WordPress News

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Sucuri Security redesigns and revamps their website

By 14 days agoMay 8, 2012

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Sucuri Security has redesigned their website, from front page to their free SiteCheck scanner tool. Sucuri worked with WebDevStudios on the redesign, starting on the design and finishing with the development, well, yesterday.

Tony Perez, Sucuri CFO, explained their thought process when considering doing a full redesign:

The discussion as you might imagine, revolved around when would be the right time to change our virtual storefront, our website. We had the normal back and forth, “It’s fine” “We just did it two years ago” “People know who we are” etc.. but in the end we decided, that YES, it was time.

I think we’ve all gone through that thought process before, right? As you’d expect, comparison screenshots of the redesign are posted just after the jump.

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WordPress plugin directory now allows code licensed under GPL version 3

By 15 days agoMay 8, 2012

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Andrew Nacin announced the news on the WordPress development blog last week: plugins in the WordPress.org plugin directory can now be plugins licensed under the GPL version 3 or a compatible license. He does mention that developers are still encouraged to stick with “GPLv2 or later”, however:

The guidelines still encourage use of “GPLv2 or later,” the same license as WordPress. However, we understand that many open source libraries use other licenses that are nonetheless compatible, such as GPLv2 only, GPLv3, and Apache 2.0.

This update means the WordPress plugin directory is now identical to the theme directory when it comes to licenses.

At the very least, take this as a reminder to make sure your plugin has the proper licensing information included with it. Will this affect any of your plugins, or any plugins you’ve previously considered adding to the WordPress.org plugin directory?

(And if you’re really into WordPress and GPL stories, check out our old GPL timeline post.)

The Weekly WordPress Theme Release Roundup

By 18 days agoMay 4, 2012

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There are a lot of WordPress themes that come out every week. I mean, really. I know, because I just went through them all to put together the post you’re looking at right now.

I’m trying something a bit new today. I’ve rounded up every WordPress theme that I know of that released this week, and presented them in what I think is a logical order. I’m curious to know if this is helpful for you, so if you appreciate this kind of post let me know in the comments.

Just after the jump you’ll find the nearly 40 themes that came out this week: from WordPress.org, indie shops, and marketplaces. Let me know if you find it useful.

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WordPress blog WPMods is for sale on Flippa

By 19 days agoMay 4, 2012

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Kevin Muldoon has put his WordPress blog, WPMods, up for sale on Flippa. At the time of this writing the auction is at $30,000, though in the comments he mentions he set the reserve price at $60,000. The Flippa auction has another five days left on its nine-day listing, a listing length which Muldoon said he chose because the last 30 day auction asked buyers to wait too long.

In the listing, Muldoon says WPMods has an average of 105,000 page views per month and an average gross revenue of $1,300 per month. Muldoon also argued for the site’s potential in the comments of the listing:

The site has not really been monetized yet. I only started selling ads via buysellads and selling paid reviews two weeks ago so it should increase beyond $2,500 very soon. It’s real strength lies not with ads but with the site being a platform to push quality WordPress products and services to WordPress users. This is something that many other websites simply don’t have.

The last WordPress site I remember seeing sold on Flippa was WPVibe. We actually discussed WPVibe, WPMods, and even as far back as WPDesigner’s sale (remember that?) on the latest episode of WP Late Night, if you’re interested in this sort of stuff.

(Oh yeah, Flippa also saw WordPress auctions with the Pro Photo Theme and We Love WP sales.)

What do you think of the WPMods auction so far? Do you think Muldoon will hit his reserve price of $60,000?

Disclaimer: WPMods is a publisher site on the Pressed Ads advertising network, which I run.

WordPress 3.4 hits Beta 4, edges ever closer to a final version

By 19 days agoMay 3, 2012

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Late last night, right around the time we wrapped up recording WP Late Night #7 with Joshua Strebel, WordPress Lead Developer Ryan Boren broke the news of 3.4 Beta 4 on the WordPress news blog. His post was beautifully brief, so much so that I don’t feel bad quoting it in its entirety here:

Less bugs, more polish, the same beta disclaimers. Download, test, report bugs. Thanks much. /ryan #thewholebrevitything

Can’t beat that, right? For those seeking more than brevity, though, here are a few things you might want to know. First, the list of tickets for the 3.4 milestone on Trac is getting smaller and smaller, now entirely fitting on a single (large) monitor. Second, you should remember how to handle betas, and of course don’t run it live. Third, it’s about that time to start taking bets on just when 3.4 final will land in the comments below.

By the way, who’s been testing the new version so far? What do you think of the theme customizer?

