Episode Details

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We have to start this week’s news with coverage of WordPress’ 20th birthday. Our beloved CMS officially reached the milestone on Saturday, May 27. Dozens of celebratory events were held around the world. You can even sign an online birthday card as part of the #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks campaign.

Meanwhile, there is some special content worth checking out. First, WordPress co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little joined Drupal founder Dries Buytaert for a conversation on open source, AI, and the future of the web.

And if you’d like to read about the last 10 years of WordPress history, take a look at Building Blocks: The Evolution of WordPress. The online book serves as the second volume in a series.

Not surprisingly, the WordPress community also shared their thoughts via blog posts. That’s how this whole thing got started, right?

Among the highlights:

• 
  WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy shared an ode to the WordPress community’s role in the project’s success;
• Sarah Gooding of WP Tavern reflected on the impact of WordPress and outlines future challenges;
• HeroPress founder Topher DeRosia looked back at his start in blogging and what WordPress has meant to him;

For more coverage of the big celebration, check out the #WP20 hashtag on Twitter.

Links You Shouldn’t Miss

WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg wrote a short post regarding his creation’s 20th anniversary. And he also announced the Audrey Scholars program. The aim is to provide 100% scholarships to selected members. There are currently 13 scholars in the program, which renews annually. All are encouraged to apply, although the focus will be on “children of parents or guardians who have contributed significantly to open source, or have been significant in our principal Matt Mullenweg’s life.” Audrey Scholars is run by Audrey Capital, Mullenweg’s angel investment and research company.

Does Automattic have a top-secret AI plugin in the works? Author Seth Godin recently discussed such a tool on the Tim Ferris Podcast. The WP Minute’s Matt Medeiros took a closer look at how important AI will be to WordPress. He even makes a guess at this new item Godin referred to as the “single best use I have seen of Chat GPT or whatever they’re using.”

European service provider group.one has acquired popular WordPress SEO plugin Rank Math. The free version of the plugin currently boasts over 2 million active installations. This a deeper dive into WordPress for group.one, as they also own web host one.com and the WP Rocket optimization plugin.<