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10up Heads to WordCamp US 2023, With Several Speaking Slots

Next week, I – and ten other 10uppers, including President & Founder Jake Goldman and CEO John Eckman – are traveling to National Harbor, Maryland (just outside of Washington DC) for WordCamp US. The largest WordPress conference in the United States, this annual event takes place August 24 – 26 and expects nearly 2,000 attendees.

On Thursday night, the evening before the WordCamp begins, Jake will be joining a panel to discuss how governments and civic tech can modernize with WordPress during the inaugural “Run with VIP: WordPress for Government Summit”. The event is independent of the WordCamp, free to attend, and includes time for networking — you can still register here.

I’m looking forward to several presentations from my 10up colleagues during the three-day event:

  • Dmitry Mayorov, Lead Front-End Engineer, is presenting “From Comfort Zone to Cutting Edge: Embracing Lean Principles in Front-End Projects” — where he will introduce ideas to help developers stay on the cutting edge of the CSS by shifting their mindset.
  • Jeff Paul, Director of Open Source Initiatives, will be giving a lightning presentation on “Using a GitHub Action to Ensure Your Plugins Are GPL Compatible”.
  • Peter Wilson, Lead Web Engineer from our Open Source Practice, is speaking on a holistic approach to WordPress security in his talk, “The Enterprise Approach to WordPress Security”.

Some other attending 10uppers will include SVP of Engineering Taylor Lovett (a local!), VP of New Client Strategy Brad Miller, Director of Client Growth Strategy Steve Meyers, and VP of Platforms & Systems (and ElasticPress product lead) Vasken Hauri.

We can’t wait to see you there!

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WordPress VIP has named 10up its Top Gold Agency Partner for Q2 of 2023. 10up’s partnership with WordPress VIP continues to create success for our shared clients and drive innovation for the CMS that powers 40% of the web: WordPress. Thank you, WordPress VIP for partnering with us to make a better web.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we work alongside partners like WordPress VIP to build finely crafted websites and tools on open source platforms like WordPress, get in touch.

John Eckman

On Monday, June 26th, I’ll be presenting at Boston’s WordPress Meetup on ways Artificial Intelligence (AI) can integrate with WordPress. The presentation, “You Got Your AI In My WP: WordPress and Artificial Intelligence”, will explore a few tools available that utilize AI to assist content creators on WordPress — including 10up’s own ClassifAI and Jetpack’s AI Assistant.

The Boston WordPress Meetup is free to attend (registration required) and starts at 6:30 PM with a networking hour. If you’re in the Boston area, sign up here — I’d love to see you there.

Introducing HeadstartWP: An Open Source, Nimble Framework for Headless WordPress Sites

Drawing from lessons learned building and supporting dozens of headless sites for our clients, 10up architected HeadstartWP: a jumping-off point for decoupled builds, powered by WordPress and Next.js. HeadstartWP delivers premium 10up craftsmanship with time-saving efficiencies for developers. In keeping with our commitment to giving back to the open web ecosystem, HeadstartWP is now available as a free and open source framework.

A light-weight, highly flexible, and extensible toolkit, HeadstartWP is everything a developer needs to start building a decoupled site using modern, broadly adopted technologies.

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Nineteen 10uppers Contribute to WordPress 6.2 Release

On March 29, WordPress released its first major update of 2023, WordPress 6.2 (“Dolphy”), with major improvements to the site editor experience. “Dolphy” also marks a shift in WordPress’ trajectory, with future releases emphasizing authoring workflows and collaborative experiences instead of theme-level customization.

Some major updates to the site editor experience and workflow include:

  • A new sidebar experience that makes editing site navigation more efficient.
  • Block Settings are now split into settings and styles to make the UI easier to understand.
  • Add new blocks easier with drag and drop capabilities for media and a split view option so you can swiftly navigate categories and previews.
  • Search for free-use images on Openverse directly in the editor.
  • Write completely distraction-free by hiding panels and controls.
  • Copy and paste complete styles from one block to another.
  • Easily push style updates of a block to apply globally.

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WordPress VIP Names 10up 2022 Partner of the Year

We are honored to be named WordPress VIP’s 2022 Partner of the Year. This past year continued over a decade of close collaboration and formal partnership between 10up and WordPress VIP – and our shared success is evidence of the strength of open platforms like WordPress in the enterprise.

“As one of WordPress VIP’s longest-tenured partners, 10up understands the carefully-crafted architectures and strategies that drive success on the WordPress VIP platform. And how to deliver exceptional results for customers.” — WordPress VIP

We look forward to another year — and decade — of building a better web alongside WordPress VIP.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we work alongside partners like WordPress VIP to build finely crafted websites and tools on open source platforms like WordPress, reach out! We can’t wait to hear from you.

DE{CODE} 2023: A Free, Globally Virtual WordPress Developer Conference

Next week, WP Engine’s DE{CODE} conference kicks off — the largest WordPress developer event with insightful sessions aimed to educate developers on ways to build smarter, faster, and more securely with WordPress.

I will be participating in a panel along with four other industry experts, titled When is it worth investing in block-centric building in WordPress? The Q&A discussion explores when and how to best leverage WordPress’ Block Editor and Site Editor when building digital experiences.

The conference takes place on March 21 (Americas and APAC) and March 23 (EMEA) and is completely free to attend virtually. Learn more and register now.

ClassifAI Expands Capabilities, Using AI for Recommended Content Block

The latest 1.8 release of ClassifAI incorporates an innovative Recommended Content Block feature — giving sites the ability to recommend related content to users through the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Built by 10up’s Open Source Practice, ClassifAI is a free WordPress plugin that augments sites, streamlines the editorial process, and increases audience engagement by utilizing AI and machine learning (ML). Since its launch, the plugin’s capabilities have grown to include automated content tagging and classification, AI-powered image tagging and descriptive alt text assignment, smart focal point cropping, and image / PDF optical character recognition (OCR).

The newly added Recommended Content Block recommends additional content to site visitors based on their behavior. For instance, after finishing an article or video, the Recommended Content Block will offer suggestions on what to read or watch next based on sitewide traffic history, encouraging the reader to extend their session by interacting with more content.

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10up Turns 12

This February, 10up celebrates our twelfth anniversary — a year of team and revenue growth, innovation in our solutions, and continued contributions to the open web and greater community. Our work continued to be recognized around the web, earning 10up nods as WordPress VIP’s Inaugural Gold Partner of the Quarter and 2022 Partner of the Year, garnering another Webby Award for our work on Democracy Docket, and an Innovation SABRE Award for our work on Stories From Hilton, among other recognitions. Our clients agreed: we’re honored to exceed a 70+ net promoter score (NPS) from our clients in both halves of 2022, the threshold of a “world-class” service partner.

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