On August 26, Automattic launched a new theme titled Seedlet that focused on integrating with the WordPress block editor. A few days later, it was also live in the WordPress.org theme directory. The theme development team wanted to produce a theme that would be in a good position to transition to full-site editing later this…
Last week, Automattic’s marketing team made a positive step towards curbing the perennial branding confusion between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The company’s press page was updated with a notice to journalists who are writing about Automattic: Automattic owns and operates WordPress.com, which is a hosted version of the open source WordPress software with added features for security,…
Mike Stott, co-creator of Zero BS CRM, announced the launch of Jetpack CRM on Monday. The news was the seemingly inevitable rebranding of the original plugin that he and Woody Hayday had built. Automattic, the owner of the Jetpack plugin, acquired the project almost a year ago. While Jetpack CRM carries the “Jetpack” name, it…
On Tuesday, Automattic launched Jetpack Scan, an automated malware and vulnerability scanning service. It is a premium service offered to sites connected to a WordPress.com account and the third major add-on launched on top of the plugin in recent months. Jetpack Scan is available for $7 per month or $70 for an annual subscription. Both…
One of the repositories I have been keeping an eye on over the past few months is Block Experiments. It is a monorepo of blocks in various stages of development from Automattic. In total, five of the team’s block experiments are now available for download from the plugin directory. Three others seem to still be…
Nine months after the announcement of Newspack by WordPress.com, the Chilean news site El Soberano became the first publication to launch on the new platform. On October 16, the small news team relaunched with a fresh design powered by the Newspack theme and its newsroom-focused plugins. Newspack is a project of Automattic, the parent company…
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and various other products, announced earlier today that Mark Davies has joined the team as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO). This news comes fresh off the heels of Automattic’s acquisition of Tumblr in August and a $300 million Series D investment from Salesforce Ventures in September. The investment round…
In what began as a heated conversation on Twitter, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and Ruby on Rails creator and Basecamp co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson took to the airwaves to debate opposing viewpoints on market share, monopolies, and power in open source communities. Hansson reacted to a statement Mullenweg made in an interview after Salesforce Ventures…
Automattic announced another round of funding today, a $300 million Series D investment from Salesforce Ventures, giving the company a $3 billion valuation post-funding. The last time Automattic raised money was $160 million in a Series C round in 2014. Since that time the company has grown to more than 950 employees and made strategic…
Automattic has acquired Zero BS CRM, a free plugin with more than 30 commercial extensions that provide deeper integrations with third-party services. Zero BS was co-founded by a two-person team that includes Mike Stott and Woody Hayday. The team marketed the plugin as a “no-nonsense CRM” and have been operating it with a successful subscription-based…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I discuss Joost de Valk’s decision to step down as WordPress’ Marketing Lead. I shared my recent encounter with food poisoning and some of the lifestyle changes I’m making to improve my health. We also talk about a new experimental plugin by Automattic that aims to provide full…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I discuss Panethon’s acquisition of StagingPilot and why regression visual testing will likely become a standard feature across managed WordPress hosts if it’s not already. I rant about the size of text on so many sites being too large and having to shrink the site down to 80-90%…
Automattic has released Happy Schedule, the first in a new line of products called “Happy Tools,” created to solve problems for distributed teams. The products have grown out of internal tools that Automattic uses with its distributed team of more than 850 employees in 68 countries. Most employee scheduling tools are designed for more traditional…
Last week Automattic published a video titled “A meditation on the open web” that calls out Facebook as the antithesis of the open web: As you get closer the air gets smoggier and you realize it’s a vast metropolis. It’s surrounded by high concrete walls, completely contained. Inside it’s bustling, lots of honking traffic, people…
WordPress.com is kicking off 2019 with a new national marketing campaign that features 14 entrepreneurs, writers, and non-profit organizations who are using the platform to make a big difference for their communities. The campaign is focused around the question: “What Would You Do If You Could Do Anything?” WordPress.com published its inaugural ‘Anything Is Possible’…