Business Roundup Week Ending November 22

PressConf Scheduled for April 2025

• PressConf is an event designed for professionals driving the WordPress economy planned for April 23-26 in Tempe, Arizona.
• It serves as a successor-in-spirit to PressNomics, a conference that was pivotal for WordPress business professionals with 6 events held between 2012-2019.
• PressConf is organized by a team led by Raquel Manriquez, and seeks to honor the legacy of PressNomics while introducing new elements like structured networking sessions.
• The conference will feature a single-track format with invite-only speakers. Presentations will not be recorded or streamed.
• Tickets are on sale ($100 off) until November 25.
• Learn more on the PressConf website, and listen to Raquel talk with Matt Medeiros about the event on the WP Minute podcast.

Massive Cleanup Event Removes Hundreds of Dangerous WordPress Plugins

• In October, Patchstack organized an event for ethical hackers to clean up the WordPress plugin directory as part of Cybersecurity month.
• More than 1500 valid security vulnerability reports were created as part of the initiative leading to nearly 1000 plugin closures.
• Critical vulnerabilities ranked 9.8-10.0 on the CVSS scale were found in numerous plugins last updated 6-11 years ago.
• Most affected plugins had fewer than 1,000 active installations, but two vulnerable plugins had over 1 million users.
• The cleanup effort paid over $17,000 in rewards to 37 ethical hackers who participated in the security audit.
• The WordPress Plugin Team worked closely with the event to address these vulnerabilities quickly.
• Read more and get the specifics on the Patchstack blog.
  

Smashing App Brings AI Power to Content Discovery

• Smashing is an AI-powered content discovery platform that curates articles based on your interest.
• Created by the founder of Goodreads, Smashing also incorporates AI prompts that help you understand all sides of an issue quickly.
• It allows users to simplify stories, create timelines, or generate unconventional perspectives.
• The platform has several article categories to choose from as you get started, but you can personalize your feed by adding topics and articles as you go.
• It displays a summary of an article’s content, and provides links to view the full article, or engage with others in the Smashing community about the piece.
• While not perfect, Smashing is an interesting app that you might enjoy. It’s available for all platforms now without a wait list.

Worth a Look

• StellarWP has launched StellarPay, a Stripe connector for WooCommerce that includes premium features like subscriptions and installment payments at no cost.
• Black Friday is coming, how secure is your WooCommerce store? Check out the Ultimate WooCommerce Security Checklist from Patchstack.
• James Koster has published a WordPress Design System for Figma for developers working on admin components.