Historically, the week between Christmas and New Years brings in the lowest traffic of the year. This makes it the perfect time to try out new things on your site without risking the loss of customers or upsetting readers. If something breaks, there are fewer eyes on it, giving you more freedom to experiment a little. Add some new plugins, fix something you’ve been putting off, or try out that design element you’ve been wanting to. Now is the time to make sure everything is running perfectly for the new year. To assist with these big changes, brands from around the WordPress […]

With snow lightly falling in downtown Nashville, Matt Mullenweg took the stage for his annual State of the Word address. The speech wrapped up another successful WordCamp US 2018 full of talks, networking, and fun. Mullenweg began by letting WordPress reintroduce itself. Reminding the community it was built on the constitution and is powered by the community. “It is both free and priceless,” he said. Gutenberg After stating the reasons we are all here, Mullenweg played some user test videos of the current editor. “Suffice it to say, this editor experience is not working for us,” Mullenweg said. The solution […]

In January 2017, Matt Mullenweg announced the Gutenberg project. A project that would change the way people created websites and content in WordPress. After nearly two years, Gutenberg has been merged with core in WordPress 5.0. A long time coming The WISIWYG editor hasn’t had a massive update in over 15 years. Gutenberg introduces a block-based editing system. Developers can make custom blocks which will save time when creating posts. Designers can customize their sites even more than ever before. The idea is to make it easier for first-time users to get a handle on WordPress, and create beautiful sites […]

Five years ago Torque was created as a way to teach and communicate with the community. Ever since then, our community has grown and evolved. We want to carry on the tradition of community interaction by inviting you to participate in a survey to help make Torque better. We want to hear what you like and don’t like about the site and what kind of content is your favorite. Take the survey here. The survey closes December 2, so make sure to get your answers in soon. We can’t wait to hear from you!

At WordCamp Europe this year, Automattician John Maeda, shared his idea for the Automattic Design Awards. The crowd cheered and thus the idea was born. Maeda teamed up with Simon Cooke from Pragmatic shortly to create a way to recognize amazing designs made with WordPress. Maeda and Cooke gathered a jury of digital agency and design leaders in the community to find the best designs out there. The team is looking for developer-led design projects that highlight accessibility. Not only from the front-end UX side but also in the backgrounds of entrees. Deadline to enter is November 16, 2018 at 23:00 […]

More and more people are ditching their desktops for phones and tablets. If your site doesn’t display properly on mobile, you run the risk at falling behind your competitors. According to Global Product Partnership, Barb Palsner, the median mobile web experience has grown almost 1,000 percent in the last eight years. That is a staggering number. It’s clear mobile users can’t be ignored. It’s not enough to allow for your site to work on mobile, you have to cater to these users specifically. Just because you have an agile desktop site doesn’t mean it will translate to a phone or […]

The Genesis Framework has changed the way themes are created and makes it easy and fast to build beautiful and professional looking websites. Now, the Genesis team at StudioPress is looking to expand on their vision and improve their product, and they want your help. If you use Genesis you’re invited to take part in the Genesis Community Survey, a set of a few short questions aimed at understanding the needs of the Genesis community and the ways they’re using the framework. If you have a friend or colleague who uses Genesis, please share the survey with them too! Questions […]

WordPress is the most powerful and customizable CMS on the market, powering over 30 percent of the web. This is due largely in part to the nearly 60,000 plugins available to download. Though that number speaks to the thousands of functions you can perform, it can also seem very daunting. That’s a lot to choose from. We are here to help. Earlier this year, Torque held the annual Plugin Madness Competition. We asked for people from around the community to nominate their favorite or most-used plugins. From those we chose the most-voted on and split them into four categories, eCommerce, […]

Co-founder of WordPress Matt Mullenweg took the stage in Belgrade to give a mid-year update on where the CMS has been and where it is going. He referred to this as a “summertime update.” Over the past six years, Mullenweg has held a Town Hall during WordCamp Europe, but this year he decided to present what has been happening since WordCamp US in December, and what will happen in the coming months. He began by announcing St. Louis will be the 2019-2020 WCUS location, then he moved onto his updates. Core There have been six core releases since WCUS. Customization […]

This weekend WordPress turns 15. Since it’s creation as a blogging platform, the CMS has grown to be able to power the largest enterprise digital experiences. Check out 15 WordPress milestones that made the CMS what it is today! To get the party going, we created a Spotify list using music from all of the incredible jazz artists who lent their names to WordPress Core updates. Celebrate the history of the most powerful CMS out there. From strong eCommerce solutions to personal blogs, the platform can help anyone realize their dream. WordPress powers 30 percent of the web and has over […]