed agencies building beyond project work.

Looking Ahead to November 2014

WordPress 4.1 Beta 1 is expected in November with Twenty Fifteen and the new distraction-free writing mode. WooConf, the first conference dedicated to WooCommerce, takes place in San Francisco in early November, and more companies are expected to respond to Five for the Future.