WordPress and State of the Word 2015

Recently, the inaugural WordCamp US was held in Philadelphia, wherein Matt Mullenweg delivered his 10th annual State of the Word address.

A lot many things were mentioned in State of the Word 2015 by Mullenweg, with the highlight of the speech being the fact that WordPress now powers over 25% of the internet.

Furthermore, Matt Mullenweg also mentioned the rate at which WordPress is growing, and further highlighted some of the major improvements and milestones, such as:

• Adoption of Slack for team collaboration
• The code for WordPress.tv is now open source
• All themes and plugins now support language packs
• Plugin directory crossed over a billion downloads
• Twenty Fifteen is now active on over 1.6 million websites
• There were three major releases of WordPress this year: 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 (with 4.4 being ready for release soon)

At #wcus @wonderboymusic is presenting 4.4 during the #sotw. 🎉 pic.twitter.com/bc5rMOau5B

— Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) December 5, 2015

Going further, Mullenweg stated that JavaScript interfaces and PHP APIs are the future of not just WordPress, but the internet:

I believe quite strongly that JavaScript and API-driven interfaces are the future of not just WordPress but the web. Perhaps there could be a future where there might be something on the other side that is worth breaking backwards compatibility for.

Looking forward to 2016, Mullenweg admitted that WordPress needs to focus more on customization, and further added that in near future, JavaScript interfaces are something that WordPress needs to rely on. In fact, Mullenweg even pledged to himself contribute a JavaScript patch to the WordPress core in the coming year.

Homework assignment from @photomatt: Learn JavaScript, deeply. #WCUS pic.twitter.com/VHr2p4JB1O

— WordCamp US (@WordCampUS) December 5, 2015

WordPress had humble beginnings in the form of a simple blogging platform, but today it has evolved into the world’s most popular Content Management System, and it continues to grow at a steady pace. IN 2016, WordPress is expected to grow even more, and here is what Matt Mullenweg had to say to conclude his speech:

I think we can use this opening up, API-driven development to actually open up more of the web. We have a very exciting year ahead of us making the web a more open place.

What do you think of State of the Word 2015, and how does 2016 look to you from the point of view of WordPress? Share your views in the comments below!