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Do you want even more control over how your site is hosted? We’re excited to add a new feature to our hosting toolbox: you can now choose your primary data center when enabling hosting features on your WordPress.com Business site.

While all sites on WordPress.com benefit from high-frequency CPUs, automatic data center failover, and worry-free burst scaling, selecting your primary data center gives you the ability to keep your content closer to your audience. 

Choose Your Primary Data Center

By default, all WordPress.com sites are added to the optimal data center. If your audience is primarily in a specific region, you can maximize performance by picking the data center in that region.

To select a primary data center, click on “Choose a data center instead” when visiting Settings > Hosting Configuration and activating hosting features. Once you do so, you’ll be able to select your preferred primary data center.

WordPress.com has four primary data centers to choose from — with more on the way: US West, US Central, US East, EU West. We also operate over 20 secondary data centers across six continents. Our platform automatically stores and serves your content from the closest server to your users. By selecting a primary data center, you can shorten the distance your content has to travel.  

Our Data Center Secret Sauce

Many hosting providers resell existing solutions built for hosting a variety of web applications. We built our hosting for WordPress, and running our own data centers is the “secret sauce” that makes our sites so fast.

The key ingredients to our secret sauce: 

• High-Frequency CPUs. We use high-frequency CPUs to process WordPress and WooCommerce-specific queries at incredible speeds. Other hosts use lower performance CPUs and charge extra for better CPUs, if they’re even available.  

• Automatic Data Center Failover. In addition to backups, every WordPress.com site is replicated in real-time to a second data center in a different region. Under the hood, we use ZFS to provide snapshots and also block-based replication. This unique, geo-redundant architecture helps ensure your site operates with maximum uptime.

• Worry-Free Burst Scaling. WordPress.com runs an in-house PHP build that integrates with our resource management tools and monitoring. It even allows for configurations to be changed dynamically on a per-request basis. Any WordPress.com site can instantly scale to over 100 PHP workers if the need arises.

Custom data centers are just one of the many reasons why WordPress.com is the best managed WordPress hosting on the planet.

Host Your Next Site on WordPress.com

Building on our multi-site management and SSH access, the primary data center picker is yet another reason to host on WordPress.com. Our goal is to make WordPress.com an enjoyable, indispensable part of your workflow.

What other features would you like to see available? How could we make WordPress.com an even more powerful place to build a website? Feel free to leave a comment or contact our friendly support.

It’s almost time for State of the Word 2022! Join us for this live stream event on December 15th at 1pm ET.

State of the Word is the annual keynote address delivered by the WordPress project’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg. Every year, 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. 

Join Matt as he provides a retrospective of 2022, the latest WordPress releases, Site Editor advancements, and a return to in-person events around the globe, among other topics.

How to Watch Live

What: State of the Word 2022

When: December 15, 2022, 1–2:30 P.M. EST (18–19:30 UTC)

How: The live stream will be embedded in this post at the time of the event and will also be available through the WordPress YouTube channel. Additionally, there are a number of locally organized watch parties happening around the world if you’d like to watch it in the company of other WordPressers.

Don’t worry, we’ll post the recorded event early next week if you aren’t able to catch it live.

If you’ve recently visited the WordPress.com Reader, you may have noticed some aesthetic improvements. Today we’re giving you a quick visual tour of those changes and inviting you to check out our new and improved Reader if it’s been a while. Let’s jump in!

Streamlined Consistency

Each of the individual cards within the reader have been redesigned to better highlight the content you’re sharing with your audience. Images and videos have been enlarged, padding and margins have been improved, and the general layout has been adjusted across all content types to provide a consistent reading experience.

Updated Layouts

A number of the layouts within the WordPress.com reader have been streamlined on desktop and mobile web to make browsing and discovering new content easier.

Grid Aligned

You might not notice this at first glance, but a consistent grid has been applied to the entire layout to make it easier for your eyes to scan content and scroll through your entire feed.

First of Many Improvements

This is the first of many improvements that we hope to make to the reader over the next year. If you have additional feedback on improvements we might make, please share them in the comments below and stay tuned for additional updates.

As 2022 comes to a close, we at WordPress.com are preparing to ring in the new year. As we get ready to say goodbye to 2022, we’re thinking about how quickly time has flown by this past year. 

Beijing hosted the Winter Olympics in February, the James Webb Space Telescope started transmitting jaw-droppingly beautiful photos back to us on Earth, and the incredibly powerful Site Editor launched for WordPress sites!

