WordPress News

The folks from Elegant Themes attended WordCamp San Francisco and have aggregated the stats about how WordPress is used and consumed from Matt’s annual State of WordPress presentation into an infographic. The Elegant Theme designers have generously given WordPress Bloggers permission to repost the infographic.

The following infographic gives a visual representation of the state of WordPress in 2013 as it compares to previous years.

WordPress Infographic 2013 – A Visual Representation of Matt’s “State of the Word”

WordPress Stats For 2013

• How We Use It – 69% of people using WordPress are using it as a fully-fledged CMS, as opposed to a simple blogging platform. This percentage is up 8% since 2011. 7% of people use WordPress as an application platform, which may prove to be a significant demographic in the coming years, and will be the focus on the WordPress 3.7 release.
• Who Knows About It – Based on a survey done by WP Engine, it was found that 29% of people know what WordPress is. Matt states that he doesn’t know if this is a good or bad thing, but it does give us a benchmark for future years. Personally I find this statistic quite impressive considering only years ago it was hard to explain to anyone what I did for a living
• Who Uses It – WordPress now powers 18.9% of the internet, up 2.2% from last year. Over the past 12 month, WordPress was downloaded a total of 46 million times. This is an exciting stat, and one that I am confident will grow.
• Who Uses it (for a little while) – Based on signups on the WordPress.com platform, Automattic found that only 4% of newly created blogs actually experienced continued use, making for an attrition rate of 96%. This is perhaps the most interesting statistic that was revealed. What could be the reason for such a low usage rate? Is WordPress too difficult to use, or is running a website simply too much work for the average person to deal with?

More Data— Different Source

wpmuorg WordPress Survey

For even more interesting statistics concerning the WordPress economy, check out the results from a recent MPMU.org. survey: 70% of more than 1,500 respondents from the general population in the U.S. said they had never heard of WordPress. Go t:o http://wpmu.org/70-percent-never-heard-of-wordpress/ to review charts and some very interesting data sets.

Welcome to the first WordPress meetup of the year!

Announcements

1. WordCamp

We will be having a WordCamp Austin in May. We will be contacting the group for volunteers in February and have a website up then; we will be selling tickets in March.

WordCamp will be held on May 19th, South Austin at AOMA

We will be able to have 230 attendees so a lot more people will be able to attend this year! Tickets will be in the $20 range and will include meals and a t-shirt. But to make that happen, we need sponsors! If you know of a business that might like to sponsor the group, we will be seeking that information in February as well.

2. Austin AIR: Accessible Internet Rally

We need teams who want to participate in the competition to build an accessible website for a non-profit organization. Part of the program includes training on how to make a website accessible. Even if you’re a freelancer or individual who doesn’t have a team already, you can recruit from other folks in WordPress Austin or contact AIR to help you find others. Many members of WordPress Austin, including Pat, Nick, Sandi and Jackie, have served on teams in the past so feel free to seek us out if you want to learn more about how it works and what you can get out of the experience.

For more information, visit AIR: Accessible Internet Rally

Austin Adobe User Group: InDesign Basics by Graphics Designer Veronica Primeaux at Friday January 13, 2012 (1:15 – 3:30)

Date: Friday January 13, 2012

Time: 1:15-3:30 p.m. Central Standard Time

Place: New Horizons Computer Learning Center (300 E Highland Mall Blvd. Suite 100) turn north onto Jonathan and park in the Visitor parking area

RSVP: To help our host New Horizons Computer Learning Center select a room that comfortably seats everyone, please RSVP to this free event

More info: http://austinadobeusergroup.com/

What’s new with WordPress 3.3.1

Quick highlights of what’s new and fun by Pat Ramsey. Presentation at http://wp3.slash25.com/

• WordPress 3.3 has been downloaded over 4.5 million times already! That’s a LOT of websites!
• 3.3 is the major release; 3.3.1 is a patch update.

1. Uploading media

• Single upload button on the editor
• file-type detection
• drag and drop upload

2. Dashboard design

• Flyout menus: keeps you from having to scroll a lot
• Persistent toolbar (combines admin bar and header)
• Responsive design: the admin area is more responsive for varying screen sizes
• The toolbar has links to make new posts, pages, etc., link to visit site, and other goodies

3. New feature pointer: boxes that open up announcing new features with the option to get more info or dismiss

4. New Welcome/About WordPress splash screen that loads when you update your version

5. Better co-editing: releases post-locks immediately when one person finishes editing so another can access the page etc.

6. Widgets get saved if you switch between themes – y0u no longer have to reset them if you swap out themes

7. Tumblr import

• Correctly handles post formats
• WP-Cron based background importing: start it up, then come back to see how far it’s gotten
• Duplicate checking, will not create duplicate imported posts
• Imports posts, drafts, pages
• Media sideloading (for audio, video and image posts)

8. %postname% permalinks

• Using just  /%postname%/ used to cause a performance hit but no longer! We recommend leaving this alone for existing sites unless you redirect your links.

9. WP_Editor

Here are the links from tonight’s early look at WordPress 3.1.

WP Beginner – What’s Coming in WordPress 3.1

WordPress Development Updates

Make WordPress UI

WordPress Demo Site

Here’s a post from Jane back in September on the Process & Scope for WordPress 3.1. This is a nice outline n what’s being worked on for the upcoming release.

The WordPress Developer and Technical User Group in Dallas/Fort Worth is having a panel on  “WordPress in the Workplace” on November 18th.

We all know WordPress works great for personal blogs and affiliate marketers, but WordPress is being used more and more for company web sites. Whether it be agencies building sites for clients, companies selling digital goods, or university departments providing instructional content, many designers and developers at these organizations use WordPress as part of their day jobs. Our panelists will discuss their experience using WordPress in their Workplace.

Location:

Hickory Street Annex
501 Second Avenue
Dallas, Texas 75226

Looks like an interesting trip worth a drive up to Dallas. Free, with a suggested $5 donation for pizza. More info & registration here.