WP Weekly 177 - Loaded - New Products, SMTP Galore, 2024 Acquisitions

Let’s begin 2024 loaded with goodness for and from the WordPress space. Check the all-new Business of WordPress database page listing acquisitions, investments, and new commercial product launches. Also, a look at upcoming new launches like WP Interactions, MailerGlue, Conversion Bridge, and BoostBox.

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• Brand New Plugins… Derek Ashauer, behind the popular Confetti plugin, has launched Conversion Bridge, a privacy-first analytics that allows you to collect important conversion data and custom events from your favorite WordPress plugins. Robert DeVore has released the BoostBox plugin, promising to be 1st popup builder plugin for the core Block Editor creation and use.
  
  
• Coming Soon… Benjamin Intal, the founder of Stackable, has announced a new product called WP Interactions explaining more about triggers and actions included in this. Lesley Sim, the co-founder of Newsletter Glue, is preparing to launch MailerGlue promising an easy way to build and send email in WordPress.
  
  
• SMTP Plugins Galore… David Vongries, founder of PBF Theme, has rebranded the Welcome Email Editor plugin into Swift SMTP plugin – a simple & free SMTP plugin. FluentSMTP got a new 2.2.7v update and now has crossed the 200k+ active installs milestone. Meanwhile, Gravity Forms new Gravity SMTP Beta is now available for testing.

1. Theme Updates… Astra Theme’s Pro plugin 4.6.0v has introduced improvements to blog and single post layout with a focus on modernizing the blog experience. Hello Elementor Theme 3.0.0v is now available with the ability to disable cross site header and footer along with performance improvements for CSS and JS.
   
   
2. New Integrations… Ultimate Dashboard Pro has added Breakdance integration, allowing you to create personalized admin pages using the Breakdance Builder. While the WP Turbo has added (Links X) integration for Divi enabling Divi extensions code. Also, WS Form has added Mailster integration to create forms for Mailster lists.
   
   
3. New Themes… Ana Segota from Anariel Design has launched a new Fuel Theme for food niche Woo stores over at the official Woo website. Wes Straham from Appfinite has released a new block editor based Maverick Theme for professionals looking to build quick and simple websites.
   
   
4. 2024 Acquisitions Begin… Adrian Șpiac, co-founder of Cozmoslabs, has acquired WP Webhooks plugin, an automation plugin for WordPress, from Jannis Thümmig. Also, Dave Grey has acquired (needs LinkedIn Login) the Divi Form DB plugin that saves Divi Contact Form entries in database, new website is live.
   
   
5. Dev Focused… Edu Wass shared (Links X) about the release of the VSCode extension “Query Monitor WordPress Snippets” for WordPress devs (requires Query Monitor plugin to be installed and activated). While Matt Cohen published in detail about building a terms list block for WordPress. Also, Joost de Valk on why WordPress needs more developer relations (dev-rel) and how to fix that.
   
   
6. Core & Gutenberg Updates… check the year in core for aggregate data of WordPress Core contribution on Trac, like top contributions came from USA, Russia, India, France, and Australia. The first 2024 update for Gutenberg is here, 17.4v has added a few improvements and features to List view and Style Revisions.

• Check Elementor’s new Image Optimizer, test with free plugin.
• CodeWP AI has a new WordPress Plugins Search Tool, beta release.
• Patchstack now with Community Plan 50 sites upgrade for $49/m.
• The Developer Resources website got a new look – neat for sure.
• Matt Mullenweg talks to Tim Ferris on WordPress & Open Source!
• w3techs declared Elementor as CMS of 2023 (CMS & not Plugin?).

2024 Global Sponsors & WordCamps Action

WP Global Sponsors… that support various WordPress community programs like WordCamps, new events, and meetup groups have been announced for 2024. WPBeginner from Awesome Motive is the new sponsor joining Bluehost, GoDaddy, Automattic, and Woo.

WordCamps Action… Soup Dumpling has been selected as the official Wapuu for the WordPress Asia 2024 event. Also, more speakers have been announced in rounds five and six for this upcoming event. Moving to the other continent, tickets for Wordcamp Europe 2024 are now available.

2023 Year in ‘WordPress’ Reviews!

• Devin Walker shared about launching SolidWP & Youtube Channel.
• Shahjahan Jewel shared about new Fluent products & what’s next.
• Katie Keith shared numbers like $1,517,009 revenue at the Barn2.
• Vova Feldman shared about Freemius’s highs, lows, and 2024 goals.
• Syed Balki’s 2023 review shared about the 12 business acquisitions.
• WP Umbrella review shared the progress from 7K to 25K monthly.
• Iain Poulson shared on the 1st full year WPEngine & other projects.
• Studio Wombat’s review reveal 48%+ revenue but no new plugins.

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↑ Community Sponsors supporting this weekly

• Lifetime Deal for the Admin & Site Enhancements Pro from $49.
• Back on Appsumo: WP Login Lockdown LTD deal from $59 to $177
• Lifetime Deal for Fluent Booking from $99 to $499 for limited time.
• CSS Editor plugin for WordPress, MicroThemer LTD is live from $59.
• Big Discount Presto Player LTD for $399 and discounted yearly plan.
• Get pCloud's 2TB storage LTD for WordPress Backups and Files.
• 100s of products listed in WordPress Lifetime Deals database.
  
  

Upcoming Events 💬

January 18, 2024: WordPress for Enterprise - an online event.
January 25, 2024: NitroPack x Google webinar on Loading Pages Instantly.

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

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