Issue #99 - Business - Jetpack Changed, Sticky Blocks, Bionic Reading

The business in the world of WordPress is still strong, be it the hugely popular ACF plugin selling (again!) or Automattic investing in a relatively emerging WordPress service. Also included in this issue, are all the new launches, a stash of new plugins, and important changes like Jetpack breaking into a modular mode.

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• New Launches… Kinsta has launched Kinsta Academy featuring free courses on topics of website speed, maintaining client websites, and optimizing WooCommerce stores. Also, the team at MasterWP has launched a new Press the Issue podcast with the first episode focussing on capitalizing the “P” in WordPress!
  
  
• Let’s Learn… see how you can create Substack style access to your articles protected by a paywall using a combination of WPFusion, GroundHogg CRM, Elementor Pro, and Astra theme. Also, check this crash course on responsive design done right and more by Elijah Mills on the Oxygen Builder website.
  
  
• Product Updates… LearnDash 4.2.0 update has added an option to quickly clone courses, integration with RazorPay (popular in India), and now you can also drip topics and quizzes. While, Kadence has added a nice sticky sections feature and the font smoothing option for the Kadence Blocks plugin users.

1. A Big Change… Jetpack in an attempt to shed its ‘all in one’ solution image (thankfully!) is going modular. It has taken out main features and made them available as six individual plugins like Jetpack – Backup, Protect, Boost, Social, Search, and CRM. A very good move indeed, till now I have stayed away from this plugin but now I feel more confident in using specific ones for specific things!
   
   
2. Money Moves… InstaWP service for quickly launching WordPress instances (temporary installs) for the purpose of testing plugins, themes, and building websites has received investment from the Automattic. The founder Vikas Singhal shared more about it on The WP Minute podcast.
   
   
3. Acquisition Train… exactly after a year when the ACF plugin was sold off to the Delicious Brains team, it has a new owner now in the form of WPEngine. Fortunately, WPEngine is upfront and more clear in its commitment to honoring ACF lifetime license holders.
   
   
4. WP Perspectives… Eric Karkovack highlighted the way WordPress would deal with current challenges will guide its future growth, especially keeping it friendly for new users without losing its goodness of being highly customizable and extendable.
   
   
5. Being a Changemaker… a lot of people have talked of a 4-day workweek but not many implemented it. In the WordPress space, Michael Makijenko announced that the Visual Composer team is switching to a 4-day workweek model, interesting!

• PowerPack for Elementor has added a cool tooltip feature.
• Free tickets are now available for The Page Builder Summit.
• Looking ahead, here is the roadmap to 6.1v of WordPress.
• The WooExpert program is back for Woo website agencies.
• Yep.com is a new search engine promising to pay creators!

Bionic Reading is a new method of reading text whereby your eyes are guided with artificial fixation points within the text. Well, here is a free plugin to implement Bionic Reading on your WordPress websites.

For the Gutenberg goodness, check the WP-DXP plugin (digital experience platform) that adds personalization and conditional rules to the content that your users can view. And for visual goodness, access this beautiful collection of block patterns meant for food bloggers via this plugin from the WPZoom team.

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• Getting Noticed is Squirrly SEO $49 lifetime deal for WP users.
• 30% off discount on the Social Ninja Plugin's unlimited plan.
• Simple photo editing software, Luminar AI lifetime deal.
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• Store your WordPress backups on pCloud storage, 65% OFF!

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By
Davinder Singh Kainth
A creative who Loves to Create Online Spaces powered by WordPress.

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