Here’s a glimpse of what’s going on in the world of design and development in the WordPress space this past week. As I look around the Post Status Slack and the chatter on Twitter, this week has been filled with conversations emphasizing the struggle of running a business as a solo devpreneur.

Help test WordPess 6.1 Beta 3! 🧪 Check out the latest features that are coming in the 6.1 release. 📦 Follow updates about bringing back the Active Install Growth chart. 📈

From client services and agency work to a successful product business — Katie Keith tells Cory the Barn2 Plugins story in this episode of Post Status Draft.

Meet Ben Gabler, the CEO/Founder at Rocket.net, where they’re on a mission to Accelerate & Protect WordPress at the edge of the cloud.

United States national security interests are poised to become more invested in and engaged with open source projects classified as public infrastructure. From Log4j to the Securing Open Source Software Act, how did it all come together in 2022, and what may lie ahead?

In reaction to as-yet-unpublicized details about the abuse of active install data in the WordPress.org plugin repository, the charts displaying that data have been removed from plugin pages in a move expected to be temporary. Important (and some familiar) questions are emerging as this story unfolds: how to balance the values of openness, security, and privacy as well as cooperation and competition at WordPress.org — still the central hub for WordPress plugin businesses.

You can read all of this week’s newsletter . And if you want everything without the cuts, head over to poststatus.com/the-week

Craft your origin story • Pointed questions for devs to ask prospective employers • Strategies against Ageism • IBM’s a**hole test • Take a pass on a “fast-paced environment.” • WordPress Translation Day • Writing Tips for Engineers • Preventing burnout as a manager

2022 Web Almanac CMS findings • WP Cloud • Sponsored core contributor and sponsor data • WP Biz Dev • Female-Owned and Led WP Businesses • and more →

WP Cloud is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) built on the hosting infrastructure that’s behind WP.com, Pressable, and WordPress VIP with GridPane soon to follow. Agencies that want to white label their client hosting are ideal customers for WP Cloud via GridPane.

The percentage of sponsored contributors has steadily increased to almost 20% now.

Big Changes in WP_Query and the Nav Block • Accessibility-Ready Themes • Design Systems and Agency-Client Co-Creation • W3.CSS • WP Plugin Compare • Is Self-Hosted Email Impossible? • Cool Tool: WordPress WebAssembly • Also: Remix Icons, PDFgrep, The only 58 bytes of CSS you need to go to parties, plus an amazing Block Editor trick.

Help test WordPess 6.1 Beta 2! Check out the latest features that are coming in the 6.1 release. Learn how to run WordPress using WebAssembly, and take the Annual Meetup Survey to give feedback on events.

Patchstack brings fast virtual patches and safe updates to any plugin or theme vulnerabilities potentially affecting Hostinger’s customers.

Consolidation through mergers and acquisitions isn’t the only big business story in WordPress. Partnerships are increasing too. Founders investing in founders. Product companies and agencies expanding their own ecosystems. Informal partnerships to protect common interests. There are a lot of ways to grow on your own terms in WordPress.

Vito Peleg, Atarim‘s cofounder and CEO, explains how he “cracked” the partnership problem to find alignment with other companies that can help them all accelerate their growth. Alex Denning on the launch of Ellipsis‘ Weather Report: “We’ve never had this insight before, and it is exciting and terrifying to bring this kind of ‘live’ view of the industry, to the industry.” The acquisition trend is still up, on average. Meet Post Status business member Penske Media Corporation — PMC.

Every week, Ellipsis’ Weather Report will show how much WordPress and WooCommerce search and advertiser activity has increased or dropped relative to the previous week. By watching these two trendlines, you can gauge whether your own search and sales trends are performing in line with the industry at large.

The Post Status Member Spotlight turns onto Tom Greenwood this week. The WordPress community conversation about accessibility at WordCamps continues on Twitter, WP Builds, Post Status Draft, and Post Status Excerpt. Let’s have WordPress Accessibility for All!

WordCamp US, accessibility, disability, Ny’s “blood feud” with Uber, and salary transparency are the topics Dan Knauss and Nyasha Green take on this week for The Excerpt.

Here’s a glimpse of what’s going on in the world of design and development in the WordPress space this past week: WP Tests from the Abstract Agency, ACF 6.0, and Simple Social Images. Cool Tool of the week Warp goes into plaid.

Why do designers quit? Matej Latin breaks down the results of his survey. Amelia Nagoski says self-care is not enough to prevent burnout — we have to care for each other. Alyssa Place explains how managers can do that. Maintenance failures can be lethal, but Stewart Brand finds the winning maintenance style in sailing history.

PMC is an agency with some BIG name clients, but for this agency, their team is just as important (if not more so) than those juicy clients.

The 6.1 Beta 1 release was briefly delayed a day but is now available. You can get familiar with what’s coming in 6.1 with the release by helping test the new features. Please give some consideration to Hugh Lashbrooke’s proposal for faster course development on the Training Team with video-based courses.

Tom Greenwood is the co-founder and Managing Director of Wholegrain Digital, a sustainability-focused WordPress agency.

Multidots was ranked #560 on the 2022 Inc. 5000 Annual List this year. Noted at the end of the listing is a massive figure — they posted 1,122% growth over three years as a WordPress VIP Gold partner. They’ve also been building the future of collaborative editing in WordPress for a while, so in a…

Vito Peleg, Atarim’s cofounder and CEO, explains how he “cracked” the partnership problem to find alignment with other companies that can help them all accelerate their growth. Vito explains what Atarim’s latest partnership with Rocket.net brings to both companies and their customers — and he anticipates more deals like this in the year ahead.

How to make a user experience that doesn’t suck has always remained a kind of trade secret among those who make it their trade. That’s understandable, but it’s Drupal behavior in a WordPress world.

What’s the best approach to maintenance — in software, sailing, or anything else? Hope for the best? Stewart Brand takes a famous solo, non-stop, round-the-world sailing race as a parable about maintenance styles that will win, go beyond winning, or drive you mad.

WordPress Founders Invest in Atarim • Gridpane and Automattic Team Up to Serve Agencies • Salary Transparency — Why Not? • Learning Together in Post Status Slack: Adobe’s Figma Acquisition and PayPal vs. Stripe

On the Post Status job board, like many others, most of the WordPress employers who use it don’t include salary ranges on their job listings. Should they? Piccia Neri asked them all why they do or don’t practice salary transparency. She also put the question to agencies, freelancers, the WordPress community, developers, and designers on Twitter. Find out what Piccia learned and why she thinks salary transparency should be a universal practice where it hasn’t yet become a legal obligation.

Fresh off the heels of WordCamp US, here’s a glimpse of what’s going on in the world of design and development in the WordPress space. There were several fantastic talks about design, accessibility, WP-CLI, blocks, and FSE at the event. We’re looking forward to highlighting some videos once they’re online.

Sometimes we get questions — because we have a form for WordPress Questions. Go ahead, ask away!

This one is from Jordan at DamnGood.tech.

Cory and Michelle talk about their takeaways from WordCamp US. Highlights: The Post Status Huddle ahead of the conference. Areas to improve: Michelle explains her experience with some accessibility challenges. What everyone agrees on: we love getting together as a community!