Twitter + Jetpack connection extinguished, WCUS sold out, WP Speakers

It looks like the days of automatically sharing WordPress.com content to Twitter are over. Automattic announced that customers will no longer be able to auto-publish to Twitter via the Jetpack Social plugin.

You may recall that WordPress.com’s access to the Twitter API was suddenly suspended in April. While it eventually came back online, changes to Twitter’s policies have made the continued use too expensive.

Automattic says that Twitter’s price increase is “prohibitive for us to absorb without passing a significant price increase along to you, and we don’t see that as an option.” Bye bye birdie.

Links You Shouldn’t Miss

The Beaver Builder page builder plugin has been on the market for 9 years. The WordPress landscape has changed dramatically in that time. For instance, page builders are now seen as competitors to the native Block Editor. What does that mean for the future? Matt Medeiros spoke with Robby McCullough of Beaver Builder for an in-depth discussion of the topic.

There’s news to report regarding this summer’s WordCamp US. The first round of ticket sales started on May 1 and quickly sold out. Another round of sales will be coming soon. Meanwhile, there will be a different approach to event programming. Organizers are targeting “experienced, seasoned, professional speakers at the top of their industries who are not currently active members of our unique community.” They’ve put out a survey for suggested speakers and topics. A traditional call for speakers will also be announced in the near future. The event will take place from August 24-26th in National Harbor, MD.

WordPress community member Michelle Frechette has launched WP Speakers. It’s a free resource that connects speakers and event organizers within the WordPress ecosystem. In a press release, Frechette notes that “As well-connected as I am in WordPress, I couldn’t even imagine how much more difficult it might be for someone who didn’t know a lot of speakers personally. So WP Speakers was born.”

WordPress agency Human Made has recently published articles detailing their experimentation with AI. Now they’re hosting a virtual event to examine how this technology will impact the content management system (CMS). Word on the Future is a virtual event and will take place on May 25.

From the Grab Bag

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

• Phony and misleading sale prices have popped up in the WordPress ecosystem. The practice is illegal in many locales. In fact, online educational platform Udemy has come to a $4 million settlement in a class action lawsuit. Yoast SEO founder Joost de Valk tweeted that WordPress companies should take note.
• The Make WordPress.org Marketing team have announced #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks. The 20-day program starts on May 7 and is a mix of intentional actions to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of WordPress. Blogging, development, and community-related activities are among the available prompts.
• A few weeks ago, we reported about the resurgence of BuddyPress. Project contributor Mathieu Viet has written a post outlining a new purpose for the social plugin.
• How should WordPress core work with AI? Core contributor Anne McCarthy is asking for community feedback on the Make WordPress blog.
• WordPress.com is now offering staging sites to customers who have Business or Commerce hosting plans. The feature is currently in beta and can be accessed via the account dashboard.
• Web hosting platform Pantheon has come under fire recently. The company provides services for organizations that have been labeled as “hate groups” by Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Pantheon Co-founder Josh Koenig defended the company, noting “we made a decision at the very beginning to be an open platform”.
• What happens when an AI content scraper overwhelms your website? According to one site owner, the answer was to manually opt-out and receive a lecture from the tool’s owner.
• Awesome Motive’s Syed Balkhi announced that the WPBeginner Growth Fund has taken an investment stake in HeroThemes. The company is known for the Heroic KB plugin and KnowAll Theme.
• In other acquisition news, the WishList Member plugin is now part of Caseproof – the makers of MemberPress. This comes on the heels of Caseproof’s recent acquisition of MemberMouse.
• Entrepreneur Tim Stoddart has purchased content marketing training platform Copyblogger Media. Stoddart tweets that he plans to scale Copyblogger’s offerings.
• Auttomattic’s Knock Knock Whois There domain registrar has successfully defended a cybersquatting case brought by insurance company AXA. 
• Looking for a fun way to count down the 108 most popular WordPress plugins? WordPress core contributor Pascal Birchler has released The Periodic Table of WordPress Plugins. And it looks exactly like you imagine it.

Video of the week

Subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@wpminute

The WP Minute checks out Themeisle’s free Raft block theme combined with the Otter Blocks plugin.

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

• Syed Balkhi
• Alex Borto
• Justin Ferriman
• Michelle Frechette
• Andrew Palmer
• Courtney Robertson
• Daniel Schutzsmith
• Lesley Sim
• Abha Thakor

Eric Karkovack

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Wednesday, 3 May 2023

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Reading time:

7 mins

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