This week brings new online tools for WordPress users, like AI Site Planner, PootleWriter, and Plugin Pal. Also, in the news – GoDaddy pledged $520,000, Post Status acquired, and insightful reports on Enterprise WP & Spam Activity.
mySites .guru is the Ultimate Toolkit for managing multiple WordPress sites with the award winning Site Audit, Backup, Update, Secure, Monitor, & Alerting features.
Kinsta managed WordPress hosting with unparalleled speed, leveraging Google Cloud and the latest C3D servers, it ensures lightning-fast performance.
Merchants love Omnisend. So will you – Omnisend is trusted by 125,000+ brands who love using it for email & SMS marketing. Sign up now
Platform InMotion with high performance servers for serious WordPress websites, comes with hassle free deployment tools and expert support.
↑ Community Sponsors supporting this weekly
What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- AI Site Planner… the team at Elementor has launched the AI Site Planner tool that allows you to quickly move from planning to website creation with AI powers. It features automated briefs, sitemaps, and wireframes for website creation. Check video preview (YouTube) by Ferdy Korpershoek.
- PootleWriter for WP… Jamie Marsland has created an online writer editor called PootleWriter that prioritizes your writing experience. The online editor allows you to write distraction free and publish content directly to your WordPress website.
- AI Plugin Generator… Robert DeVore has launched the Plugin Pal tool for plugin generation through AI powers. It promises to speed up your custom plugin development process, the website also features sample plugins created with this tool.
- WP .com Remove Custom Interface… WordPress dashboard interface at WordPress .com had a custom layout look called ‘Calypso’ for many years. Moving forward, this custom interface will be switched to the default WP dashboard user interface.
New Plugins: For Breakdance & Gravity, Command Bar
WooCommerce + Breakdance… promising to make WooCommerce website building using Breakdance easy, Tony Nguyen has created Woohoo .dance. It helps you build custom layouts for the checkout, cart, and thank you page.
Gravity User Entries… Johnathon Williams has released the List User Entries addon for Gravity Forms users. It displays up to 20 recent form submissions for each user directly in their WP profile page. This addon is free or pay what you want.
WP Command Bar… Stephen Paul has released a free Lexia Command plugin that adds something like macOS Spotlight to WordPress sites. It adds a quick command bar, universal search, and fast actions.
New Features: Spectra, Bricks, FluentCRM, AI Voices
Advanced Loop Builder… Spectra’s query loop feature got a big upgrade and is now an advanced loop builder that allows you to create blog archives, WooCommerce product grids, and more – without coding.
Bricks Get Components… 1.12 has made available the components feature (experimental), which allows you to create reusable and customizable elements for a scalable, consistent, and easy to maintain workflow.
FluentCRM.. 2.9.40v has added a quick search option for adding automation blocks, a new dedicated widget to view and manage MemberPress subscriptions, and an easy export button under campaigns to export all email campaign data.
AI Text to Speech… has been updated by Elliot Sowersby to include three new OpenAI voice options: Ash, Coral, and Sage. Also, pro users can automatically generate audio for new posts as soon as they are published.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- $500K+ Contribution… in its continued efforts of supporting the open source ecosystem, contributors, and WordPress – GoDaddy has pledged $520,000 to the mission of The WP Community Collective, which supports independent contributions to projects in the open source community.
- New Legal Team… Roger Montti at Search Engine Journal, reports that Matt Mullenweg has hired new lawyers for the case against WP Engine. “A legal document filed in federal court formally notifies that Automattic and Matt Mullenweg have added new representation, a lawyer who has previously represented Meta and Facebook”.
- WordPress 6.7.2 Schedule… 6.7.2 is the next maintenance release for the WP 6.7 version. The release candidate will be available on February 04, 2025, and the final release on February 11, 2025.
- Acquisition Train… Joost and Marieke are acquiring Post Status from Cory and Lindsey Miller (they acquired it from the founder Brian Krogsgard in 2020). Also, moving forward, Post Status will become a non-profit, and membership prices will be reduced.
