At the WordCamp US 2015 conference, Matt Mullenweg delivered the annual State of The Word address, focusing on WordPress accomplishments over the past year as well as what to expect in the future.
For the past two years, I’ve watched the State of the Word address on livestream. This year, I watched it in person, four rows from the front of the ballroom at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Takeaways from The State of the Word
WordCamps and Meetups
- One thousand eight hundred and one tickets were sold this year for WordCamp US 2015, making WordCamp US the biggest WordCamp ever
- In 2015, there were 89 WordCamps with over 21,000 attendees in 34 countries. WordCamps were organized by 601 organizers, of which 60 percent were first timers. 1,600 speakers presented 2,100 sessions.
- Forty thousand people attended 2,000 meetup events
- WordCamp US 2016 will be in Philadelphia on December 2 to 4, 2016
WordPress in 2015
- All themes and plugins support language packs with community-based translations
- “Milestones: The Story of WordPress” will be released Friday, December 11, 2015 with over 50 interviews
- Plugin directory passed one billion downloads
- Nine thousand plugins were added
- Forty-nine percent of all WordPress in the world are on the latest release
- WordPress.tv is now open source. Find a bug, you can patch, and update the code.
- Twenty Fifteen is the most popular WordPress theme of all time
- 205 accessibility tickets completed, representing an 80% increase from last year
- Twenty-five percent of the web runs on WordPress
- WordPress 4.4 is expected to ship Tuesday December 8, 2015 and will support responsive images. There were more than 400 contributors on version 4.4.
Survey Results
When asked about the annual survey results during the Q & A session, Mullenweg said the info was similar to past years’ results.
I was disappointed there were no results to share; it’s one of the reasons I watch the State of the Word. I like to learn about the people who use WordPress, what they use it for, statistics about sites, and more.
From what Mullenweg said, a blog post will be published soon with survey results.
Future Plans for WordPress
- Leads for upcoming WordPress versions are: Mike Schroeder will lead 4.5, Dominick Schilling will lead 4.6, Matt Mullenweg will lead 4.7
- WordPress.org is going to become an oAuth provider
- Customization is the biggest opportunity for improving WordPress user experience
- Mullenweg gave homework to everyone at WordCamp US 2015: Learn JavaScript deeply.
- WordPress.org is going to become an oAuth provider
- Customization is the biggest opportunity for improving WordPress user experience
- Mullenweg gave homework to everyone at WordCamp US 2015: Learn JavaScript deeply.
