Chapter 26. WordPress.com and the Automattic Products

IN THIS CHAPTER

  • About Automattic

  • Taking a look at Automattic's Open Source Footprint

  • Using WordPress.com themes

  • Getting your plugin included in WordPress.com

  • Buying premium WordPress.com features

WordPress.org is the home of the open source, self-hosted WordPress software. Everything on http://wordpress.org is owned by the community, even though Automattic is the chief contributor. Automattic has even gone out of its way to ensure that the core developers of WordPress are not Automattic employees.

WordPress.com, however, is a separate and commercial venture of Automattic. It is the largest hosted blog platform in the world using WordPress Multisite. Having a blog on WordPress.com is a free and easy way to get started blogging without having to install WordPress yourself or wrestle with hosting.

Through this chapter, I'll discuss not only the WordPress.com offering, but also other products that Automattic provides to their own customers and the greater community.

About Automattic

Automattic was started by Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, several years after the WordPress project got started. Matt has become the public face of WordPress and is frequently on the speaking circuit, travelling to WordCamps around the globe, representing both WordPress and Automattic.

Note

For more information about the beginnings of WordPress, see Chapter 1.

The company is currently consists of over 80 employees spread around the world. Several employees ...

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