With 2023 just around the corner, so too comes Bloganuary! Bloganuary is a writing challenge for everyone, whether you’re new to blogging, rediscovering your love of blogging, or blogging is your livelihood — we want all of you to join us.

Bloganuary is a month-long blogging challenge in January, where you’ll receive a daily writing prompt to inspire you to publish a post on your blog. You can respond to the prompts in any way you like: a story, a picture, a poem, a drawing, a recipe, or even a song. Anything goes!

By being a part of Bloganuary, you’ll join a global network of bloggers creating and/or strengthening solid writing habits. You’ll get to know fellow participants on the Bloganuary community site, where you can share tips, learn from each other, find a new audience for your blog, and make new blogging friends.

To show others what you’ll be up to in January and encourage them to join in the Bloganuary fun, here’s a badge you can add to your blog (right-click and save/download to your computer):

Join the Bloganuary challenge, stay motivated, and start the new year off on the write track!

Learn more

If you’d prefer to journal privately instead of blog publicly, check out the Day One app.

For a holiday gift that’s absolutely brimming with possibility, look no further than our brand new feature which allows any reader to gift a WordPress.com subscription renewal to their favorite website.  

As a website owner, this is a way to allow your most ardent fans to show their gratitude for all the hard work you’ve put into your passion project over the years. 

As a reader, this is a way to show a bit of thanks to your favorite creators — be they bloggers, artists, small business owners, or even your pesky-but-loveable little brother who’s finally trying to give his site some attention. 

This feature will be displayed as a black banner across the top of the site, from which readers will be able to click “Gift” and then be taken right to a checkout page. 

Easy as that!

As of today, we’ve rolled out this feature to a small number of sites, but that number will be growing every day as we continue to test and iterate. For now, gifting is available on sites that are within 54 days of their annual subscription expiration date or within 5 days of their monthly expiration date. Soon, however, it will be available much more widely.

How to activate the gifting banner   

You can activate this new feature in about 15 seconds: 

1. From your admin dashboard, navigate to General Settings (Settings → General)
2. Scroll down, just a bit, to the “Accept a gift subscription” section 
3. Click the toggle to accept gifts 
4. Click “Save settings”   

After you’ve activated the banner, be sure to spread the word by writing a post about how your readers can help you out in a brand new way!  

A few more important details

Gifting applies to whichever plan the website is currently on. For example: a subscription gift for a site on a 1-year plan will be for the entire amount of a 1-year plan renewal; a gift to a site on a monthly plan will be in the amount of 1 month on their current plan tier. (Note that gifts are made in the site owner’s currency.) 

Once a gift is paid for, both the website owner and the person who gave the gift will receive an email confirmation. 

You can find even more nuts and bolts here. 

In September 2022, we released SSH for Business and eCommerce sites. SSH (secure shell protocol) allows you to access your site from the command line and use tools such as WP-CLI to manage your site, plugins, users, and more.

Our users loved the feature — but they wanted more. So we’re pleased to announce that we’ve added the ability to add SSH keys to your account to make it even easier to connect to your site. Read on to get started.

How to Setup and Use Your SSH Key

1. Copy your public SSH key to your clipboard.
2. From your WordPress.com dashboard, go to My Profile.
3. On the My Profile page, click on Security.
4. Click on the SSH Key option available in the Security Checklist.
5. Paste your SSH Key to the Public SSH Key field.
6. Click on the Save SSH Key button.
7. Select the site you wish to connect from the My Sites option.
8. From your dashboard, go to Settings → Hosting Configuration.
9. Under the SSH Access section, use the SSH Keys field to select the desired key.
10. Click on the Attach SSH Key to Site button.

Once your SSH key is attached to the site, you can use it when authenticating over SSH.

Detailed instructions on how to add an SSH key to your account are available now in WordPress.com Support.

Build Your Next Site on WordPress.com

Adding SSH keys is yet another way of integrating WordPress.com with your preferred workflow, whether you’re just starting out or are an experienced command-line superstar.

What else would you like to see in your terminal? How can we make WordPress.com an even more powerful place to build a website? Leave us a note or submit your ideas using our short feature request form!

Each year, members of the WordPress community (users, site builders, extenders, and contributors) provide valuable feedback through an annual survey. Key takeaways and trends that emerge from this survey often find their way into the annual State of the Word address, are shared in the public project blogs, and can influence the direction and strategy for the WordPress project.

Simply put: this survey helps those who build WordPress understand more about how the software is used, and by whom. The survey also helps leaders in the WordPress open source project learn more about our contributors’ experiences.  

To ensure that your WordPress experience is represented in the 2022 survey results, take the 2022 annual survey now.

