What’s Next for WordPress and How You Can Help

WordCamp Columbus 2011

Andrew Nacin Core Developer of WordPress Tech Ninja at Audrey Capital nacin@wordpress.org @nacin on Twitter

Where were we?

Let’s cover the last leap year.

WordPress 3.0

366 days ago. 49,930,057 downloads ago.

“The Merge”

of WordPress and WordPress MU.

Custom content types

Twenty Ten

First default theme in five years.

Custom headers and backgrounds

Making theme options easier.

Custom menus

Drag and drop simplicity.

Let’s jump to WordPress 3.1

Released in February.

Internal linking

Cross-link your content.

The Admin Bar

Watch this space.

The Debug Bar: It’s like Firebug for your WordPress.

The Network Admin

Better multisite management.

Post types and taxonomies

MOAR POWER.

Incremental improvements

UI, UX, AJAX, OMG, BBQ.

Post formats

Jazz up your blogging.

But wait, there’s more!

WordPress 3.2.

Distraction-Free Writing

Just write.

Enter title here

UI Refresh!

More of getting out of your way.

“Faster, lighter.”

“Upgrade, yo.”

Making the jump to PHP 5.

“No, really.”

Making the jump to MySQL 5.

“I mean it.”

Kicking IE6 to the curb. (IE7, you’re next.)

(press this one)

“Browse Happy.”

The only way.

Twenty Eleven

Beautiful and customizable.

All in three months.

(As of today.)

What might be next?

WordPress 3.3 and beyond.

Media Handling Faster, Easier Updates Improved Developer APIs Performance

What else have we been working on?

Lots.

Making WordPress.org A Better Place

BuddyPress

Social networking in a box.

bbPress 2.0

Forums in a box.

That’s nearing release, by the way.

You should check it out.

Then there’s mobile

Five apps and evolving quickly.

Everything is open source!

All of them. Yep. Even iOS.

The WordPress Family

(Aww.)

BYOTOS

Bring Your Own Terms of Service

You own your content

The GPL

Your freedoms are guaranteed.

Free as in speech!

Not as in beer. Though that too.

The freedom to run the program for any purpose.

Freedom 0.

The freedom to study and change the program.

Freedom 1.

The freedom to distribute.

Freedom 2.

The freedom to distribute your changes.

Freedom 3.

Don’t you wish all software came with these freedoms?

So do we!

The WordPress Family

The WordPress trademark

The WordPress Foundation

WordCamps

Community-organized events put together by users like you.

How You Can Help

Let me count the ways.

Have fun breaking WordPress

Beta releases of 3.0 and 3.1 were downloaded 600,000 times.

That’s what I call quality assurance

Let’s get those 3.2 numbers up.

Support and Documentation

The Core UI Team

make.wordpress.org/ui

Accessibility working group

make.wordpress.org/accessibility

Theme reviews

make.wordpress.org/themes Learn to write better themes.

Core development

Join in!

And finally, evangelism

The most important part.

Thanks! —@nacin

Questions!