Tag Archives: Launches

The New “Learn WordPress” Launches. Here’s What I Like About It

[ad_1] If you haven’t checked out Learn WordPress lately, it’s probably a good idea to do it today. This free educational hub has just had a serious glow-up, and I’m here to give you the scoop on why it’s worth your attention. 👋 What’s Learn WordPress, anyway? For those who might not know, Learn WordPress has been around since 2020, offering free lessons, tutorials, and other training material for anyone looking to level up their WordPress game. The platform was okay (I guess), but the design and content organization left a lot to be desired. A reminder of what the old design was: Fresh new look, better content organization and experience! Thanks to the hard work of the Training, Design, Marketing, and Meta teams of WordPress contributors 👏, we can all now witness the birth of the new Learn WordPress; and it’s looking quite sharp! It’s not just about good looks, though. The whole site feels more intuitive now. You know how frustrating it can be to hunt for the right resource on a cluttered website, and especially when we’re talking things like training materials, right? But what has happened here goes beyond simple redesign. The team also did a lot to improve the content offering and overall organization of the platform. Most notably, we now have: “Learning Pathways” Quite simply, those are your “getting started” points based on your current understanding of WordPress and where you want to go with it. In other words, instead of there being just a bunch of random courses, there’s now a better organization at the top level that makes it much easier to pick the material that’s best tailored to you. When you go to learn.wordpress.org, the first thing that jumps right at you is a nice section that lets you make one of two choices – there’s “Develop with WordPress” and “Start using WordPress.” This seems like a good top-level organization, since most people dealing with WordPress are either users or developers. Plus, the user pathway also creates other opportunities for how this platform can be used (more on that in a sec). The courses Entering either of these pathways shows you a couple of more options and the courses available (for now). Granted, not a huge choice as of now, but what’s there is already surprisingly useful (in my opinion, at least). To take a course, all you need is a WordPress.org account. And, of course, it’s all free. The learning platform itself is neatly organized – it’s basically a classic LMS website structure, but done really cleanly and accessibly. I was wondering what actually runs the LMS underneath, so I did some digging in the project’s GIT, to find out that it’s Sensei PRO. The lessons that are currently there have been put together nicely, with good editing, and highlighting the most important parts of the lesson. Or, to say it another way, even though the ones I checked are basic screen recordings with added commentary on top, they do deliver all the content very nicely. This makes me hopeful for the future of the project overall and the value it can bring to the community. All the lessons right now are technically hosted on YouTube, so I could just embed them here, but I choose not to do that – not to take away from the complete course experience you get with the platform. Practice yourself What’s also unique about this WordPress course is that it allows learners to practice on a private demo site, which is powered by, yes, you’ve guessed it, WordPress Playground. This one’s cool, since you can do all your learning and experimentation there, without having to deal with any “difficult WordPress setup” (although there have been people who installed WordPress on Raspberry Pi in the past – we know those people(!)). Plus, if need be, you can export your work at the end. License and potential The courses are also licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, which is a notable detail. I’m no lawyer, but that license allows you to “copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially” and “remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially,” which means that the courses there can serve as a foundation of your own work, plus you can use them to educate your users/clients/team/colleagues. Check it out! In the end, I encourage you to check out “Learn WordPress,” click around, get a feel for what’s there, and see how you might integrate the material into what you’re working on. Just to give you one example of what you could do; there’s a pathway called “Intermediate Theme Developer,” which goes through the current ins and outs of working on themes, including some newer developments in the WordPress platform. Many of the videos in the course were added as recently as two months ago. The WordPress team isn’t stopping here. They’re planning more pathways, including ones for designers and contributors. So if you don’t see exactly what you’re looking for yet, keep an eye out – it might be coming soon. As someone who’s been around the WordPress block a few times, I’m genuinely impressed with this update. It shows a real commitment to education and community support, which has always been at the heart of WordPress’ success! … Don’t forget to join our crash course on speeding up your WordPress site. Learn more below: Sources: Was this article helpful? No Thanks for your feedback! Or start the conversation in our Facebook group for WordPress professionals. 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Hosted WooCommerce Solution Coming to WordPress.com in 2023, Following Recent Launches from GoDaddy and Bluehost – WP Tavern