You may also take the survey in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, or Spanish, thanks to the efforts of WordPress polyglot contributors. These are the most frequently installed languages based on the number of WordPress downloads. 

The survey will be open through the end of 2022, and then WordPress plans to publish the results sometime in 2023. This year, the survey questions have been refreshed for more effortless survey flow, completion, and analysis. Some questions have been removed, while a few new ones are now present, reflecting the present and future of WordPress. If you’re looking for the analysis of the 2021 survey results, those will also be shared in early 2023.

Spread the word

Help spread the word about the survey by sharing it with your network, through Slack, or within your social media accounts. The more people who complete the survey and share their experience with WordPress, the more the project as a whole will benefit in the future.

Security and privacy

Data security and privacy are paramount to the WordPress project and community. With this in mind, all data will be anonymized: no email addresses nor IP addresses will be associated with published results. To learn more about WordPress.org’s privacy practices, view the privacy policy.

Thank you

Thank you to the following WordPress contributors for assisting with the annual survey project, including question creation, strategy, survey build-out, and translation:

dansoschin, _dorsvenabili, angelasjin, arkangel, audrasjb, atachibana, bjmcsherry, chanthaboune, eidolonnight, fernandot, fierevere, fxbenard, jdy68, jpantani, laurlittle, nao, nielslange, peiraisotta, piermario, rmartinezduque, santanainniss.

This month we feature Huanyi (Eric) Chuang, a front end developer from Taiwan, who helps connect local groups to WordPress and the worldwide open source community. He is part of the team helping to make the first WordCamp Asia a success in 2023.

The People of WordPress series shares some of the inspiring stories of how people’s lives can change for the better through WordPress and its global network of contributors.

Discovering WordPress and the benefit of child themes

Huanyi’s first footsteps in WordPress began in 2017 when he worked for a firm that built blogs and developed ad content for clients.

After building a few sites using the platform, he discovered child themes and through them opened up a world of possibilities for his clients. To this day, he uses child themes to deliver truly custom designs and functionality for clients.

Later in his career, Huanyi moved into digital marketing, integrating sites with massive ad platforms like Google and Facebook. This led him to learn to work with tracking code and JavaScript. He also began his learning journey in HTML, CSS, and PHP, to be able to improve his development skills and customize child themes.

Meetups bring together software users to learn together

When Huanyi had a problem with a client’s site, he looked to WordPress meetups near where he lived in Taipei to help find the solutions.

“When I encountered an issue with the custom archive pages, a local meetup announcement showed up on my WordPress dashboard.”

Huanyi Chuang

At the meetup, he met more experienced WordPress users and developers there, who answered his questions and helped him learn.

“When I encountered an issue with the custom archive pages, a local meetup announcement showed up on my WordPress dashboard. That was my original connection with the local community,” Huanyi said.

The WordPress community gave Huanyi a chance to connect with people, feed his curiosity about the software, and join a circle of people he could share this interest.

At first, he thought meetups were an opportunity to source new clients, and he took his business cards to every event. However, he soon found that these events offered him the opportunity to make friends and share knowledge.

From then on, Huanyi started focusing more on what he could give to these events and networks, making new friends, and listening to people. This led him to share as a meetup speaker his own commercial website management experience.

The road to WordCamp

It was going to his first meetup and then getting involved with WordCamps that changed Huanyi’s whole relationship with WordPress.

In 2018, he took the step to help as an organizer, having joined the Taoyuan Meetup in Taiwan. He played several parts across the organizing team, and the welcoming feeling he got in every situation encouraged him to get more involved.

He recalls meeting new friends from different fields and other countries, which gave him a great sense of achievement and strengthened his passion for participating in the community.

When the team started this meetup, numbers were much lower than in the group in the city of Taipei, but they were not disheartened and gradually grew the local WordPress community.

They created a pattern of ‘multiple organizers,’ which spread the workload and grew friendships. 

“Being connected to and from meetups is the most valuable part of the community. Having these friends makes me gather more information. We share information and benefit from others’ information, and thus we gain more trust in each other. With such credibility, we share more deeply and build deeper relations.”

Huanyi Chuang

Before the pandemic, the meetup met every month and grew to become the second largest meetup in Taiwan. Huanyi also contributed to the WordPress community as an organizer of WordCamp Taipei 2018 in the speaker team and lead organizer of WordCamp Taiwan 2021.

So why should you join the community?

According to Huanyi, you will always have something to take home with you. It might be new information or experiences. It might be plugins or theme ideas. But most of all, it is the chance to meet fascinating people and make new friends.