- PressConf & Accessibility Day… Mary Hubbard, executive director of WordPress, and Matías Ventura, Lead Architect for the Gutenberg Project in WordPress, will be speaking at the PressConf stage, scheduled for April 23, 2025. Also, the call for organizers is now open for the WordPress Accessibility Day (WPAD) conference 2025.
- WordCamps Action… check the guide to prepare for the after-party ‘Pinoy Fiesta Style’ at the WordCamp Asia 2025 event. The call for speakers for WordCamp Europe 2025 is closing on January 31, 2025.
New Updates: Divi, FluentBoards, SureForms
Divi 5 New Features.. Public Alpha Version 7 is now available with 38 bug fixes and an update on new features. These include a new exit button & shortcuts, customizable breakpoints, Divi AI integration, and option group presets.
FluentBoards… 1.4v has expanded storage options with Backblaze and Digital Ocean integrations. It now also allows you to create stages between existing ones for more flexible workflows.
Form Entries Management… SureForms 1.3.0v focuses on entry management feature that allows you to edit form entries and add optional notes to individual entries. Also, you can resend email notifications for individual or multiple entries.
Quick Bits 👍
- The brand new White House website is powered by WordPress.
- DeoThemes open for acquisition (Links X), $1,676/mo avg profit.
- Now dress up Gravatar images with sticker & background effects.
- Mathieu Viet has created Retraceur, a personal WordPress fork.
- Lawrence Ladomery digs into publication workflows in WordPress.
- Chris Coyier shared new HTML things you should know in 2025.
- Youtube + Learn…
- David McCan looks into (YouTube) current state of block themes.
- WordPress Development with Cursor AI, see video by Nick Diego.
- Make WP website (YouTube), 4+ hrs video by Ferdy Korpershoek.
- Beth Livingston as WP Grandma (YouTube) for website questions.
- WP People…
- Beau Lebens is stepping into role to lead Woo as Artistic Director.
- What’s in Matt Mullenweg’s Bag, 2025 edition? 55+ things are!
- Brian Gardner is now (Links X) Head of Community at WP Engine.
- Kevin Geary’s call for better naming conventions in page builders.
The State of Enterprise WordPress Survey 2024
The 2024 edition focusing on the enterprise side of WordPress reveals WordPress VIP and WP Engine among the top 3 hosting choices. Organizations contributing to WordPress project increased from 38% in 2023 to 61% in 2024. Also, enterprise brands remain confident in WordPress’s value, three-quarters of respondents rating its overall return on investment as either excellent or good.
Looking ahead, will your ‘organization continue using WordPress and are happy with the platform’ metric is now 75% in 2024, a big drop from 91% in 2023. However, ‘will you recommend WordPress to other enterprises’, is holding well at 23% in 2024 and 27% in 2023.
2024 Annual Spam Activity Report
The team at OOPSpam published the 2024 Annual Spam Report, revealing that the United States and China are the largest sources of spam, responsible for almost 58% of global spam activity. Almost 69% of spam target websites use WordPress; due to its widespread popularity.
Contact Form 7 (32.8%) is the most attacked form plugin, followed by WPForms (25.3%) and Elementor Forms (19.7%). In 2025, the use of advanced AI tools to craft more convincing and personalized spam messages will see a rise.
Top Accessibility Issues Found in 2024
Amber Hinds shared statistics from auditing 17 websites, 2 large web applications, and 5 WordPress plugins. Top five accessibility issues were: (1) Color contrast insufficient, (2) Color contrast insufficient – ui component, (3) Status message not announced, (4) Focus indicator missing, and (5) Incorrect focus order.
Next five accessibility issues were: (6) Element is not keyboard-operable – divs instead of buttons, (7), Incorrect heading order, (8), Incorrect heading use, (9) Empty buttons, and (10) Link text ambiguous.
20i® Next-Gen WordPress Hosting – Blazing-fast cloud platform with free Staging, Cloning, WordPress Manager, CDN & Edge Cache. No plug-ins required!
WP Buffs – Let our 24/7 team take the pressure out of WordPress management. Start your WordPress care plan today, use code WPWEEKLY for 25% Off 1st month.
ZipWP celebrates 700,000 registered users. ZipWP AI-powered WordPress website builder helps you create fully functional websites in seconds.
↑ Community Sponsors supporting this weekly