[ad_1] WooSesh kicked off this week with a keynote session from WooCommerce CEO Paul Maiorana, who gave an overview of the current state of the ecosystem. More than 3.4 million websites use WooCommerce, according to Builtwith, including 25% of the top million online stores. It is by far the most popular solution among WordPress sites with e-commerce, capturing 93% of the market share. Maiorana covered some industry-wide trends taking shape in 2023. WooCommerce merchants are uncertain about the economy and while some are optimistic, others do not see it improving soon. Although growth has slowed since the pandemic-fueled rapid acceleration towards e-commerce in 2021, Maiorana said revenues are projected to gain steadily through 2025. WooCommerce core is entering a transformative time, as the new admin has been fully merged and Cart and Checkout blocks are now part of core (in beta). The plugin is becoming more block friendly with more than 40 blocks available now. WooCommerce has seen a 319% increase in the usage of block themes and is aiming to have full out-of-the-box compatibility with any block-based theme. The Market for Hosted WooCommerce Products Is Heating Up One of the biggest announcements from the event was that WooCommerce is developing its own hosted, turnkey solution in collaboration with hosting partners. WordPress.com will be the first to pilot the product in February 2023. Maiorana said the goal of the solution is to improve onboarding and retention with the following : WooCommerce pre-installed, activated, and hosted A pre-packaged set of essential plugins Simplified onboarding that works with partners’ systems to improve conversion Competitive monthly price to reduce churn Co-marketing and revenue share with hosts WooCommerce’s hosted solution will be in direct competition with other hosts that have recently launched their own products. In November 2021, GoDaddy acquired Pagely with the intent to deploy a new SaaS WooCommerce product. Pagely was paired with previous 2020 acquisitions of Poynt, a payment processor, and SkyVerge, a popular WooCommerce plugin development company, to create an integrated solution. Last month, GoDaddy launched an open access preview of Managed WooCommerce Stores to US-based customers. GoDaddy’s solution boasts the ability to sync across marketplaces, including Amazon, eBay, Google, Walmart, Etsy, and YouTube, with a single dashboard managing payment processing, marketing, shipping, and inventory. It is integrated with GoDaddy Payments for both online and in-person transactions, which incur a transaction fee of 2.3% + 30¢. The hosted WooCommerce preview plans range from $99.99/month – $249.99/month. At WooSesh today, Beka Rice, Senior Director of Product Management at GoDaddy, gave an overview of multichannel and omnichannel sales for e-commerce merchants during her presentation. Enabling multichannel store management seems to be one of the main selling points of GoDaddy’s offering. Bluehost is another recent contender in the managed WooCommerce hosting space, having launched its product last month. In March, Newfold Digital, Bluehost’s parent company, acquired YITH,  a WordPress plugin company with more than 100 WooCommerce extensions. Bluehost’s managed WooCommerce packages include a curated set of YITH plugins to help merchants extend their stores to offer gift cards, bookings and appointments, wishlists, product filtering, and more. Bluehost offers two plans. For the first year, when billed yearly, customers pay $9.95/month for a simple store or $12.95/month for selling across various marketplaces. Customers on the more expensive plan have the option to manage product inventory across Etsy, Amazon and eBay from a consolidated dashboard via Ecomdash. At the budget end of the WooCommerce hosting spectrum, Bluehost’s offering has an emphasis on creating a user-friendly, guided onboarding experience. Bluehost conducted an internal research study last year and found that its small business customers were looking for solutions that would allow them to sell online, but many of them are first-time website creators. The company created this new WooCommerce offering to eliminate the hassle of navigating themes and the many plugins required to launch a store. Bluehost uses YITH’s Wonder theme as the stores starting theme, which we reviewed in August. “Our theme is built for WordPress, utilizes the block structure that modern WordPress websites are beginning to adopt (one of the early block-basedWooCommerce block themes) and also includes three full-page patterns for different homepage layouts and designs,” Newfold Digital SVP of Digital Presence and Commerce Jason Cross said. “This not only provides users with a modern looking store, but also allows them to continue to customize it with ease in the future. YITH Wonder comes with six different style variations that make it easy to customize the accent color combinations and typography for the site.” Bluehost’s offering is aimed at catering to the merchants who will be building the stores themselves. The company has not created its own payments solution but connects to popular payment providers such as PayPal and Stripe and offers cash on delivery and in-store pickup options. WooCommerce