On December 11, WordPress fans from across the globe gathered in Madrid, Spain, for some of the essential occasions of the yr – the State of the Phrase keynote. 

It was delivered by one and solely Matt Mullenweg, the esteemed co-founder of WordPress. He shared the numerous WordPress achievements in 2023 and provided a sneak peek into the platform’s future.

On this article, we’ll delve into the occasion’s highlights and WordPress achievements over the previous yr. Then, we’ll attempt to unveil the roadmap for its evolution.

Celebrating Two Many years of WordPress

In 2023, WordPress has turned 20. That’s an enormous milestone for a platform that began as a easy device for running a blog and journaling. It has advanced right into a complete platform able to creating web sites of any sort and serving as a sturdy utility framework. 

Now, WordPress powers over a 3rd of all web sites, a testomony to its widespread impression and adaptableness.

The anniversary was celebrated globally. Within the keynote, Matt shared a charming assortment of pictures from these worldwide celebrations, highlighting the worldwide attain and numerous neighborhood that WordPress has nurtured over twenty years. 

WordCamps and Meetups in 2023

2023 has been a exceptional yr for the WordPress neighborhood – in-person gatherings have bloomed. There have been 70 WordCamps hosted throughout 33 international locations in 2023 – a big leap from the 26 WordCamps of 2022.

Lastly, the first flagship WordCamp in Asia was held. Trying forward, WordCamp Asia is about to be a significant occasion in 2024, scheduled for March 7 in Taipei, Taiwan.

Matt was very grateful to over two thousand WordCamp and Meetup organizers for making these neighborhood gatherings so vibrant and memorable. 

To make these community-driven occasions even higher, Matt inspired international WordPress fans to take part within the 2023 Meetup Survey. Your insights and suggestions can form the way forward for WordPress Meetups.

WordPress.org: New Look and New Pages

Not too long ago, we’ve got seen a big redesign of the WordPress.org web site, enhancing its performance and aesthetic attraction. Moreover the brand new look, a number of new pages have been added:

• WordPress Occasions – a central hub for upcoming WordPress occasions worldwide. Now, customers can find and be part of neighborhood occasions close to them extra simply and shortly.
• WordPress Showcase – an exhibition of notable WordPress web sites. These embrace Taylor Swift’s web site, which, in accordance with Matt, manages 100,000 requests per second at peak occasions. There’s additionally the White Home web site, showcasing WordPress safety and reliability.
• WordPress Remembers – a devoted area to honor neighborhood members who’ve handed away.

Constructing on final yr’s State of the Phrase, Matt Mullenweg revisited the subject of Openverse – a search engine devoted to exploring the online for media underneath Inventive Commons licenses. 

Openverse acquired the Open Training Award for Excellence in Open Infrastructure, a testomony to its impression and innovation in an open-source expertise subject. Matt congratulated the Openverse group for this excellent achievement.

WordPress continues to develop its assortment of overtly accessible content material. The WordPress Picture Listing, a useful resource free of charge inventory pictures, has expanded considerably to assist customers create extra partaking posts.

WordPress Playground

Matt Mullenweg additionally mentioned the WordPress Playground. This revolutionary, cutting-edge, browser-based sandbox operates on WebAssembly, seamlessly integrating PHP and database performance. It has emerged as a useful device for builders, offering a swift and environment friendly setting for testing and experimentation.

In simply the previous six months, WordPress Playground has seen exceptional utilization, with almost 57,000 people leveraging its capabilities. For instance its potential, Matt showcased a compelling demo of Playground, expertly crafted by Adam Zelinski, which highlighted the platform’s versatility and ease of use.

Twenty Twenty-4: A New Period in WordPress Themes

The yr 2023 marked the finalization of Gutenberg Section 2, which was centered round customization.

The discharge of Twenty Twenty-4, the latest default theme, represents a big shift from conventional WordPress themes, transferring from the same old concentrate on running a blog to a broader vary of functions.

Twenty Twenty-4, launched with the WordPress 6.4 replace, boasts 35 distinctive block patterns thoughtfully designed to cater to artists, entrepreneurs, and writers alike. Matt Mullenweg highlighted the theme’s early success, sharing constructive evaluations that hailed Twenty Twenty-4 as a game-changer and doubtlessly the very best default theme WordPress has ever provided.

Progress and Way forward for the Gutenberg Mission

Matt Mullenweg revisited the bold roadmap of the Gutenberg Mission, underlining its 4 pivotal phases:

1. Modifying
2. Customization
3. Collaboration
4. Multilingual

The yr 2023 marked a big milestone with the completion of Section 2, centered on customization. Shifting ahead, 2024 is about to embark on Section 3.

Enhancing Writing and Design With Gutenberg

Matias emphasised that Gutenberg is ambitiously designed to excel in two key areas – as a writing setting and as a design device. Whereas the writing part was primarily addressed in Section 1, the mission constantly evolves to simplify and improve the person expertise.

Latest updates have launched user-friendly options just like the footnote block and a distraction-free mode, every geared toward refining the writing course of. These additions showcase Gutenberg’s dedication to offering a seamless and intuitive setting for content material creation.

Pioneering Actual-Time Collaboration With Gutenberg

A serious focus in Gutenberg’s improvement is enhancing on-line collaboration capabilities. Whereas a definitive timeline for its full implementation continues to be within the works, Matias offered a prototype throughout the keynote. With this function, a number of customers can work in the identical editor concurrently, with adjustments seen to all collaborators immediately.

