Look Out, Shopify! WooCommerce to Enter the Arena in Early 2023
More on this in coming editions, but this is great news for the brand, as WooCommerce will partner with select hosting providers to offer its own pre-installed, ready to rock shopping cart solution. If the pricing model of any additional plugins is the same as the full open source development version, that will be an instant competitive advantage over choices like Shopify.
State of the Word 2022 Set for December 15
State of the Word is the annual keynote address delivered by the WordPress project’s co-founder Matt Mullenweg. From the official WordPress site: The event shares reflections on the project’s progress and the future of open source. Expect this and more in this year’s edition. This year’s event will take place in person in New York City and live-streamed via various WordPress.org social media platforms and be available through the WordPress YouTube channel. When: December 15, 2022, 1–2:30 P.M. EST (18–19:30 UTC).
If you’d like to attend in-person, please request a seat by completing this survey.
State of the Word will also include a Q&A session with Matt Mullenweg. You can either send your question ahead of time to [email protected] or ask during the event in the live stream chat on YouTube.
Here’s some video of past State of The Word events.
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Quick Hits
- New Google Map Updates | When Google recently announced that upgrades to Local Search were in the works, we got our first peek at a few. Craving a certain dish or menu item, say French Onion Soup? Simply type in ‘french onion soup near me’ for restaurants in your local area that serve the dish, along with prices, star ratings, photos and distance. Using the Google app, you can also take a photo of a dish, add the words “near me” and a nearby restaurant that serves it will appear.
Also, Google’s ‘Accessible Places’ setting is fully available on Android and iOS. The function shows if a business location is or is not wheelchair accessible, a feature that’s also helpful to those with strollers or a cart. More on this and also an update on Live View, which Google launched in September, that’s taking local, live search to new levels. - The top 5 searches trending in 2022 are: 1) Wordle, 2) Election Results, 3) Betty White, 4) Queen Elizabeth, and 5) Bob Saget. (Source: Google)
- Fast Fact: 40% of all Internet traffic can be traced to bots.
WordPress Roundup
- WordPress Security Notes | With over 42% of websites running on the WordPress platform, you can bet it’s an attractive target for hackers. It is estimated that worldwide there are over 90,000 attacks on WordPress sites every minute. But a well-secured WordPress site has little to worry about, as thing beyond the platform itself are usually the culprit. Plugins that are poorly developed and/or neglected by the site owner is the main entré for hackers, to the tune of almost 60% of break-ins. Brute force attempts are next just under 20%. This is where the username and password are guessed, as hackers use various applications to try to decode login credentials. Then we’re in the territory of poorly constructed themes and shoddy hosting environments. All of these can be avoided with proper due diligence, and connecting with web development and hosting professionals well-versed in the WordPress platform.
WooCommerce Roundup
- WooCommerce Announces 7.1.0 PHP Requirement Update. When the latest version of WooCommerce was unleashed on November 8th, the package included an inadvertent change that bumped the required PHP version to PHP 7.4. The issue has been corrected and the updated package can be downloaded directly from WordPress.org — so if you’re running PHP 7.2 or PHP 7.3, the current package is now compatible with your PHP version. If you’re running v7.4, no action is required on your part. [ Hat Tip; WooCommerce developer Jonathan Sadowski ]