is at the start of its journey towards launching a hosted solution but the company also plays a different role in the ecosystem as the maintainer of the core software. In an interview with the Tavern after his keynote, Maiorana said the vast majority (+90%) of ongoing WooCommerce core development is done by the WooCommerce team at Automattic. “One important difference is that we are really focused on the WooCommerce ecosystem – including the thousands of web hosts that help support and drive WordPress and Woo adoption across the globe – as our most important ‘customer,’” he said. “And what we’re hearing from these customers is that it is challenging to compete with the simplicity offered by proprietary, turnkey e-commerce solutions. At the same time, many web hosts don’t have the capabilities to address things like onboarding, conversion, and retention holistically – they need our help to compete and win.” Many of the major hosting companies that serve WordPress customers, like WP Engine, GoDaddy, and Bluehost have already developed their own hosted WooCommerce solutions, although there are many smaller companies that do not offer curated plugins, themes, and friendly onboarding that may be more open to partnering with the makers of WooCommerce. “We’re also working with

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Open Collective Launches New Way to Support Open Source through Public Stock Shares – WP Tavern

[ad_1] It’s no secret that companies are making loads of cash using open source technology. A 2021 survey of 1,250 IT leaders commissioned by Red Hat found that 90% are using enterprise open source software. Following the trail of major acquisitions (Red Hat at $34B, GitHub at $7.5B, and MuleSoft $6.5B), it’s becoming more common to see companies built on open source valued at billions of dollars. With so much invested in open source infrastructure, many companies will assign employees to work on specific important issues for the projects they depend on, or hire them to support these projects full-time. This is an effective way to support maintainers when it works out but sometimes projects need to be able to funnel support to those who can further the software but who don’t happen to work for one of these corporations. Open Collective is exploring a new way for individuals and companies to give back to the projects they use by donating public stock. The new initiative is called Open Stocks. It allows donors to support open source without having to pay capital gains tax on the appreciated amount of their stocks, which is up to 37% for those based in the US. They receive a tax write-off at the current market value of the stock. Donating some of those profits is one way to lessen the tax burden for capital gains while keeping the open source software alive that made the public stock possible in the first place. Open Stocks is using Overflow, a VC-backed philanthropy platform, to streamline the stock donation process, which may have the potential to increase the average donation amount for open source projects. The startup claims “the average stock donation through Overflow is 47X the average online ACH/debit/credit donation.” Here is how it works: Donors select the open source collective they want to support and then proceed to the checkout process, which happens on the Overflow website app. Donors are asked to connect directly to their brokerage account by authenticating through the app. The Open Source Collective team will receive the donated stock converted to cash and the cash is then transferred automatically to the specified project’s balance with a public contribution notice on their page. It is not very clear up front for donors what fees they will have deducted from their total donation. Open Collective did not publish this information, and it wasn’t available on the Overflow website. Open Collective co-founders were not immediately available for comment on this. All currently-registered collectives are automatically able to receive stock donations. The announcement hints at future support for non-traditional forms of payment: Stocks and shares are a huge part of the economic power of traditional geopolitical structures, and while we believe that equivalent access to those structures is a positive move for the communities we support we can’t ignore that the world is changing… how we embrace and organize around that change may have an even bigger impact on our work.  Open Collective co-founder Pia Mancini confirmed on Twitter that donation via cryptocurrencies is next on deck for the organization in its efforts to support open source creators. