WordPress.com launched a new Activity feature today, a tool for monitoring changes that occur on the site and actions initiated through the admin. It’s also available for Jetpack-enabled sites and the activity log can be viewed on WordPress.com or on the WordPress mobile apps. Activity logs the following actions and presents them in an easy-to-read…
Jetpack 6.6 was released today with an update to the Site Verification tools that enables one-click verification and sitemap.xml registration with Google. This release also introduces the beta of Jetpack’s Asset CDN. The new module, built on the same infrastructure as the Photon CDN, speeds up sites by cloud-hosting widely-used Jetpack and core WordPress scripts,…
In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook is tightening its control on third-party applications and will no longer allow apps to post to user profiles. In April, the platform announced sweeping changes to the publish_actions permission, which allowed apps to publish to users’ timeline on their behalf. On August 1st, 2018, the…
Jetpack 6.1 is available and is considered a general maintenance release. This version adds two improvements to the WordAds module. Users can now use the [wordads] shortcode to place an inline ad on any post or page. Support for the ads.txt file has also been added. A new filter is available that honors the Do…
In this episode, John James Jacoby recaps his trip to WordCamp Chicago and explains the thought process behind his presentation, The Fourth Wall of WordPress. We highlight a new project that gives developers a guided path to migrate functionality from the Classic editor to Gutenberg. We discuss the pros and cons of the trusted authors…
Jetpack 6.0 is available for upgrade. It comes with improvements to the social media icons widget, enhanced brute force protection, and better compatibility between WooCommerce and Jetpack. Its headlining features though are privacy related as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is set to go into effect May 25th. In 6.0, Jetpack has a dedicated…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I start with a continued discussion of AMP from last week. We cover the big releases of the week including Jetpack, Genesis, Yoast SEO, and Gutenberg. We discuss a new project that aims to determine Gutenberg compatible plugins, debate the terminology used to describe WordPress’ market share, and…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I discuss the news of the week. We also chat about the Winter Olympics, crypto mining in order to access content on the web, and the joys of taking care of a puppy. Last but not least, we talk about Elasticsearch in Jetpack 5.8 and whether or not…
Jetpack 5.8 is available for download and includes a handful of new features for Professional, Premium, and Personal plan users. In October of last year, Jetpack 5.4 began beta testing a new search module based on Elasticsearch. Jetpack 5.8 concludes the beta and the new search service is available to Professional plan customers. The new…
A business can’t survive without strong sales & customer service, two competencies that are arguably the lifeblood of a company. Many of you reading this fill that exact gap for the open source WordPress project. I don’t mean this as a slight to the thousands of wonderful people who build the software, document it, and…
Jetpack 5.5 was released yesterday with several important changes that ensure the plugin is compatible with the upcoming WordPress 4.9 release scheduled for November 14. The plugin will be able to shed some weight, as core improvements will make Jetpack’s syntax highlighting and gallery widget obsolete. WordPress 4.9 incorporates CodeMirror, which brings syntax highlighting, linting,…
The third annual WooConf, the official conference for WooCommerce, is underway today. It started off with a keynote by Todd Wilkens, Head of WooCommerce, providing an overview of the project’s accomplishments over the past year and a preview of what’s to come. https://twitter.com/johnkentsf/status/921054095120756737 When the crowd was asked to guess how much in sales WooCommerce…
Jetpack 5.4 was released yesterday with many small enhancements to existing modules and an expansion of features for users on the paid plans. A new date picker field is available for the Contact Form, allowing administrators to request additional information such as project timelines, event reservations, or any other date-related data. This release also fixes…
WordPress.com now supports seamless integration between Google Photos and the WordPress media library. Users can connect their Google accounts to have access to their photos when inserting an image. Google Photos has gained popularity due to its automatic tagless organization and free, unlimited backup for photos and videos up to 16MP and 1080p HD. In…
Jetpack 5.3 was released with compatibility for PHP 7.1, a task the Jetpack team has been working on since January 2017 after they received multiple reports of failures with PHP 7.1 when opcache was enabled. This interfered with XML-RPC requests and some users reported issues managing their sites from WordPress.com and connecting to third-party apps.…