The annual State of the Word event has been scheduled for December 15, 2022 from 1:00 - 2:30pm EST. WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg will take to the microphone to discuss the year that was and what lies ahead.

The event will take place in New York City and will also be live streamed. If you’d like to attend in-person, there’s a survey available to fill out.

Meanwhile, you can also submit questions to Mullenweg ahead of time by emailing ask-matt@wordcamp.org or during the event via YouTube’s chat feature.

Links You Shouldn’t Miss

The WP Minute’s Eric Karkovack has a wish list of things he’d love to see from WordPress in 2023. More than any technical enhancements, his hopes include better communication, collaboration, and more opportunities to get together for in-person events.

Tom McFarlin contributed to The WP Minute with an in-depth tutorial on working with multiple user metadata queries. He takes us step-by-step through the process of retrieving a custom set of user records.

WordPress.org is launching a blog aimed at developers. Sarah Gooding of WP Tavern reports that the project is currently in beta testing. The focus will be on new features that impact theme and plugin developers.

According to WP Tavern, the Divi page builder will undergo some major changes in 2023. Version 5.0 isn’t slated to see new features, rather a complete rewrite of its underlying framework. The revamp will be built using React and aims to improve compatibility with the Gutenberg Block Editor.

Last week, we reported on Mike McAlister's concept for OpenPress, a plugin that would turn a WordPress install into a syndicated microblogging platform. This week, Alex Standiford expands on the idea and wonders if WordPress might one day have a bidirectional relationship with social media platforms.

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From the Grab Bag

Now it’s time to take a look at some other interesting topics shared by our contributors.

• WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg announced that Tumblr will soon add support for ActivityPub, an open and decentralized protocol for connecting to Mastodon and other social media platforms. The announcement comes as more users are contemplating Twitter alternatives.
• Speaking of Tumblr, Nyasha Green at MasterWP looks at the platform’s recent resurgence.
• Sell Courses Online have published a study of 240,000 WordPress websites that run a learning management system (LMS). The data shows the most popular LMS plugins, average monthly tech spending, and more.
• Automattic’s Jetpack has announced its “Build your own Jetpack” offering, which consists of 7 individual plugins. Functionality includes backup, security, performance, and a CRM.
• Storipress, a competitor to Automattic’s Newspack platform, has secured a $500,000 investment.
• Jean Galea breaks down the current state of WordPress and wonders what comes next.

New Members This Week

• David Bell, follow @Cape_Dave
• Jess Frick, follow @renewabelle

If you’re not a member yet, go to thewpminute.com/support/ to join.

Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today: 

• Cameron Jones
• Justin Ferriman
• Raquel Landefeld
• Jeff Chandler

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