For these desperate to discover this performance, it’s accessible through the Gutenberg plugin. By enabling the Dwell Collaboration experimental function, customers can take a look at real-time collaboration. Nevertheless, because the function continues to be in its improvement stage, person enter is invaluable for its ongoing refinement.

Patterns Evolvement

Reflecting on the progress in 2023, Matias highlighted the evolving function of patterns within the Web site Editor, notably in response to person suggestions. 

A standard sentiment was, “Blocks are nice, however typically they’re a bit too granular.” To handle this, patterns have been launched as bigger design items, providing an excellent resolution for freelancers, companies, and enterprise prospects who search extra substantial design components.

In 2024, patterns will stay a central focus in Section 3 of Gutenberg’s improvement. A noteworthy upcoming function is the Zoom Out mode, which is able to permit customers to view and edit their website’s construction at the next degree, enhancing their capability to handle the block hierarchy.

Matias additionally outlined three key developments deliberate for patterns and their advantages to the customers:

• Semantic class swapping – interchange patterns inside particular classes, like hero sections. This enables dynamic customization of web site elements.
• Integration of theme.json with patterns – apply type variations to particular person patterns. It’s a boon for builders and companies, providing end-users customization choices inside predetermined boundaries.
• Hybrid sample customization – modify the textual content or content material of a sample throughout a number of pages, whereas nonetheless sustaining the power to replace the sample’s international design. This method gives enhanced flexibility in content material administration and ensures design consistency.

Efficiency Enhancements

A key space of Gutenberg enhancement is its efficiency, primarily the editor expertise for content material creators and the person expertise for web site guests.

Matias offered a complete dashboard highlighting the effectivity of primary editor operations and their progressive enchancment over time. A notable achievement he shared is the current doubling of the editor’s velocity, with an bold goal to triple the typing velocity within the upcoming WordPress 6.5 replace.

On the entrance finish, vital strides are being made with the event of the Interactivity API. This innovation goals to render transitions on block-based themes and web sites instantly, elevating the person expertise. Matias showcased a dwell demonstration of this function’s potential.

If you wish to discover it additional, go to WP Films to expertise these enhancements firsthand.

Innovating the WordPress Admin Design

Matias unveiled the brand new admin design for WordPress. It attracts inspiration from the Web site Editor, notably its record view. This method shall be utilized to the WordPress admin interface, permitting for a extra cohesive and intuitive show of components like pages, posts, and media, all in a listing format much like the Web site Editor’s design.

The brand new admin space may even be extremely extensible. It’s crafted to adapt seamlessly to varied particular wants, making it a flexible device for all sorts of WordPress customers.

Remember to depart your suggestions on the brand new admin design. Whether or not by way of the GitHub repository or social media channels, your insights and ideas may also help enhance the WordPress admin interface.

Embracing AI in 2023 and Past

Matt Mullenweg highlighted 2023 as a yr of AI, marked by the developments in generative AI applied sciences like GPT-4, Gemini, and MidJourney. WordPress is actively embracing this AI expertise by way of experiments with the Playground.

The experiment provides the power to make use of pure language to work together with Playground blueprints. Matt showcased a compelling demo the place a easy immediate led Playground to seamlessly configure a complete eCommerce website, full with plugins and content material. 

Matt emphasised that generative AI could make advanced duties accessible to all, no matter their technical experience. He even envisioned a future the place AI not solely performs duties but in addition educates customers, enhancing their information and expertise.

In mild of those developments, Matt’s recommendation was clear – delve deep into understanding AI and leverage its potential to teach and innovate.

WordPress in 2024

Waiting for 2024, WordPress has began an bold initiative alongside Gutenberg’s Section 3 – Knowledge Liberation. This mission goals to revolutionize how knowledge is migrated inside the WordPress ecosystem and past, addressing the complexities of transferring knowledge throughout varied platforms and WordPress websites.

The essence of Knowledge Liberation is the event of seamless migration instruments designed to attenuate friction and take away the digital obstacles imposed by a few of the extra restrictive CMS platforms. An instance of such obstacles is the limitation some platforms apply to exporting person knowledge.

On the core of this initiative lies the event of a one-click migration device with a eager concentrate on optimizing WordPress’s export format. Moreover, the mission seeks to boost the reliability of copy-and-paste actions, a essential side of knowledge migration.

WordPress.org plans to host quite a lot of neighborhood plugins, instruments, and workflows to facilitate simple migration, underpinning this initiative with a robust neighborhood effort. This shall be complemented by devoted Slack channels and GitHub repositories for every migration mission, fostering neighborhood involvement and guaranteeing swift mission evaluations.

Concluding his imaginative and prescient for 2024, Matt Mullenweg introduced the situation for WordCamp US 2024 – Portland, Oregon. In a brand new initiative, WordCamp US shall be held in the identical metropolis for 2 consecutive years, making Portland the host for each 2024 and 2025 editions.

We shall be trying ahead to seeing you there!

Watch State of the Phrase 2023 Replay

Watch this YouTube video if you wish to hearken to the complete State of the Phrase 2023 keynote and see all of the demos your self.

Leo is a Content material Specialist and WordPress contributor. Armed together with his expertise as a WordPress Launch Co-Lead and Documentation Crew Consultant, he loves sharing his information to assist folks construct profitable web sites. Comply with him on LinkedIn.