{"id":33122,"date":"2017-12-05T15:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T21:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/?p=33122"},"modified":"2020-12-23T17:30:50","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T23:30:50","slug":"the-state-of-the-word-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/the-state-of-the-word-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights From The State of The Word 2017 by Matt Mullenweg"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past weekend, at WordCamp US 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee, WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg offered top accomplishments, current open projects, and future goals for WordPress in 2017. For those that couldn\u2019t attend, we\u2019ve compiled the highlights from the year\u2019s State of The Word.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mullenweg noted that attendance at WordCamps and Meetups has increased significantly in 2017. He attributed this \u00a064.9 % uptick in Meetups and 6.8% uptick in WordCamps attendance to the release of the <\/span>Events Widget <\/span><\/a>in WordPress 4.8.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

WordPress now powers 29% of the web!<\/strong><\/p>\n

128 WordCamps in <\/span>48 countries worldwide <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

39,625<\/b> tickets, <\/span>1,008<\/b> organizers <\/span><\/p>\n

2,310<\/b> speakers,<\/span> 1,091<\/b> sponsors <\/span><\/p>\n

4,379<\/b> Meetups in <\/span>73 <\/b>countries \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

99,301<\/b> Meetup attendees <\/span><\/p>\n

Giving Back<\/h3>\n

The WordPress Foundation supports the international community in many ways including donations to educational opportunities within the WordPress community which included a $15,000 donation to <\/span>Hack the Hood<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Internet Archive<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Black Girls Code<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

WordPress also sponsored <\/span>do_action<\/span><\/a> events in 4 cities. These events are <\/span>community-organized hackathon events that are focused on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organizations their own online presence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In May 2017, WordPress launched <\/span>hackerone<\/span><\/a>, a bug bounty system. <\/span>52<\/b> WordPress bugs were resolved thanks to <\/span>46<\/b> hackers on using hackerone. Mullenweg revealed that as hackerone gets more sophisticated and WordPress continues to get more secure, the plan is to apply it to the top plugins and themes as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

WordPress.org<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

WordPress.org<\/a> launched a brand new homepage for over 26 different language so that people all over the world are introduced to WordPress in a stylish, up-to-date way. WordPress.org is now equipped with 47,350<\/strong> active plugins which have been downloaded 633,274,305<\/strong> times. WordPress has grown in its ability to reach global audiences with 1,166<\/strong> themes with a language pack and 2,023<\/strong> plugins with a language pack.<\/p>\n

Tide<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To ensure a more reliable and secure open web, XWP<\/a> has introduced\u00a0Tide, a service consisting of an API, Audit Server, and Sync Server, working in tandem to run a series of automated tests against the WordPress.org plugin and theme directories. Scores generated by Tide represent the overall quality of code for plugin or theme.<\/p>\n

WordPress Growth Council<\/h3>\n

Huge masses of money are being spent on proprietary systems that compete against WordPress. In order to combat this and further enable the growth of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg announces the first meeting of the WordPress Growth Council. The council will bring together organizations that would like to contribute to growing WordPress.<\/p>\n

Let’s Encrypt<\/h3>\n

\"\"With the assistance of Let’s Encrypt<\/a>, a certificate authority who is making HTTPS ubiquitous by providing free SSL\/TLS certificates and the adoption from hosts like WP Engine, 36% of all WordPress sites in the world are over HTTPS.<\/p>\n

Releases<\/h2>\n

Mullenweg set the tone for the three large focuses for 2017 in his 2016 State of the Word: editing, customization, and the REST API. He discussed the current state of each in 2017.<\/p>\n

Customization<\/h3>\n

Weston Ruter, Mel Choyce and Jeff Paul led the advancements in the customization focus. Mel and Weston discussed the what was noteworthy in WordPress 4.8 and 4.9.<\/p>\n

4.8<\/strong><\/p>\n