Huanyi’s message to other contributors:
“Keep participating, and you will find more you can achieve than you expect.”

He added that long-term participation will ‘let you feel the humanity behind the project’.

Localize: the road ahead for WordPress

Huanyi believes WordPress has the power to break down the barriers between designers, project managers, developers, marketers, writers, and publishers. In Taiwan, he said WordPress is ‘a common protocol’ that lets people from all of these disciplines work and communicate together more easily than they ever have before.

That is why he works on and encourages others to localize plugins today. He believes localization of the software is the foundation for the extension of the WordPress community as it enables people to ‘Flex their Freedom’ in a language they speak!

He has helped to organize online events around previous WordPress Translation Day events.

Huanyi said: “I think it’s important to localize WordPress because its very concept of ‘open source’ means that people can access it freely. In another way, free from the monopoly of knowledge and speech. To achieve it, it’s important that people can access it with their own language.

“Localization is the foundation of the extension of WordPress community because it helps people using different languages to access the project and lowers the hurdle to understand how things work.”

Share the stories

Help share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community. Meet more WordPressers in the People of WordPress series.

Contributors

Thank you to @no249a002 for sharing his adventures in WordPress.

Thank you to Abha Thakor (@webcommsat), Mary Baum (@marybaum), Meher Bala (@meher), Chloe Bringmann (@cbringmann), Surendra Thakor (@sthakor), Adeeb Malik (@adeebmalik) for research, interviews, and contributing to this feature article.

The People of WordPress series thanks Josepha Haden (@chanthaboune) and Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe) for their support.

In the forty-fourth episode of the WordPress Briefing, our host Josepha Haden Chomphosy highlights the role of major and minor releases in the WordPress open source project.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

Editor: Dustin Hartzler
Logo: Javier Arce
Production: Santana Inniss
Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

References

Twelfth Man
State of the Word

Transcript

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:00] 

Hello everyone! And welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. 

I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:27] 

At the top of November, a new major release for WordPress shipped. That was WordPress 6.1. I know I talked about it basically nonstop. Then two weeks later, there was a new minor release for WordPress. It was WordPress 6.1.1, which I did not talk about at all. Way back in episode four of this podcast, I dug into the overall release cycle and what someone could expect from a high-level logistics aspect.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:05] 

And today we’re gonna take a quick look at minor releases in particular. Just as a general heads up, I always want to lean into sports metaphors when I’m talking about releases, and I think it’s because of the words major and minor. And so, I’ve done my level best to not include that in any of my explanations today.

But I do have one, I do have one that’s a sports thing. So just if you don’t like sports, know that it’s just one little bit and we’ll try to be carefully quick around it together. All right, so minor releases. You may have noticed that I don’t mention minor releases nearly as often as I mention major releases. And yet, most of the time, when we have a major release of WordPress, there’s a minor release that gets started almost immediately after.

So first major versus minor. Major releases in WordPress happen roughly three times a year, give or take a release. Inside a major release, you will find that we include features, so– brand new abilities, enhancements, which you can generally call improvements to existing abilities, and also any bug fix that we can find, big or small, we’ll take ’em all.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:16] 

So minor releases in WordPress happen about four or five times a year on average. Minor releases include patches for issues introduced in the major release and any bug fix that doesn’t add or change functionality. 

If you’re with me so far, you probably have noted that there’s basically always at least one minor release per major release. And you might have also noted that I said minors include patches for issues we introduced in a major.

Now, if I were hearing this with fresh ears, the first thing I would wonder is, okay, so if you start working on the minor right after you release the major to deal with issues you know you introduced in the major– why just not ship the major while there are bugs in it? Great question. I’m glad you asked. So there are a few things worth knowing here.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:03:09] 

Firstly, there is this concept of “ship and iterate,” which is present in both agile and open source. The idea is that we ship software as soon as we have confidence that what is in the release is non-breaking and represents our best guests at a better experience for our users.

Once that is out there, we use feedback on the initial release to quickly iterate and ship another release. That way, we don’t hold back any good features. And since we already planned the immediate minor, any major issues that show up can be fixed in as little as two weeks. Secondly, there is the concept that with many eyes, all bugs are shallow, which is primarily present in open source.

The idea here is that with enough people looking at a problem, that problem doesn’t stand a chance. So when a release is shipped in a workable state but with interactions that could use some refinement, the fastest way to find those refinements is to take it to the community of WordPress users and developers and invite them to co-create this CMS with us.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:04:10]

Which touches on my final thought. The concept of the user as co-creator.

