On Saturday, the second day of WordCamp San Francisco 2013, Matt Mullenweg delivered the annual State of The Word address to a standing-room-only crowd of eager WordPress devotees.
New statistics, development updates, video teasers, and one last joke about Jay-Z crashing the after party pleased the excited audience. Matt also shared the results of the annual survey, completed by 30,000 WordPress users and developers, and spotlighted WordPress’s recent rockstars.
Here are the main numerical takeaways:
• 18.9% of the web is now running on WordPress, up 2.2% from last year
• 1026 unique WordCamp speakers
• 1.4 million views of WordCamp videos on WordPress.tv
• 46+ million downloads of WordPress
• 336 new themes added to the repository, 2.3 times as many as in 2011
• 15 updates to the mobile apps
• 26,000 plugins in the plugin repository
Matt also brought our attention to a brand awareness survey conducted recently by WP Engine in which they asked, “Have you heard of WordPress?” Turns out 29.3% said yes, of 1500 responses. Matt says he “hasn’t decided if this is a good or bad thing yet.”
With 3.6 coming any day now, Mullenweg mentioned that WordPress 3.7, with a focus on stability and security, is beginning development right now and will ideally be released in October 2013. And 3.8 will be out in December 2013 with a more “experimental” focus.
We can expect the 2014 theme to have a magazine-like layout, with a slider and other premium style elements. It should be out by the end of 2013.
A book about the history of WordPress being written in Gilthub by Siobahn McKeown. Of course Matt thinks this is very appropriate – that the text of the book is written as open as the software itself.
Matt went into Nir Eyal’s Automatic customers: how to design user habits presentation, much to the delight of the entrepreneurs and marketers in the room, and announced that developer.wordpress.org has launched a new developer resource, which pleased the more technically-oriented segment of the crowd.
Overall, Matt’s 2013 State of the Word address was successful and inspirational. He believes that a decade later, we are just getting started. To sum up the supportive and inclusive tone in one last memorable quote:
Be the change you want to see on the internet.
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