WordPress growth has been amazing as it has has come of age. Facebook’s plugin will simplify formatting of WordPress posts for its platform. This move indicates Facebook recognizes the importance of making itself easily accessible to WordPress publishers (which happens to be about 25% of publishers on the web). It also shows . It has grown up. It is interesting to note how far it has come. So for this post I decided to do a life story of WordPress, in the form of a link roundup. I hope this provide readers with a perspective on the origin, growth and bright future of WordPress.
Facebook’s upcoming release of the Instant Article plugin highlights WordPress Growth.
Conception
It was released on May 27, 2003, by founders, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, as a fork of b2/cafelog.
2001 – b2 cafelog launched by Michel Valdrighi. WordPress 1.0 was released in May of 2003.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)
http://cafelog.com/
First Plugins
WordPress 1,2 introduced the first plugins.
WordPress adds themes and static pages in 2005.
Anatomy of a WordPress Theme | Ryan Boren
2007 – A new UI, autosave, spell check and other new features were introduced in Version 2.1 (Ella). Widgets, better Atom feed support, and speed optimizations came out in Version 2.2 (Getz). And tagging, update notifications, pretty URLs and a new taxonomy system were introduced in Version 2.3 (Dexter).
Pulsed: Blogger vs WordPress vs Tumblr Comparison
MovableType 4 vs. WordPress 2.2 – Mashable
WordPress For Dummies
by Lisa Sabin-Wilson
and Matt Mullenweg
1st edition, Novemver 2007
2008- WordPress Growth Spurt
The State of WordPress 2008: Awesome Growth Posted by Henry Work
2008 – Version 2.5 (Brecker) was released with a new administration UI design by Happy Cog, and introduced the dashboard widget system and the shortcode API. Version 2.6 (Tyner) built on 2.5 and introduced post revisions and Press This. A usability study was done on 2.5 over the summer, leading to the development of the Crazyhorse prototype, and the eventual release of Version 2.7 (Coltrane), which redesigned the administration UI to improve usability and make the admin tool more customizable. Version 2.7 also introduced automatic upgrading, built-in plugin installation, sticky posts, comment threading/paging/replies and a new API, bulk management, and inline documentation.
2009 – Version 2.8 (Baker) introduced a built-in theme installer and an improved widget UI and API. Version 2.9 (Carmen) introduced image editing, a Trash/Undo feature, bulk plugin updating, and oEmbed support.
2010 – Version 3.0 (Thelonious) was a major release, it introduced custom post types, made custom taxonomies simpler, added custom menu management, added new API’s for custom headers and custom backgrounds, introduced a new default theme called “Twenty Ten” and allowed the management of multiple sites (called MultiSite).
WordPress: Best of 2009 and Trends of 2010
2011: The Post Format
2011 – Version 3.1 (Gershwin) introduced post format and the admin bar.
Version 3.2 (Reinhardt) made WordPress faster and lighter, this version upgraded minimum requirements to PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.15, and introduced a new default theme called “Twenty Eleven”.
Version 3.3 (Sonny) made WordPress more friendly for beginners with welcome messages and feature pointers.
Twenty Eleven Post Formats – What Are They and Why ..
2012 – Version 3.4 (Green) introduced the theme customizer and theme previewer. Version 3.5 (Elvin) introduced the new media manager and the new default theme called “Twenty Twelve”.
2013 Responsive Design
2013 – Version 3.6 (Peterson) introduced a new default theme called “Twenty Thirteen”, builtin Audio and Video support, dynamic and scalable Revisions, improved Autosave and Post Locking. Version 3.7 (Basie) introduced automatic updates for maintenance and security updates, stronger password meter, improved search results and better global support for localized versions. Version 3.8 (Parker) introduced new admin design and new default theme called “Twenty Fourteen”.
20 Stunning Responsive WordPress Themes – Mashable
2014 – Version 3.9 (Smith) improved the media experience and introduced live widget and header previews.
Version 4.0 (Benny)introduced a grid view for the media library and for installing plugins, and visual previews for embedded content.
Version 4.1 (Dinah)introduced a refreshed Distraction Free Writing mode, language installation from the Settings screen, and a beautiful new default theme, “Twenty Fifteen”.
9 WordPress Design Trends to Look out for in 2014 – WPKube
Five WordPress Trends That Shaped 2014 – Woorkup
2015 – Version 4.2 (Powell)
added emoji support, add extended character support and switched database encoding from utf8 to utf8mb4. Version 4.3 (Billie) added builtin site icons support and introduced formatting shortcuts in the visual editor.
adds responsive images, embeddable posts, and a new default theme, “Twenty Sixteen.”
15 Trends That Dominate 2015 WordPress Web Design
The Future of WordPress Plugins: What’s on the Horizon for …
Dec 9 2015
WordPress in 2016: How the REST API and Calypso Will …
2016: “All Growed Up”
Facebook will let any WordPress blog post Instant Articles
By Tom Warren
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