"I want to get #Beeper to 100 million users. I feel that’s actually sort of the first product from #Automattic that has the potential to actually be really, really large because its usage is kind of a superset of every messaging network, and the power users are the most frequent users on each of those."
#Automattic, owners of #Wordpress and #Tumblr, have decided not to migrate Tumblr to Wordpress meaning that #Fediverse for Tumblr is only going to happen if they implement it in Tumblr itself.
Automattic's plan to move Tumblr's backend to WordPress is "on hold," which means Tumblr posts also won't be available in the fediverse in the near future, CEO Matt Mullenweg said in a Decoder episode. Here's more from @theverge.
Earlier today, @davew published a blog post titled WordPress and me. He talked about WordLand, his focused and fast editor for writers and bloggers. Through developing the editor, he’s discovered WordPress again.
WordPress as the OS of the open social web
I think WordPress has all that’s needed to be the OS of the open social web. We needed it and it’s always been there, and I saw something that I want to show everyone else, that the web can grow from here, we should build on everything that the WordPress community has created. It’s a lot stronger foundation that the other candidates for the basic needs of the open social web, imho.
I’ve been following Dave’s work with WordLand for the past few months, and it’s been really nice and encouraging to see him work on a product that aligns with my values. And now, Dave will get to present his tool and his ideas to others in the WordPress community! He will be talking at WordCamp Canada in October.
It should come as no surprise that someone so involved with some of the key concepts of the Open Web, like RSS, values ideals of openness and giving writers control over their content. WordLand’s approach to « what you see is what you get » is something that aligns so well with WordPress’ own ideals. It clashes with walled gardens like Twitter or Bluesky where you’re limited in length, format, content, and where you ultimately do not own your writing. It’s super motivating and empowering when someone newer to the WordPress ecosystem recognizes those shared values and the power of the platform.
Rediscovering WordPress
In his post, Dave talked about his journey of rediscovering WordPress through a new lens. The WordPress.com REST API, its endpoints and its authentication layer, gave him the tools to build the editor he needed, while still benefiting from everything the WordPress community has created in the past 22 years.
This is also what we had in mind when Automattic released Calypso 10 years ago:
Calypso is…
- Incredibly fast. It’ll charm you.
- Written purely in JavaScript, leveraging libraries like Node and React.
- 100% API-powered. Those APIs are open, and now available to every developer in the world.
Calypso and its underlying API paved the way for the first REST API endpoints that made it to WordPress itself a year later. That API then became a cornerstone of the Gutenberg project:
WordPress has always been about the user experience, and that needs to continue to evolve under newer demands. Gutenberg is an attempt at fundamentally addressing those needs, based on the idea of content blocks. It’s an attempt to improve how users interact with their content in a fundamentally visual way, while at the same time giving developers the tools to create more fulfilling experiences for the people they are helping.
WordPress.com REST API vs. WordPress REST API
On a more technical note, the folks more familiar with WordPress will wonder why WordLand uses the WordPress.com REST API, and not the core WordPress REST API.
Dave chose to use the WordPress.com API for WordLand — and that makes perfect sense for the goals of the project. It provides built-in authentication and opinionated endpoints that would otherwise need to be built on top of the core REST API, and would need to be shipped to every site that wants to use the WordLand editor. That’s simply not what WordLand was designed to do.
Perhaps more importantly, the WordPress.com REST API is just one of the many ways to interact with WordPress. That’s the beauty of WordPress: it’s open and flexible, allowing different tools and solutions to thrive. In this case, it’s nice to see how WordLand, WordPress, and WordPress.com came together to empower writers, each bringing their own strengths to the table. It’s a great example of how open tools and platforms can work hand-in-hand to create something truly special.
It’s always exciting to see new tools emerge from old foundations — and even more so when they help bring us closer to the open web we want to build. Funny enough, the WordPress.com REST API still relies on XML-RPC — a technology built by Dave 27 years ago 
Go write something!
If you haven’t tried WordLand yet, go give it a try! All you need is a WordPress site, either hosted on WordPress.com or running the Jetpack plugin.
"On June 20, 2005, @photomatt made his first hire: @donncha a software developer who had been working on the WordPress project. And with that, #Automattic was born. [...] Here’s to the next 20.”
" #Automattic Welcomes Clay"
https://automattic.com/2025/06/12/automattic-welcomes-clay/
"Clay, a relationship management tool that automatically organizes and intelligently searches your entire network... Joining our Other Bets division alongside the likes of Beeper and Gravatar..."
