El Soberano homepage on the Newspack platform. Nine months after the announcement of Newspack by WordPress.com, the Chilean news site El Soberano became the first publication to launch on the new platform. On October 16, the small news team relaunched with a fresh design powered by the Newspack theme and its newsroom-focused plugins. Newspack is a project of Automattic, the …
Mark Davies Joins Automattic as Chief Financial Officer
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and various other products, announced earlier today that Mark Davies has joined the team as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO). This news comes fresh off the heels of Automattic’s acquisition of Tumblr in August and a $300 million Series D investment from Salesforce Ventures in September. The investment round gave the company a $3 …
Kioken Blocks Partners with Gutenslider Plugin
Kioken Blocks creator Onur Oztaskiran is teaming up with Niklas Jurij Plessing, a Berlin-based developer and author of the Gutenslider plugin, to improve both products under the same roof. Oztaskiran said the partnership is not an acquisition but rather a unification of efforts that may eventually result in combining under the same name. “Our short term plan is to work …
Meetup.com Introduces RSVP Fees for Members, WordPress Meetup Groups Unaffected by Pricing Changes
Meetup, a subsidiary of WeWork, has announced a significant change to its pricing structure that will require members to pay a $2 fee in order to RSVP to events. The change will go into effect in October, ostensibly to distribute meetup costs more evenly between organizers and members. Some meetup organizers have received the following message: Meetup is always looking …
Edit Flow Future in Flux: Here Are 5 Alternative Plugins
After years of unpredictable development and support, it seemed the Edit Flow plugin had finally given up the ghost last week when an Automattic support representative confirmed that it is no longer being actively developed and recommended users switch to an alternative. Nick Gernert, head of WordPress.com VIP, has since commented on our post to clarify the company’s intentions. He …
WordPress 5.3 Improves Large Image Handling
WordPress 5.3 Beta 3 was released this week and RC 1 is right around the corner, expected October 15. Core contributors have been publishing developer notes on new features landing in this release. One exciting enhancement that hasn’t received much attention yet is WordPress’ updated handling of large images. Many WordPress users don’t consider the size of the images they …
ExpressionEngine Under New Ownership, Will Remain Open Source for Now
EllisLab founder Rick Ellis announced yesterday that ExpressionEngine has been acquired by Packet Tide, the parent company of EEHarbor, one of the most successful EE add-on providers and development agencies in the community. A year ago EllisLab, the developers of EE core, was acquired by Digital Locations but Ellis said the company ended up not being a good fit for …
The Evolution of Anonymity in the Internet Age
As a child of the ’90s, I was growing up in one of the largest transitional periods in human history. The Internet Age was upon us. I was born and raised in a small community in rural Alabama. The country. The backwoods. To give you an idea of how small the place was, my entire school (grades K-12) had around …
GNU Project Maintainers Move to Oust Richard Stallman from Leadership
GNU Project maintainers are working to oust Richard Stallman from his position as head of the organization. In a joint statement published yesterday morning, a collection of 22 GNU maintainers and developers thanked Stallman for his work and declared that he can no longer represent the project: We, the undersigned GNU maintainers and developers, owe a debt of gratitude to …
WooSesh 2019 Scheduled for October 9 and 10: Registration Now Open
WooSesh is happening next week on October 9 and 10, and registration is now open. This is the second edition of the virtual WooCommerce event hosted by WPSessions. In addition to presentations focused entirely on e-commerce, the event will include a “Hallway Track” that offers opportunities for attendees to connect with each other, along with virtual swag donated by various …




