WordPress.com Connect is now available for third party developers. This new feature is comparable to Facebook Connect, Sign in with Twitter, and Open ID. It offers a secure and easy way for WordPress users to login to your site or app, by simply using their own WordPress credentials. This makes connecting with other WordPress users that much easier. By integrating WordPress.com Connect on your site, people have the option to login without having to create or remember any new login information. What’s in it for the users? From their dashboard, users can control which apps have access to their data […]
You’ve been GPL’d!
What WordPress and WooThemes can learn from Linux History I’d like to tell you all a story to give some perspective on recent events that have happened in the WordPress community. Once there was a smart Founder who wanted to change the world. He was a scrappy and outspoken 20-something who decided to build his own Open Source Software (OSS) project with a few friends because he knew he could design something that was better than the competition. He chose principle over profit and picked an OSS license that would protect the community over even his own interests. He handed over […]
Captain Woo and the Island of Misfit Extensions
Last week WooThemes made a pretty big, and controversial, announcement regarding policy changes to their WooCommerce extension platform. The changes include increased prices, a consolidated licensing system, dropping their unlimited pricing tiers in favor of a 25-site license tier, and capping support and updates at one year. They also grandfathered any purchase made before their announcement to receive support and updates for 2 years. The lifetime purchase that many people had made was now good for 2 years. This was a big change for a lot of people, as you can see from the roughly 500 comments on the original post. […]
WP Avengers Enter the Scene
In the wake of WooThemes’ controversial price raise, WP Avengers make a unique debut. See it for yourself here. What are they doing? As a customer / developer, I want a source of affordable and high quality extensions with good support. I need a range of extensions – payment gateway, shipping, product configuration, marketing and reporting. And I don’t want to be screwed! Instead of going around problems, I’m actually building this solution along with some ace WooCommerce developers. Who are they? We are a group of WooCommerce / WordPress developers, led by Nathan Walker. Nathan has been doing PHP since PHP 2, […]
WooThemes Clarifies the Term Lifetime and Leaves Decision Up to Customers
On August 1, WooThemes announced that they are altering their business model and raising their prices. Since then, they have received a lot of attention regarding these changes…some positive, and some negative. In reaction to this controversy, WooThemes responded this morning with An Important Update in which they clarify the meaning of “Lifetime” (the life of the product) and offer their customers the choice of adapting the new business model – or sticking with their initial plan. To do right by you, we would now like to give you the option of whether you want to back our strategy for sustainability […]
3.6 Oscar Now Available for Download
Cue Billy Holiday! At last… WordPress 3.6 Oscar is now available for download.
WooThemes Has Raised Their Prices
You want to blame someone? Blame Steve Jobs. Seriously – here’s why. He created a computing ecosystem that suggested tens of thousands of dollars in software development costs could be recouped at $.99 per transaction. That’s not a model. There’s no feedback loop to that model. In the end, some companies are wildly successful because more and more people make one-time decisions, while other companies just fail and disappear. But this isn’t a post about Steve Jobs. I just thought that if you wanted to get to the bottom of all this, we should look to him – as he’s […]
Matt is on Reddit Right Now
Here’s a sample, below. To catch it live, go to www.reddit.com/r/IAmA right now! vegasgeek – “Of all the WordCamp’s you’ve been to around the globe, what was the most unusual location for the event itself and, separately, the after party?” photomatt – “Oh by far and away the strangest location was Davao in the Philippines. I can’t find any pictures at the moment, but my talk was essentially at a restaurant with a swimming pool courtyard — the audience was on the other side of the pool from me, and the food buffet was behind me so when the Q&A got slow […]
Matt Mullenweg on Reddit Tomorrow
Matt Mullenweg will be dropping into /r/Iama tomorrow, (Wednesday) July 31, at 3pm PDT. For those of you who are not familiar with Reddit, /Iama stands for “I Am A.” The thread always starts with the person of interest stating: I am ________. AMA. AMA stands for “ask my anything” and AMAA stands for “Ask me almost anything.” Past participants include Bill Gates, Stephen Colbert, Stan Lee and even Barack Obama. We are excited to see what people ask Matt, especially since this is happening right after his 2013 State of the Word address. To catch up on what Redditors are chatting about right […]
State of the Word Address 2013
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 […]
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