WordCamp Europe announced last week that more than 2000 tickets have been sold, making it the largest WordCamp to date. The first 1700 tickets sold out in January, six months before the event, which forced organizers to expand the venue. Tickets are going fast — there are fewer than 100 tickets left.
“Based on the attendees confirmed so far, WordCamp Europe 2016 will have 58 countries represented, which is six more than the event had in 2014 and 2015. Including micro-sponsor tickets, the countries with the highest number of attendees include Germany (8%), Netherlands (8%), UK (8%), Austria (7%), and the United States (6%).”
The fact that so many people are willing to travel to Vienna for WordCamp EU speaks to just how global WordPress has become. The Internet connects people all over the world, but WordPress is taking extra steps to make the globe seem smaller.
WordCamps and Meetups allow WordPressers from all over the world to connect and learn from one another in a friendly and casual environment. Last year, there were 89 WordCamps and 2000 Meetups globally. In January, WordPress users in Pakistan organized the country’s first ever meetup, bringing in 125 attendees. Those numbers are only going to continue to grow.
WordPress is being translated into more and more languages. The WordPress Polyglots team, who have been translating WordPress since 2003, is organizing a Global Translation Day coming up at the end of March. The event will consist of small groups of people getting together around the world to learn how to translate WordPress. Petya Raykovska is calling for organizers who can lead groups and people who just want to learn about translation.
The 24-hour translation day will begin on the East side of the world and will make its way over to the West. Grab a group of friends and choose a language WordPress is missing.
Language is a great way to bring WordPress to more people around the world, but there are also other accessibility measures you can take to tap into a larger audience. Now, all you have to do is download a plugin and translate your site to reach a wider audience. Accessibility doesn’t stop at language, though. There are other easy tweaks you can make to your site to help reach those with visual or aural limitations.
WordPress is housed online, which already sets it up to be globally dynamic. It already dominates more than 25 percent of the Internet, but to conquer the other 75 percent of the Internet, we have to make WordPress even more accessible to people around the world.
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