WP Weekly 184 - AI Data - 8G Firewall, Lazy Render, Gravatar's Vision

Tumblr and WordPress .com data for AI models was the big focus of discussion this week. Also tracking this week, Barn2 sold off their seven WordPress plugins, and the big event – WordCamp Asia 2024 is happening this week!

A little early… is this week’s WP Weekly issue, as I am leaving for Taiwan to attend the WordCamp Asia 2024 event. If you are attending, connect via Twitter to say Hello and strike a conversation in real at the event.

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• Security Plugin & Initiative… after more than a year of beta testing, Jeff Starr has released free 8G Firewall plugin, which lightweight (only 17KB) and offer server-level protection from various threats. WordPress VIP and rtCamp have partnered for the Privacy Sandbox initiative that promises to help businesses adapt to new web privacy standards.
  
  
• Site Optimization & Care… FlyingPress has introduced a new Lazy Render Feature that allow you to lazy load any element content within a page builder layout made with Elementor, Divi, Gutenberg, Breakdance – or use a CSS class. While WPRemote has introduced the Visual Monitoring Feature which checks for visual look of key pages on your WordPress website.
  
  
• Features Coming Soon… the upcoming release of GenerateBlocks will see brand new Global Styles and Patterns Library systems, the alpha 2 release. Paid Memberships Pro, release candidate 3.0v reveal big changes coming structure of your membership site data and improved support for designing with blocks.

1. Plugins Acquisition & Future Plans… Kestrel, the former co-founders of SkyVerge (which is now part of GoDaddy), has acquired seven WooCommerce plugins from the Barn2 team. For more, see the acquisitions database. Meta Box shared its 2023 review highlighting milestones and features along with plans for 2024 focusing on MB Blocks, MB Relationships, and MB Custom Table.
   
   
2. Features for Elementor Users… AffiliateWP has added Elementor Referral Tracking feature that automatically create referrals when a referred visitor submits a form made in Elementor. Hotel Booking 4.8.7v promises improved calendar loading speed and new widgets for Elementor and Divi users to display hotel information and page layout for individual rooms.
   
   
3. WP Milestones… the popular SEO plugin, SEOPress has crossed 300,000 active installs milestone. From Brainstorm Force and Sure Products: Presto Player has clocked over 100,000 active installs milestone and ZipWP has surpassed 100k registered users milestone. Josh Kohlbach shared (Links X) about Advanced Coupons plugin reaching 20,000 active installs milestone.
   
   
4. Anniversary Time… a decade of MainWP, as it celebrates the 10-year journey with the release of version 5 of MainWP. The first big success from the WPManageNinja team, Ninja Tables Plugin is celebrating its 6th anniversary – which joins many other successful plugins from this group.
   
   
5. WordCamps Action… WordCamp Canada has been announced, scheduled for July 11, 2024, – with the call for sponsorship and speaker applications now open. Also, the WordCamp Buffalo 2024 event is officially on the calendar for May 4th, 2024 at Tonawanda, New York.

Quick Bits 👍

• Check cool layouts with the new Box Module in Beaver Builder.
• Your say in WordPress Professionals Survey, by The Admin Bar.
• Evolution: Gravatar is aiming to be your online business card.
• The new design of the WordCamp US 2024 website is live now.
• The 2nd episode of Website Cookbook series focusing on tools.

Making Headlines: Data Access for AI

The report of Automattic owned, Tumblr and WordPress .com, is preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI has created quiet a buzz.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen wrote about ten questions for Matt Mullenweg in this regard. The team at the WPTavern also covered this story along with Automattic’s response to this news.

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WordPress Deals 🚀

• New Deal - WP Go Maps is one Appsumo with $59 lifetime offer.
• Woo + Omnisend 30% OFF Offer with $1000 migration package.
• Lifetime Deal for the Admin & Site Enhancements Pro is trending.
• Early Bird Launch Offer for Rapyd Managed WordPress Hosting.
• Integrate with other websites with Bit Integrations LTD from $49.
• Get pCloud's 2TB storage LTD for WordPress Backups and Files.
• 100s of products listed in WordPress Lifetime Deals database.
  
  

Upcoming Events 💬

March 07, 2024: WordCamp Asia 2024 at Taiwan - I will be there!
March 19, 2024: WP Engine's Decode 2024 online conference.
September 23, 2024: Digital Asset Congress 2024 in Iceland.

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

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