While Matt Mullenweg delivered his first in-person keynote since the beginning of the pandemic in NYC, I watched online from the comfort of my office closet. I’m not sure if it was the intimate setting, friendly faces, or both, but I felt like Matts’s delivery was more authentic than it has been in years past. His sense of humor, awkward jokes, and passion made it worth the watch.
Without further ado here are my hot takes from this year’s State of the Word. Spoiler alert, no NFTs were mentioned 😂 .
State of the Word 2021
For those of you who don’t know, the State of the Word is the annual keynote address given by the WordPress project’s founding developer Matt Mullenweg. In this address, he discusses the progress of the WordPress project, what upcoming releases will look like, and the goals for the future of the WordPress project. The keynote ends with a Q & A segment, where he answers a few questions from the audience. Usually three to five questions.
This year, due to the pandemic, the State of the Word was moved online, with a small in-house audience, when it usually occurs on the last day of WordCamp US.
WordPress 5.9
- 580 contributors have worked on version 5.9 so far, with hopefully more joining the ranks in the coming weeks.
- In January 2022 WordPress 5.9 will be released along with the Twenty-Twenty Two theme. If you haven’t checked it out, here. yet, I highly recommend it.
“You can change anything, but there must always be birds” – Matt Mullenweg
- An Integrated pattern directory, duotone filters, dimension controls, and flex layouts, are just a taste of what’s to come.
Translation
- Polyglots – 76% improvement for language packs in core
- 15,900 active translations
- Powered by GlotPress
Diversity in WordPress
- 135 participants, 66 cities and 16 countries
“WordPress can be used by anybody, so it should also be built by anybody.”
— Josepha Haden Chomphosy (@chanthaboune), WordPress Executive Director, WordCamp US 2021
Learn WordPress
- 73 workshops, 70 lessons plans, 21 languages
Good year for WordPress security
Security is a process, not an endpoint.
- 30 individuals contributed to security patches. Woohoo!
The Four Phases of the Gutenberg Recap
- 2018 – Easier Editing
- 2019 – Customization, through the consolidation of the block interface. Gutenberg as a minimal viable product in 2022.
- 2023 – Collaboration
- TBD – Multi-lingual
How much of the web does WordPress power?
WordPress powers, 43.1% of all websites. That is up 4% from 2020. You go WordPress 🥳 . One of the reasons I think WordPress has such a large market share is because it is free. Not only is it free but it also comes with a repository that includes thousands of plugins like Ninja Forms to help you create a customized website that fits your needs. Other services like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify cost money to get started and don’t offer the variety of customization options that WordPress does.
Openverse
If I’m being honest, it had been a while, since I’ve heard anything about Openverse. So I started to feel that ol’ “acquisition” anxiety creeping in when Matt started talking about it. Quickly I realized it has nothing to do with another looming WordPress acquisition and everything to do with WordPress’s latest project.
What is Openverse?
Openverse is a content repository, where users can search and use openly licensed images from the internet under a Creative Commons license or in the public domain.
Eventually, Matt would like to see the Opeverse image directory built into WordPress core. This way users can easily grab images and add them to their WordPress website without having to search stock photo accounts. You can checkout Openverse here.
Five for the Future
The annual give back to WordPress pep talk, where we are encouraged to contribute 5% of our resources back into WordPress. Paraphrasing what Matt said, “the more people that use it, the more things will get done or reported, the better [WordPress] gets”. Here are a few of the many ways you can contribute to the WordPress opensource project:
- Hosting a workshop is an easy way to contribute to WordPress
- Share how you got started with WordPress. Make a blog post with your story and tweet a link to it using the #ilovewp hashtag. Matt gave a well-deserved shoutout to the HeroPress Network and recognized their contributions.
- Creating block themes. Right now only twenty-eight block themes reside in the WordPress repo. Matt would like to see hundreds.
The Decentralized Web, Web3
- Individual Ownership.
- Decentralization – host anywhere, participate from anywhere, create and fork your own.
WordCamp US 2022?
WordCamp US 2022 will be an in-person event in sunny San Diego, California come September. I can’t wait!
The secret sauce of distributed work is meetups and get-togethers. 95% virtual 5% in-person –
Matt Mullenweg
Matt’s advice to the youngsters
“When you are young invest your time. You have more of it than you think. Consume and absorb as much as possible.” I couldn’t agree more.
