552 – State of the Word 2024

WordPress Resource: Your Website Engineer with Dustin Hartzler

• Historical Background and Localization:
  • Recollection of WordPress’s first localization in Japan in 2003.
  • Growth of WordPress market share globally and specifically in Japan.
  • Also Wapuu came from Japan at a WordCamp event in 2009. It’s GPL and each camp/location have their own flair
• WordPress Releases and Development:
  • WordPress sits at 43.6% of the web and 62.3% of the CMS market share. Shopify is next at 6.6%.
  • In Japan the numbers are more impressive. 58.5% of Japanese websites and 83% of the CMS market share (Shopify is 2.7% in Japan).
  • 500M global downloads.
  • Mention of the three major releases since the last State of the Word. 6.5 (Regina), 6.6 (Dorsey), 6.7 (Rollins)
  • Introduction of new themes and plugins, emphasizing on block themes and the Gutenberg framework. (1000+ block themes) (2B+ plugin downloads)
• Improving WordPress Functionality:
  • Significant reduction in plugin review queue times. Queue was zeroed out in October
  • Improvements in writing and direct manipulation of content blocks.
• Future Developments in WordPress with Matias Ventura:
  • Recapped the four phases of development:
    • Editing
    • Customization
    • Collaboration (now)
    • Multilingual
  • Collaboration focus and upcoming features like commenting directly on blocks.
    • Write – distraction free mode, click to move and drag (side by side images), show template toggle in the top right. Working on comment blocks
    • Design – editing and design options. You can change the text, but not mess up the page layout. Styles section (with style book to customize all blocks), there was also mention about how blocks, make up patterns, that make up templates
    • Build – blocks can be connected to custom meta fields, advanced query field can be attached to custom fields too
    • Develop – easily add a template in the block editor and the interactivity api (built on top of WordPress) – search, pagination and more are instant (without needing a page refresh, which make the sites FAST). Lastly control how things work with different mobile breakpoints.
  • WordPress Playgrounds are getting some work done to them too. You can have multiple sites open at one time and now there’s the ability to add have blueprints and easily add content that you use regularly.
  • And there is now a WordPress Figma project that can be accessed by the community to be used to make tutorials, etc. using the same images that the design is built from.
  • There has been a lot of thought into making it the best tool for EVERYONE — it needs to be simple enough for all to use, but powerful enough for developers to do what they need to do
• Matt came back and talked about the power of how we can use the help of AI to build out a WordPress site much quicker than before. Man vs Machine build off here.
• Mary Hubbard, WordPress Executive Director
  • Addressing Legal Issues:
    • Mention of WP Engine’s legal action and WordPress’s commitment to its open-source nature.
  • Global & Local WordPress Community:
    • Highlighting global WordPress community contributions. 1097 unique contributors to the three releases in 2024
    • Now there are learning pathways on the Learn WordPress site designed for beginners to the advanced.
    • 885M images on openverse. It’s open source, available in WordPress and other CMS’s
  • Data Liberation Initiative:
    • Introduction of the Data Liberation Initiative and its importance for content freedom.
    • There’s also a widget/sidebar that can help you use any site on the internet and it will turn it into blocks, so you can start building and customizing from there.
• Conclusion:
  • Encouragement to get involved in the WordPress community regardless of background or expertise.
  • And even though the last few months might have seen as taking down a bad actor or full of distractions, but it was a year of growth and focus in many areas.

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