Summary of Matt Mullenweg’s – State of the Word 2012

In early August, 2012, Matt Mullenweg delivered his sixth State of the Word, giving us an update on all things WordPress. An interesting talk because WordPress is the dominate platform for bloggers, it powers 17% of the internet, and is the software I use for this blog.

Unfortunately, there are no summaries of the talk, only the raw video, slides, and a live blog. Which is very strange considering how important this software is. Not to worry, I’ve included a summary below pulled together from personal notes and various blogs:

 

Summary – State of the Word 2012 – Matt Mullenweg

  • WordPress is 9 years old, 6th State of the Word
  • WordCamps – in 2006 there was 1 – in 2011 there were 52, and in 2012 there are 75 planned.
  • Single greatest change of the year – Plugin Headers – which are pictures on plugin pages
    • Matt talked a lot about how small changes are the most requested features
  • Forums linked to plugins allowing thousands of answered questions.
  • Improved rating system for plugins. Like Amazon, allowing readers to see individual reviews and authors to respond.
  • NUX – new user experience improved, welcome page might become permanent homepage – dashboard is too cluttered
  • WordPress 3.5 – coming Dec. 5
    • Matt wants updates to work more like Chrome (i.e. automatic and in the background)
    • Speed updates from 2/year to 3/year
    • 3.5 includes Retina Support – Matt says it’s the next big thing
  • Many topics about getting involved
  • Improve parity between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
    • JetPack.me offers all the best plugins from *.com for *.org users
    • 2.3 million JetPack downloads
  • Mobile
    • 5 million mobile downloads
    • On 6 platforms
  • Apps are the future
    • First 4 years blogging, next 4 years content management (CMS), next are apps
    • More people use WordPress for CMS than for blogging
    • App examples: running maps, interactive graphics
  • 20,000 people make $$ from WordPress (writing or developing) – in 2011 it was 13,000
    • Average cost to develop a WordPress site: $2,000 gov/non-profit – $2,500 small biz – $4,200 corporate

 

That’s the summary in 26 lines or less! If you’re looking for more WPMU has a minute-by-minute breakdown.

 

WordPress on iPad:

 

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