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Gravity Forms Launches INPUT YouTube Channel and Podcast – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Gravity Forms has launched a new YouTube channel and podcast called INPUT, which will focus on sharing the stories and experiences of people inside and outside the WordPress ecosystem. James Giroux, a Rocketgenius employee who joined the company in 2020, is the host of the show and will be interviewing guests from various industries and disciplines. The first episode is a deep dive into the history of Gravity Forms, one of the most successful WordPress plugin companies that has been operating for 14 years. Its founders share a nostalgic look back at the early days of Rocketgenius, including the story of their first sale and first hire. They also discussed how the Gutenberg era marks a major shift in WordPress that has impacted the future of the Gravity Forms. The average WordPress user is decidedly no longer a developer who knows how to tinker with PHP, but is now more often a content creator or power user. As the barrier to WordPress development is getting higher, the Gravity Forms team is focusing on making the product easier to use for non-developers but still powerful for those capable of extending it. The episode is part of what Giroux calls a 3T sub-series (team, tools, and techniques) that will feature discussions about the company’s product, marketing, operations, culture, and ecosystem. The next sub-series is called Agency101 and will feature topics related to agency life for both small and large companies. Brad Miller from 10up will be the first guest of that series. “The third is a bit of a departure, but we’re interviewing people outside of the WordPress ecosystem in a sub-series called ‘The Story Of…,’” Giroux said. “The episode after Brad’s is with the lead singer of Anberlin, who have sold over 1M albums and have charted multiple times on the Billboard Rock charts. The idea behind this series is to introduce WordPress problem-solvers (developers, agencies, freelancers, etc.) to new industries and perhaps create some opportunities for new ideas and products to spring up in support of them.” Giroux also plans to chat with TV show creators/hosts, radio broadcasters, inventors, and others to create a well-rounded mix of shows that appeal to everyday WordPress users as well as those who are deeply involved in contributing. “To me, the WordPress lifestyle is that feeling you get when you show up to a WordCamp or meetup and see other WordPressers,” Giroux said. “It’s about rocking the t-shirt, celebrating unique and diverse voices, promoting a WWW that is accessible to all, inspiring and being inspired by creativity and how WordPress powers us to do great things. There’s a little Wapuu in all of us and Input, I hope, will be a space where we can celebrate that.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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WP Engine Launches Faust.js, a New Headless WordPress Framework – WP Tavern

[ad_1] WP Engine has launched Faust.js, a new headless framework that is open source and designed to work in any Node hosting environment. The framework is built on Next.js, which can handle both static site generation and server side rendering. It uses GraphQL for data fetching and is the only framework that allows developers to query the WPGraphQL API without having to know GraphQL queries ahead of time. Faust.js was in its earlier stages when WP Engine hired WPGraphQL creator and maintainer Jason Bahl. The company has been heavily investing in headless infrastructure development, hiring more engineers for projects aimed at reducing the friction of using WordPress as a headless CMS. This is the main thrust of the new framework – to allow developers to build scalable, better performing sites with modern frontend tools while preserving WordPress’ rich publishing experience. Faust.js includes content previews, support for custom post types, and built-in authentication to support paywalls, e-commerce, membership sites, and other functionality that has traditionally been difficult for headless sites. How does Faust.js differ from existing headless solutions like the React-based Frontity framework? Developers building headless sites are curious after Automattic acquired Frontity and the framework’s maintainers exited to work full-time on Gutenberg. Using a community-supported headless framework can be a risky bet for enterprise clients when its creators and maintainers are no longer able to contribute. “Frontity and Faust are similar, the main difference is that Frontity focuses on providing a framework on-top of React where Faust is primarily built with Next.js support in-mind,” Faust.js creator William Johnston said. “This small distinction is meaningful and means when you are using Faust you can take advantage of all the amazing benefits of Next. It also lets Faust focus specifically on how to make Headless WordPress a better experience, without having to come up with a comprehensive solution for front-end, node-base, static/server-side applications.“ When asked how Faust stacks up to Frontity in a comment on Reddit, WP Engine developer relations engineer Kellen Mace highlighted a few other major differences between the frameworks. Frontity only works with the WP REST API and Faust uses WPGraphQL “for more efficient queries.” “Technically, Faust is built in ‘layers,’ so even if you choose to build your frontend app using SvelteKit, Nuxt, etc. you can still leverage several of the tools Faust provides,” Mace said. “We’ll have more documentation coming out on using it with other JS frameworks in the near future. Using it with Next.js gives you the most ‘bang for your buck,’ however.” Johnston confirmed that certain elements of Faust (the core/React pieces), are already working with the React-based GatsbyJS framework. Faust is less opinionated about the frontend and is more centered around making the WordPress publishing experience better. A demo of Faust in action is available at developers.wpengine.com. The framework, which includes NPM packages and a WordPress plugin, can be found on GitHub, but its maintainers caution that there will be breaking changes in the future. Developers who are interested in learning more about Faust.js can check out the documentation or listen to the most recent episode of the DE{CODE} podcast where Johnston discusses headless WordPress and introduces the framework. