WordPress will soon be the platform for a third of the world’s websites. Although WordPress is open source, a handful of US companies control the direction of the platform that is shaping our digital future.
The question of where WordPress is heading is a question about the future of the web. Today, WordPress is behind 27% of the world’s websites, according to analyst firm W3Techs. Its closest competitor, Joomla, has 3.4 percent of the market. WordPress’ growth is not about challenging its small competitors, but rather about conquering sites that lack publishing tools and capturing people and businesses without websites.
If WordCamps is a measure of WordPress influence, WordPress is very much a US and European affair. Russia and China are white spots on the map, while India and South East Asia are represented. Looking at searches for WordPress on Google Trends, interest is more spread out across the world
It’s uncontroversial to say that WordPress is an important part of the digitization of society and business in the next ten years. However, it is more difficult to be certain about how WordPress will develop in the future. Although the development itself is transparent, the key players are a handful of companies without transparency.
Matt Mullenweg helped create WordPress. He is a thought leader in the community and CEO of Automattic, the company that contributes most to the development of WordPress Core. At WordCamp USA 2016 in Philadelphia, Matt Mullenweg did not promise any major new features. He wants developers to concentrate on improving existing features. Matt Mullenweg pointed out three areas that the development of WordPress Core will focus on improving in the coming year:
- Rest API
- The publishing interface (the editor)
- The customizer
By redesigning the API and allowing the interface and customizer to use the API instead of the PHP functions, WordPress opens up for big changes in the future.
Matt Mullenweg is pointing with his whole hand, but does he also decide in practice? WordPress is an open-source project, but a handful of commercial companies contribute most to the development of the platform. A survey from last year showed that almost 60 percent of core developers were employed by three US companies, with the largest share (20.4 percent) coming from Matt Mullenweg’s own company Automattic. By providing resources, it is thus a handful of company managements that decide in which direction WordPress should be developed.
Angry Creative has previously written about the lack of multilingual support in WordPress Core. American companies don’t have the same need for multilingual support as companies from less export-dependent countries like Sweden, which must operate in multiple markets to survive.
To explore the future, it’s interesting to look at what Automattic itself is doing. With 514 employees, Automattic is still a relatively small company. The transparency that open source stands for is not present at Automattic. Despite being valued at $1.16 billion two years ago when Automattic received $160 million in venture capital, very little information is released about the company. No figures on turnover or profitability are published. News about Automattic is sparse and is about the acquisition of, for example, WooCommerce or investments in the top-level domain .blog. In interviews, Matt Mullenweg is pleasant, but he reveals nothing about the future.
Automattic’s main service Wordpress.com offers Wordpress as a web-based service. Wordpress.com is the 39th most visited domain in the world, according to Alexa.com. For Wordpress.com, both the Rest API and the Calypso publishing interface are perhaps the most important features along with speed and security.
Matt Mullenweg also highlighted the WordPress interface Calypso at WordCamp USA 2016. 68 percent of all posts on WordPress.com are made via Calypso. Calypso’s JavaScript interface is significantly simpler and cleaner than the standard HTML interface.
The three areas of focus for the development of WordPress Core, according to Matt Mullenweg, are the same areas that are central to Wordpress.com: the Rest API, the publishing interface and the customizer. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a fact that Wordpress.com’s core features are also identified as WordPress Core’s most important development areas.
Alongside Wordpress.com, WooCommerce is the most interesting part of Automattic. WooCommerce was purchased in 2015 and since the purchase, the pace of development has increased at WooCommerce. It is likely that WooCommerce will be released as an independent hosted service in time.
Automattic has also promised to invest in SSL certification for more secure websites. Already today, WordPress.com offers https at no extra cost for its customers who have their own domains.
Today, Matt Mullenweg is at the helm of Automattic, but the question is who will be at the helm after an Automattic IPO? Venture capitalists have invested $317 million in Automattic and they want a return on their investment in an IPO. The question is whether Automattic’s direction changes after an IPO. Will Automattic invest as much in WordPress Core after an IPO? How will Automattic provide higher returns to shareholders?
I believe that the key to WordPress’ future lies largely with Automattic. But also with the growing ecosystem of WordPress developers around the world who are monetizing WordPress. Angry Creative is active in the community to contribute to the development, but of course also to gain influence. By actively contributing, we believe we are defending our clients’ interests, and that’s why we build plugins and help with WordPress/WooCommerce core. The more the community invests in WordPress Core, the more influence the community has on the future of WordPress.