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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

Jeff Paul on March 14

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.

10up Turns 12

Jake Goldman on February 23

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.

10up Contributes to Girls Who Code, All Star Code, and Trees For The Future

Ajaka Roth on February 21

Each year, 10up contributes thousands of hours to open source initiatives – including WordPress core releases, publicly documenting our Gutenberg and Engineering Best Practices, and our own freely available plugins and solutions – in an effort to build a better web.

As 2022 drew to a close, we also made a financial contribution to three organizations whose missions resonate with our commitment to giving back and making the web economy and community a better place, now and in the future. Specifically, we contributed $12,360 to Girls Who Code, All Star Code – two organizations committed to advancing diversity in digital engineering – and Trees for the Future, who help to offset the carbon footprint that our computing generates.

If you’re interested in joining a team that makes the web — and the world — better, we’re always hiring.

Celebrating Connectivity This Holiday Season

Jake Goldman on December 22, 2022 • 1 Comment

Having spent another year making the web better alongside our clients and partners, we’ll be disconnecting our screens and recharging our batteries so that we can bring our best, again, in 2023.

As we bring 2022 to a close, 10up will shut down for the holidays on Friday, December 23, and reopen on Tuesday, January 3.

With gratitude to the clients, friends, partners, and colleagues who made another successful year possible, we wish you a festive and relaxing season.

Twenty-six 10uppers Contribute to WordPress 6.1 Release

Jeff Paul on November 9, 2022 • 1 Comment

Released last week, WordPress 6.1 (“Misha”) primarily delivers enhancements to the full site building experience in the Block Editor. The 6.1 release introduces a new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Three, and a suite of performance and usability improvements:

Introduction of new content templates that can accelerate page creation.
Block Template parts can now be defined in classic themes.
Performance improvements including caching `WP_Query` database queries, priming caches in `REST API` and multisite network options queries, as well as new Site Health checks for Persistent Object Cache and Page Cache.
Site Editor settings now sync across browsers and devices for each editor.
Improved ability to select partial paragraphs within a block.
The option to keep the list view of all blocks in a post on the left side as the default, as opposed to previously having to toggle it.

10up publicly releases its Gutenberg Best Practices

Fabian Kaegy on October 13, 2022

In keeping with our mission to make a better web, 10up strives to strengthen and contribute back to the open-source technology ecosystem we build upon. We contribute thousands of hours each year and open source innovations like ElasticPress, which integrates Elastic and WordPress; ClassifAI, which brings AI and machine learning to WordPress; and Distributor, which solves for cross-site content reuse. We also share our Engineering Best Practices and Open Source Best Practices as public projects on GitHub.

In that same spirit, we have now publicly opened up – and open sourced – our WordPress Gutenberg Best Practices documentation.

The Gutenberg Best Practices project began as an internal onboarding and continuing education resource detailing the “10up Way” when it comes to the WordPress block editor and client editorial experience. In deciding to open up in beta as a public resource, our goal is to help developers learn about the WordPress block editor and extend it through the customization of core blocks and the carefully crafted development of custom blocks.

Google and 10up Invite You To Join The Privacy Sandbox Community Group

Mollie Pugh on June 30, 2022

In 2019, Google announced its intention to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome–an effort now scheduled for completion by late 2023.

Alongside this year’s edition of WordCamp Europe in Porto, Portugal, 10up, Google, and long-time 10up partner WP Engine hosted an inter-agency roundtable to explore how the upcoming changes will impact our clients and the web at large—laying the groundwork for the formation of a working group that provides feedback on all aspects of Google’s Privacy Sandbox Initiative.

WordPress 6.0 Released, Led By 10up Core Tech Lead

Jeff Paul on June 3, 2022 • 2 Comments

Last week saw the release of WordPress 6.0 — a release that improves the block editor and full site editing experience through an upgraded user interface that simplifies page composition and content creation. Eleven 10uppers contributed to WordPress 6.0, with Senior Engineer Peter Wilson serving as Release Lead / Core Tech Lead, and myself credited as a Noteworthy Contributor.

WordPress 6.0 boasts more than 50 block editor accessibility enhancements alongside performance improvements that reduce the number of database queries WordPress makes on page requests, especially in the WordPress admin.