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Konstantin Kovshenin Launches Sail, a CLI Tool for Deploying to Digital Ocean – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Last week, Konstantin Kovshenin launched Sail, a CLI tool for deploying WordPress applications to the DigitalOcean cloud. The project is free to use and open source. However, he has plans for an upgraded premium experience down the road. Kovshenin cited speed and efficiency as the two primary reasons developers should give his new tool a try. “You don’t need to wander around web UIs to launch a new server and install WordPress. You just sail init. You don’t need to open your SFTP GUI client to upload changes to your application. You just sail deploy.” He also said that because it is a simple CLI, it will integrate well with existing developer tools and services like Gulp, webpack, GitHub Actions, and more. “I’m a DIY guy when it comes to WordPress hosting, so I like to get my hands dirty with servers, code, configuration, and everything else,” wrote Kovshenin in the announcement post. “I’ve been using virtual servers at DigitalOcean for small WordPress projects for a very long time, and it’s great, and also very affordable.” He had grown annoyed doing routine maintenance and configuring servers for new projects. This led him to write many scripts for handling each piece of this over the years. Over the past couple of months, he cleaned them up and packaged them as a single CLI tool called Sail. It works across Linux, macOS, and Windows. While he lists some advantages of using Sail over the competition in the announcement post, he thinks the benefits come from using Sail with other developer tools. “For example, if you already use Git and GitHub, Sail can automatically deploy your application whenever you push to your main branch,” he said. “If your project is built with Gulp and webpack, you can ask npm to deploy your application after a successful build.” The CLI tool does not make assumptions about the development environment. Developers are free to use whatever setup they are accustomed to, such as Vagrant/VirtualBox, XAMP/MAMP, Local, Docker, or a custom setup. “You can use it without a local development environment at all and just cowboy-code your way through, and Sail will help you deploy with confidence and roll back when you’re overly confident,” he said. The following is a short video demo: The Future of Sail For the short term, Sail only works with DigitalOcean. However, Kovshenin plans to support more providers down the road as he looks into “more complex architectures.” However, he said it is not a high priority at the moment. “DigitalOcean has the best documentation, hands down,” he said. “The simplicity of their APIs just blows you away. And that simplicity extends to their pricing as well, which made it quite an obvious choice.” While the tool is free, he will offer a Sail Premium service. There is currently no launch date for it. Kovshenin said he was gauging overall interest before diving in. However, he does have an Early Access signup form. Those who use it will gain free passes during the beta period and possibly a discount at launch. Right now, his focus is on building the core Sail features, which he says will always be free. “The biggest new feature I’m excited about right now is Blueprints,” said Kovshenin. “This is going to be a YAML manifest file, which will describe the desired application environment and state, including which WordPress plugins to install and activate, which themes and settings, as well as any additional server software and configuration, such as mail, firewall, etc. And to get all of this you’ll just need to specify the blueprint file to sail init.” The goal is to allow users to build, reuse, and even share their blueprints. Sail itself will even make common configurations available. A single blueprint could include WooCommerce, Stripe, Storefront, Jetpack, Redis object caching, mail relay via MailGun, and more. “Other features on the list include sub-projects, staging/cloning, automatic and remote backups, profiling, monitoring, and malware/vulnerability scanning,” said Kovshenin. He is hoping for more feedback on missing features that could make the project more useful for others. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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InstaWP Launches New Service for Disposable WordPress Testing Sites – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Competition in the sandboxing products space is heating with the entrance of InstaWP, a new service for setting up disposable WordPress testing sites. Founder Vikas Singhal created the tool to provide a quick way to set up live testing sites online or to show something to a client or team. InstaWP joins the ranks of services like TasteWP and WPSandbox but with a few unique options. At setup, users can select from WordPress versions back to 4.7 and may even choose to spin up a site using the latest beta or release candidate. Like other services, InstaWP allows you to choose your PHP version. The ability to disable WP cache and browser cache is coming soon. Users can create a custom name for their sites