PressNomics is the first conference focused on the WordPress economy

By 20 days agoMay 2, 2012

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“Like anything, this isn’t a new idea, people have probably talked about it,” Joshua Strebel explained to me in a phone call. “I’ve been talking about it for about a year and half but a couple of months ago I’m like what’s stopping us, let’s just do it.”

His company Page.ly, along with a group of sponsors and partially announced list of speakers, have announced a new WordPress conference this morning called PressNomics. PressNomics is an event focused on the WordPress economy and professionals running businesses within the community.

PressNomics will take place November 8–10, 2012 in Chandler, Arizona. The event will include a single track of sessions for two days, followed by special events organized for the attendees. PressNomics is, of course, not affiliated with or endorsed by the WordPress Foundation. It’s not a WordCamp; it will be the first major unofficial WordPress event in the USA.

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DevPress pricing goes from $5/year to $30/year, teases news

By 20 days agoMay 2, 2012

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Speaking of interesting theme business models, yesterday brought a new pricing structure over at DevPress: a bump from $5/year to $30/year. The original $5 pricing was announced nearly a year ago to much surprise, discussion, and I would imagine quite a few sign ups. All new sign ups will be at the $30/year rate, while everyone who signed up previously can stay at the $5 rate.

So why raise the price? DevPress owner Tung Do announced the new pricing a few weeks ago to largely supportive comments from their community in the discussion of the post. As an explanation for the price increase, Do said:

We have an important announcement coming in a couple of weeks. It will drastically change the way we operate DevPress and our business model.

Do ran DevPress on his own since splitting from the other three co-founders in December. About a month ago, though, he began a partnership with Galin Simeonov of Alien WP and moved Alien’s support to DevPress.

It’s not yet clear what the “important announcement” mentioned by Do is quite yet, but I’ll keep you updated as I learn more.

Gravity Wiz brings Gravity Forms tips, upcoming Perks plugin

By 20 days agoMay 2, 2012

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David Smith, a developer recommended by rocketgenius for Gravity Forms work, has launched a side project called Gravity Wiz. Wiz is a blog dedicated to tutorials, snippets, and plugins written just for Gravity Forms.

It’s still a young blog, but a couple of posts there caught my eye. One explains how to limit user submissions over a given time period, and another shows how to close comments when a user creates a post using Gravity Forms. Also worth keeping an eye on, I think, is the yet-to-be released Gravity Perks plugin, which Smith describes as “small functionality enhancements that are too small to be managed as individual plugins.”

What’s nice about Gravity Wiz is it doesn’t seem like a complete affiliate link grab. I mean, obviously that’s a big part of the site. But it actually seems useful too, which you don’t see from many sites designed to support affiliate sales.

Jake Caputo experiments with ThemeThrift “pay what you want” model

By 21 days agoMay 1, 2012

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Jake Caputo, who has been selling WordPress themes via ThemeForest for about 10 months, has decided to try out what he calls “an experiment” in his newly launched brand ThemeThrift. At ThemeThrift, right now, his latest theme Modest is available for whatever you want to pay for it. $20, $10, or even for nothing at all.

Caputo says the site itself is truly an experiment, and depending on how successful the downloads and sales go he’ll either stick with the model or try something new.

As for the countdown timer on the site says, the theme will be available for download for only the next seven days. Or, as Caputo put it when we chatted, “The countdown means I’m shooting the theme into space, never to be heard from again.”

ThemeThrift launched just after the latest Weekly Theme Show was recorded, so we won’t be chatting about it (or Modest) until next week’s show. Until then, though, what do you think of ThemeThrift and Caputo’s latest idea?

Jetpack plugin upgrades to include Grunion Contact Form

By 26 days agoApril 26, 2012

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Yesterday saw the release of version 1.3 of Jetpack, the plugin (which itself is a bundle of plugins) from Automattic. Keeping pace with their practice of adding a new enhancement every couple of versions, 1.3 adds a new contact form feature to the bunch. 1

Now called “Contact Forms”, the experience is what you would have had using WordPress.com’s contact forms or the Grunion Contact Form plugin they released last year. The 1.3 update included a couple of small bug fixes, but really this update is all about Jetpack gobbling up another of Automattic’s plugins into Jetpack.

Perhaps more interesting than the update, however, is what Michael Adams confirmed in the update post:

In no particular order, here are a few of the things we’re adding or improving in Jetpack:

  • The commenting features currently available on WordPress.com,
  • Increased customizability of the Subscription feature’s emails, and
  • A better Jetpack management interface.

Nothing like few things to look forward to, right?

Notes:

  1. I’m happy to say it didn’t automatically activate for me because I’m using the (aptly named) Manual Control for Jetpack plugin. ↩