A collective of former #WordPress #developers and contributors backed by #LinuxFoundation launched FAIR Package Manager, a new and independent distribution system for trusted WordPress #plugins and #themes.
This is a response to recent controversy after legal conflict between commercial WordPress hosting providers #Automattic and #WPEngine, after former banned the latter's access to the WordPress platform used by all WordPress sites to keep plugins and themes up-to-date.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/linux-foundation-unveils-decentralized-wordpress-plugin-manager/
The #Automattic Customer Service (sorry "Customer Happiness") team are quite nice to deal with, at least the ones at Pocket Casts. I didn't quite get what I needed, but that was more my fault for being riddled with ADHD and chronic forgetfulness than theirs.
They came to a good compromise though.
I feel I should probably call out good CS when I see it rather than just whining about the bad :D
"After last year’s fun with a photo drive, we’ve decided to repeat it this year with another #photo drive to the #WordPress Photo Directory! Once more, we’re offering up some cash prizes as a bonus. The funding for the prizes are proudly powered by Queeromattic, the collection of queers within #Automattic. "
https://lgbtqpress.com/2025/05/share-your-pride-photo-drive-is-back-for-2025/
"We launched in Sep/2024 with a bold mission: to foster an #open, #decentralized, and #usercentric #socialweb. In just the few short months that remained in 2024, we made meaningful progress. Our participation at #W3C #TPAC and collaborations with major stakeholders like #Mastodon, #Ghost, and #Automattic have helped spark momentum for a healthier, more resilient online ecosystem.
Today we are proud to publish our 2024 #AnnualReport– the first of many."
#SWF
https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/05/06/reflecting-on-our-first-year-the-social-web-foundations-2024-annual-report/
Today, I stumbled over a blog post by #Gravatar titled “Build Your AI Identity with Gravatar’s New Tool”, and I’m glad I deleted my Gravatar account many years ago.
Coincidently, while trying to see how bad Gravatar became by reading the post, my ad blocker blocked me from visiting this domain. Former me was smart enough to add this domain to the block list, because the time of embedding third-party content in a website has passed for privacy reasons many years ago.
Leaving #Automattic this month felt like a #breakup. 
And so, like any rational person, I processed my feelings using a Venn-Euler #diagram: 
Thanks a lot @lordmatt but there is no need to give us a tip, we have the great luck that #Automattic takes good care of us 
If you think about donating to another fediverse project, simple give them a bit more 
/cc @obenland
The company behind #Wordpress, #Automattic, is getting increasingly aligned.
The employee base now consist of "Mullenweg’s strongest supporters, and people who couldn’t afford to risk leaving their jobs", neither of which will contradict #Mullenweg.
Apparently recently, Automattic has been adding watermarking to the background in internal communications systems. The result will be that those afraid of leaving will be even more compliant. What a work culture.
https://www.404media.co/automattic-wordpress-p2-watermark-leakers/
WP Engine should offer free #WordPress hosting for a year to people laid off by #automattic yesterday, since they're no longer getting free hosting from .com.
Apparently Automattic are laying off around one in six of their workforce. And I'm one of the unlucky ones.
Anybody remote hiring for a UK-based full-stack web developer (in a world that doesn't seem to believe that full-stack developers exist anymore) with 25+ years professional experience, specialising in PHP, Ruby, JS, HTML, CSS, devops, and about 50% of CMSes you've ever heard of (and probably some you haven't)... with a flair for security, accessibility, standards-compliance, performance, and DexEx?
CV at: https://danq.me/cv/index.html
"#Automattic confirmed to TechCrunch that when the migration is complete, every #Tumblr user will be able to federate their blog via #ActivityPub…the migration could also allow for other #openweb integrations, like giving Tumblr users a way to run other custom plug-ins or themes.
Automattic declined to share a time frame as to when the #migration would be complete, given its scale, but a rep for the company called the progress so far “exciting.”
https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/tumblr-to-join-the-fediverse-after-wordpress-migration-completes/
This needs to be shared widely:
#WhitehouseWash
My change-detection just caught something big:
dei.gov got registered around one week ago - for some days it was empty.
Than a long list appeared, which quickly got password-protected; see screenshots.
It lists short bullet-points about 'wasteful' governmental spending, looks like a list to justify their actions (and what may be to come)
See for yourself:
https://archive.org/details/changedetection-dei-gov-waste-gov
Hosted by #Automattic (of #Wordpress-fame)
been busy moving out and putting stuff into storage and stressed living outta a motel while we're between apartments and stuff but
finally got around to updating the fedipact 2 list!!!!!
#FediPact 