Doc’s WordPress News Drop is a weekly report on the most pressing WordPress news. When the news drops, I will pick it up and deliver it right to you.
On this week’s News Drop, Doc talks about Google’s move into open source CMSs, the WordPress 4.9.4 (and 4.9.3) update and… something else.. I can’t remember… PLUGIN MADNESS!!!
Love WordPress News, but hate reading? My name is Doc and this is Doc Pop’s News Drop.
March is a month away, which means it’s almost time for Plugin Madness.
Plugin Madness is our bracket style competition where we pit 64 WordPress plugins against each other in a battle to see who’s probably the most favorite plugin of the average WordPress user.
But before we do that, we need your nominations. Throughout February, you can go to PluginMadness.com to nominate your favorite plugins. Each year we start off with 4 main categories, ecommerce, marketing, maintenance, and blogging. So pick your favorite plugins in each category then type it into the custom form.
Voting is important, but if you don’t nominate your favorite plugin, you might not even get to vote for them when the competition begins. So remember to go to PluginMadness.com
Speaking of today, WordPress version 4.9.3 has just been released. Here’s where you can find the newest update in your WordPress dashboard… and here’s a clip of me showing you where to find the update in your WP dashboard.
This maintenance release fixes 34 bugs in 4.9, including some fixes for widgets, the Customizer, and PHP 7.2 compatibility.
Now, it’s not a security update, but I’d still say today [is the greatest audio clip] day to update your WordPress.
Looking for a job? Google is hiring a Developer Programs Engineer for their Web Content Ecosystem. The position involves working with open-source CMS platforms to accelerate the adoption of web-best practices. Contributing code to and particapating in technical discussions in open-source CMS projects.
Considering that WordPress has 60% of the market share in open-source CMSs, it sounds like they are basically looking to hire a WordPress liason.
Not a surprise really, considering Google’s increased presence at WordPress events, including a large booth at last year’s WordCamp US.
In a recent article on our website, TorqueMag.io, Alberto Medina, a developer advocate at Google, states “Our goal was to engage with the WordPress community and start a discussion around the performance of the WordPress ecosystem”.
I’m guessing a big part of Google’s WordPress is going to be speeding up WordPress loading times and pushing for a wider adoption of the AMP plugin, Google’s tool for creating “accelerated mobile pages” which can be seen in Mobile search results.
Keep in mind that Google formally announced a “Speed Update”, coming in July, which will use mobile page speed as a big factor in mobile search results.
And that’s it for this week’s news drop. Don’t worry about our usual call to action, this week you need to go to PluginMadness.com to nominate your favorite plugins.
I’d say to share your nominees on Twitter afterwards, but they say Call to Actions are more effective when you only have one.
Plugin Madness.
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