If we think about the development and evolution of our software as a team effort, then we can think of the people who use our software as what’s called the “Twelfth Man” That’s in quotes, and I will, I’ll leave a link to that in the show notes as well. 

In sports, this refers to the fans. And if you’ve ever been to a live sporting event or played in any, you will know that the cheering and jeering from fans turns into this distinct motivating entity all its own. As a whole team or individual member, you know what you have to do. You know what you need to do in a game, but there’s something about that chaotic, loud roar of feedback that just brings life to what you’re doing, and that’s how I see our community of users.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:02]

So at the end of the day, the answer to the question of ‘why so many releases’ and the follow-up question of ‘why tolerate stable imperfection’ is largely the same. To get features into the hands of our users quickly so that we can always be breathing life into this CMS we care so much about.

I hope that answers your questions about our release cadence, and if you didn’t come into this podcast having any questions about release cadences at all, I hope this new information brings a little extra light to the complexity of working in open source. 

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:32] 

That brings us now to our small list of big things.

Big thing number one is that the State of the Word has been announced and is scheduled for December 15th. It’s a little earlier in the day than in past iterations, so I hope we get a new crew of listeners tuning in at the same time. I’ll leave a link to that in the show notes, or you can pop over to wordpress.org/news to see the announcement for yourself.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:06:00] 

Big thing number two is that team rep nominations are open on most teams right now. So if organization and people wrangling are high on your list of ways you can give back to WordPress, head on over to the team you contribute to and see how you raise your hand for that. 

Then big thing number three is that big-picture goals, hopes, and timelines are being gathered, and I will ship those shortly after the start of the new year.

It will give us all an idea of where we want to focus our attention to ensure that WordPress continues to grow toward the future. You can keep an eye out for that on make.wordpress.org/project. 

And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thanks for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks.

You’re already familiar with WordPress.com, but did you know we’re part of a larger family of amazing products? Automattic provides a range of online solutions, from ecommerce shops to course-creation software to audience survey tools, and much, much more. No matter what’s on your website wishlist this year, we’ve got you covered.   

After all, the best Black Friday deal isn’t a disposable gadget or a trendy clothing item; it’s something that will help you grow, and will grow along with you. Your website isn’t just a website — it’s the foundation for everything you hope to achieve.

Below you’ll find all the deals we’re offering across our online ecosystem.     

WordPress.com: 40% off 2-year plans 

Best-in-class WordPress hosting. Unparalleled support. All the SEO, security, and design features you need, built right in. For a limited time, get 40% off any new 2-year plan — just use the code blackfriday2022 at checkout to take advantage of this discount. (Be sure you’ve selected the “Two year” option from the dropdown menu on the checkout page.)

Built By WordPress.com: Free 1-year plan

Whether you want to build an online store or completely redesign your website, Built By WordPress.com is here for you. Click on the link below to tell us more about your project or business. Don’t forget to mention “Black Friday 2022” to get the first year on our Business plan for free! 

Built By WordPress.com Express: 30% off 

No need to stress the details: Our WordPress experts can build your site for you from the ground up. Take 30% off a website build and get your site launched in 4 business days or less. Use the code blackfriday22 at checkout.

Domains: Up to 90% off popular extensions 

Want a new domain? Enjoy incredible savings of 50% to 90% off for the first year. We have many great extensions to choose from, all priced at $5 USD or below for Black Friday. 

Choose from .blog, .me, .art, .store, .link, .click, .online, .shop, .life, .live, .world, .guru, .today, .info, .pro, .agency, .boutique, .directory, .run, .solutions, .wtf, and many more!

WooCommerce: 40% off all themes and extensions 

Now’s the perfect time to launch or level up the online store of your dreams. With 40% off all WooCommerce themes and extensions, you can turn your WordPress site into a powerful platform for ecommerce. 

Jetpack: 20% off all products and bundles 

There’s never been a better time to secure your website with real-time backups, automated malware scanning, and powerful spam protection. This weekend, get 20% off all Jetpack products and bundles. 

Fun fact: If you’re a WordPress.com customer, Jetpack is already built into your site at no additional cost!  

Crowd Signal: 50% off plans and upgrades 

Gather feedback and insights from your customers with polls, surveys, feedback buttons, quizzes, and more. Get 50% off new plans and plan upgrades through Monday. 

Sensei: 40% off all products 

Create and sell courses that would make your favorite teacher proud. Get 40% off all Sensei products, including Interactive Blocks, Sensei Pro, and Sensei Agency.

WP Job Manager: 30% off

A job board plugin like no other. Get our Add-on Bundle for 30% off to collect resumes, promote job listings, and more.