2015 was another great year for WordPress. Let’s revisit some of the most important, and most talked-about moments of 2015. I’ve categorized them by highlights first, or jump down to a month-by-month, calendar-like recap.
WordPress 2015 Highlights
Drag’n’Drop Page Builders were #alltherave
…and to be frank, I’m not a fan. I understand the desire for non-technical folks (business owners, in-house site managers, etc.) to take control of their sites, but the bloat & theme lock-in that many mutli-purpose, drag’n’drop, all-in-one, do-everything, be-everything themes create… sorry, it’s just hard for me to get on board. Functionality belongs in a plugin. Design & style belongs in a theme. Period.
- Upfront by WPMU DEV
- Divi Page Builder Plugin by Elegant Themes
- Layers from Obox — topped 100,000 downloads in 5 months
Focusing on What Matters
Theme & Plugin developers on both sides of this one. Some are looking for additional products to add to their current offerings, and others are looking to focus on their core product(s), and do away with the ones they can no longer adequately support.
Pippin Williamson Sold 2 Plugins
Pro Plugin Directory changes ownership
Steven Gliebe sells Pro Plugin Directory to Charlie Livingston of aThemes.
Acquisitions
Automattic Acquires WooThemes
With 17 total acquisitions under its belt, 4 of which happened last year (Code For The People, Parka, scroll kit, Longreads), Automattic only made one acquisition this year—WooThemes ($30M). Despite being its sole acquisition in 2015, it could be one of its most important ones to date. Most of know WooThemes are the creators of WooCommerce, which, by some accounts, powers 20% of all ecommerce stores on the web.
MABU Acquires Todaymade
Read WP Tavern’s write-up, or check out CoSchedule, a marketing & content calendar originally made for WordPress. I’m excited to see where MABU takes this in 2016.
Humanmade Acquires Sennza
Hyun Supul Acquires Aesop Interactive
Security
Brute Force Amplification Attacks Against XML-RPC
XSS Cross-Scripting Vulnerability
In August, Sucuri explains an XSS Cross-Scripting vulnerability found in WordPress. This was fixed in WordPress 4.2.4.
WordPress Crowdfunding
Several WordPress-related crowdfunding campaigns were launched this year:
- HeroPress’ Kickstarter Campaign (cancelled)
- Topher DeRosia goes to WordCamp India via GoFundMe (funded)
- Kayosey Theme (unsuccessful)
- A RESTful WP-CLI (187% funded)
BuddyPress, bbPress & GlotPress Get Some Love
John James Jacoby devoted 6 months
JJJ’s crowdfunding campaign reached it’s goal of $50,000, so he devoted 6 months to the following projects:
BuddyPress
BuddyPress saw 3 major releases in 2015. John James Jacoby & Paul Gibbs put their heads down & focused heavily on the BuddyPress project. The results have been fantastic.
WordPress 2015 – Month-by-Month
February
March
HeroPress Launches First Essay
- Finding Your Place by Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko
April
WordPress 4.2 Released
WordPress 4.2 brought us:
- a completely revamped Press This
- live preview themes in the WordPress Customizer
- ajaxified plugin updates
- emojis! (and support for a lot more international characters)
- an accessibility API
- a handful of smaller improvements to the WordPress admin
VersionPress released
VersionPress 1.0 is released. For those that aren’t familiar, VersionPress basically brings the power of the Git version control system to WordPress. It versions both files and the database, enabling things like site-wide reverts, easy staging, team workflows, efficient backups and more.
May
Automattic Acquires WooCommerce
Automattic acquired WooThemes (and WooCommerce) for $30M. Lots of news surrounding the acquisition, but it’s hard to argue that this is one of the biggest acquisitions in Automattic’s history.
June
WordCamp Europe
WordCamp Europe took place in Seville, Spain from June 26 – 28, 2015. A few recaps:
July
August
WordPress 4.3 Released
WordPress 4.3 brought us:
- formatting shortcuts in the visual editor
- a universal WordPress favicon
- improved password creation & security
- several changes to the WordPress customizer
- and some multisite love
…and the WordPress plugin directory hit 1 billion downloads this month.
September
- Automattic fights back against DMCA notices; supports fair use
- Automattic wins $25k from DMCA takedown abuser
October
GoDaddy’s Hot 100 WordPress Themes & Plugins
A little over a year ago, GoDaddy entered the managed WordPress hosting space. Combined with many existing WordPress customers on its shared hosting platform, it has an enormous about of data about WordPress themes & plugins. It’s now sharing that data with the community in it’s WordPress Hot 100. The list is ranked by active installs across GoDaddy’s millions of WordPress installations as measured by the greatest net gain in the number of active installs from the previous week.
November
25% of All Websites…
…now powered by WordPress. Or, as Matt Mullenweg puts it, seventy-five to go. (data from W3techs)
Calypso
WordPress announces a new platform, codenamed Calypso. 18 months in the making, Calypso is a single Javascript application to manage all your WordPress.com or Jetpack-enabled sites, built from the ground up on WordPress.com’s REST API.
Envato Sites
Launched this month, Envato Sites aims to help small businesses build and launch a professionally designed website in minutes. While not directly related to WordPress, Envato Market is one of the largest marketplaces for WordPress themes & plugins. With Envato now offering a complete website solution, it could have an impact on its WordPress products.
Yoast SEO 3.0
With over 1 million active installs, the Yoast SEO plugin is one of the most popular in the WordPress ecosystem. This month they released version 3.0, but not without some issues. It was interesting to see how the community responded to the bugs & UI changes.
December
WordPress 4.4 Released
With the third major release this year, WordPress 4.4 brought us:
- responsive images
- new oEmbed support
- term metadata
- the new Twenty Sixteen theme &
- the first half of the REST API
WordCamp US
The first ever WordCamp US was held in Philadelphia from Dec 4 – 6, 2015.
REST API
The first half of the WordPress REST API was included in WordPress Core with the 4.4 release.
Zac Gordon Launches Javascript
Treehouse decided to shift its focus away from WordPress education, leaving Zac looking for a job. Zac wanted to continue teaching WordPress, so now he’s doing it on his own. His first project: JavascriptForWP.
Twenty Sixteen (2016)
The year, not the theme.
Another WordPress chapter.
More big things to come.
What did I miss?
If you’re interested, here are a few other WordPress 2015 recaps you might enjoy:
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