or leave it blank for a randomly generated name. Free WordPress instances stay live for 8 hours, and users can link their accounts via email to extend it to 48 hours. InstaWP, not to be confused with InstantWP, a local WordPress installation tool, was built on an nginx + Apache server without any containers. Singhal said he found containers to be too heavy for this particular use case. He runs a WordPress plugin/theme shop along with an agency on the side, both of which could benefit from InstaWP’s quick testing sites. “I wanted to build a solution for ourselves where we can quickly launch WP instances for a variety of reasons – testing a feature of WP, testing a plugin/theme, testing in different versions of WP/PHP and last but not the least – creating an ‘instant’ test environment for the clients for them to test our plugins/themes,” he said. Singhal started InstaWP a month ago and received so much positive feedback on Reddit and from the Post Status community that he hired two dedicated developers to work on the project. Testers have commented on how fast the service spins up sites. Version 1.1.0 introduced Slack integration, which allows users to instantly set up a site by typing /wp in Slack. The release also added WordPress admin auto login for quick access without username and password. InstaWP has a public road map. Features on deck for future releases include the following: Slack and cli commands Download Files and DB Backup from the UI Direct push to FTP or cPanel nginx and nginx + Apache configurations Finer controls on PHP settings Save configurations for instant launch of pre-configured WP Integrations with hosting providers Map custom domains Multiple servers around the world (USA, Singapore, London, etc.) Singhal said he was aware of TasteWP as a competitor but plans to differentiate InstaWP based on simplicity and feature set. “My vision with InstaWP is make it a default tool for WP learners, enthusiasts, freelancers, and agencies – basically everyone,” he said. Singhal plans to monetize the tool for both end-users and plugin and theme authors. Users will have to upgrade to gain access to increased limits, custom domains, FTP access, and the ability to reserve a site. WordPress product authors can upgrade to provide 1-click demos to their clients and prospective customers. Singhal said so far more than 500 instances have been created and teams from Yoast and some agencies are already using the tool. Several prominent WordPress businesses have requested agency pricing that would allow their users to test their plugins via a 1-click preconfigured install. The service is still under active development and Singhal plans to iron out pricing in the near future. Testers who have suggestions for InstaWP can log them on the tool’s idea board for future consideration. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Gatsby WP Themes Launches New Marketplace – WP Tavern

[ad_1] The Gatsby WP Themes project has launched a new marketplace for developers who are building WordPress-powered sites with Gatsby on the frontend. Originally founded by Zac Gordon and Alexandra Spalato, the commercial venture is now primarily managed by Spalato and Paulina Hetman. The team’s first project involved porting the Twenty Twenty WordPress Theme to a Gatsby WP Theme. They are now focused on creating commercial themes targeted at developers and agencies who can use them to save time when building clients’ sites. Gatsby is more well-suited to sites that don’t have a lot of dynamic content, such as marketing or documentation sites. Gatsby WP Themes is launching with several starter themes with different styles for each child theme. They include designs suitable for blogs, personal sites, businesses, restaurants, and portfolios. Gatsby themes have several distinct advantages over just grabbing a starter or boilerplate Gatsby site from GitHub. Spaloto identified a few reasons why developers might opt for using a theme: Gatsby themes allow Gatsby site functionality to be packaged as a standalone product for reuse. All of your default configuration lives in an npm package. Themes are versioned packages that can be updated like any other package. If you created multiple sites using the same theme, you can just update the central theme to push changes across all of them. Themes are composable: You can install a blog theme alongside a notes theme, alongside an e-commerce theme (and so forth). All themes in the new Gatsby WP Themes marketplace include built-in support for dynamic comments, search, Mailchimp integration, sitemaps, Google analytics or Google Tag Manager, and various widgets. The marketplace also includes Gatsby plugins that make popular WordPress plugins more compatible with Gatsby frontends. The current offerings add support for Contact Form 7, lightbox functionality, and Yoast SEO. Spalato and Hetman are aiming at connecting with WordPress users who don’t code, those who don’t know React but want to use Gatsby, agencies, developers, and marketers. They have not promoted the marketplace much but already have more than 800 subscribers on Mailchimp. The team plans to release new themes and/or starters frequently as they continue building up their catalog of products. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Jetpack Launches New Mobile App – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Automattic has launched a new mobile app for Jetpack, available on iOS and Android. The app features an array of Jetpack-specific features, as well as those applicable to users on paid plans, along with core WordPress features. Inside it looks nearly identical to the official WordPress mobile apps, but it is noticeably missing WordPress.com specific features like the Reader. The bottom menu links to “My Site” and “Notifications.” Those who are on paid Jetpack plans will have access to features like backups, restores, and security scanning for use inside the app when on the go. It also includes the same Activity Log and Stats features found in the main WordPress app. In its current state, it doesn’t look like the app offers anything more than what you are used to on the standard mobile apps unless you are a paid Jetpack customer. So far, the app doesn’t include any upgrade paths for free users or to jump from plan to plan. If Automattic decides to add in-app purchases, it will have to share the revenue with the app stores. Having a separate app from the official mobile apps gives the company the option to build in more direct paths for monetization in the future. You may want to stick with the official WordPress apps if you manage both WordPress.com and Jetpack-enabled sites, to keep everything conveniently in the same place. If you decide to use both apps, you will want to remove your Jetpack sites from the main WordPress app so that you aren’t getting double notifications from having the site accessible through both apps. Automattic’s integrated products remain controversial features of the official WordPress apps. It is a good move to separate self-hosted Jetpack sites from the clutter of having WordPress.com-specific features in the app, but it does little for improving the official app’s experience for self-hosted users who are not using Jetpack. Clicking on Stats in the app still prompts users to install Jetpack when managing self-hosted sites. The Reader menu item is ever-present at the bottom of the page. These products take up screen real estate regardless of whether they are being used. A toggle to turn off these features in the app’s settings might be a good stop-gap measure towards disentanglement, but ultimately the official mobile apps should not promote any commercial interests. If Automattic moved WordPress.com features into the Jetpack app, then anyone using the company’s products could be directed to this app for managing their sites. The official WordPress app could then be kept free of any products that the user doesn’t choose to install. If the vanilla state of the app is not enough, users can be prompted to add themes and plugins to enhance the WordPress experience. The Jetpack app is aimed at people who have sites using Jetpack but don’t need the WordPress.com features that are built into the official WordPress apps. It brings more value to those who are on paid plans and want access to those features on the go. More than 500 people have already downloaded the Android app. It will be interesting to see if Jetpack users will gravitate towards the new app or remain on the standard WordPress app for more centralized management of Jetpack and non-Jetpack enabled websites. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Google Launches Search Console Insights, a User-Friendly Content Performance Overview – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Google Analytics is powerful if you know exactly what kind of metrics you want to investigate, it but can be overwhelming if you just need a simple overview of your traffic and referrals. Search Console Insights is a new tool from the Google Web Creators team that is aimed at making content performance easier to understand at a glance. It combines data from Search Console and Google Analytics for a user-friendly overview of important metrics for content creators. Search Console Insights can help users quickly ascertain which pieces are their best performing content, how new pieces are performing, and how people are discovering the site. Clicking on the little academic cap icon offers more information about understanding the data and tips for improving content engagement and performance. The first section shows a site’s content performance trend for the past 28 days using page views and page view duration. The next card displays a carousel of new content with page views, average page view duration, and badges for content that has high average duration compared to other content on the site. Other cards include the most popular content within the past 28 days, top traffic channels, top Google Search queries, referring links from other websites, and social media. The performance cards are not configurable but they give you a starting point if you want to dig deeper into Google Analytics. It would be helpful if each graph was linked to more data where you could adjust the date range. Search Console Insights doesn’t include all the features unless you are using Google Analytics and associate it with your site’s Search Console property. Users can access the tool’s overview page by visiting the link directly. In the near future, Search Console Insights will be available in the iOS and Android Google apps when you tap your profile picture. The tool is now in beta but Google plans to roll the experience out gradually to all Search Console users in the coming days. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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