Weekly WordPress News: Investments in the WordPress Space

Hey, WordPress friends.

We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. 

Automattic made a significant investment in the self-managed WordPress hosting platform Gridpane. According to its founder and CEO Patrick Gallagher, the additional capital will go towards innovation and marketing initiatives. 

Meanwhile, Atarim closed its first funding round with funding from people in the WordPress community.

Beyond that, the WordPress 6.1 release squad shared an informal tour of new features we can expect in the next release. 

We also have a lot of other news, resources and deals for you as usual. 

Let’s get to all of this week’s news. 

WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES

• Atarim Raises First Funding Round to Bring Visual Collaboration To The Masses – founder Vito Peleg shares the news on the website. 
• Self-Managed WordPress Pioneer GridPane Takes Strategic Investment from Automattic – GridPane CEO talks about future plans. 
• 6.1 Product Walk-Through Recap – a preview of new features in the next release.
• WooCommerce 6.9 Released – featuring the new Cart and Checkout blocks.
• Canonical Plugins Revisited – Matt Mullenweg’s push for canonical plugins.
• The Marquee Block – a new plugin that helps you add a moving banner to your site.
• PSA: Zero-Day Vulnerability in WPGateway Actively Exploited in the Wild – Wordfence advises to uninstall the plugin until a patch is available.
• Francisco Opazo acquired Strive Calendar – here’s the announcement tweet.
• Sneak Peek: Biometric Logins & Passkeys for WordPress – a new service from iThemes.
• FluentSMTP Gets 100,000 Installations – congrats on this milestone!
• Hot Off the Press: New WordPress.com Themes for September 2022 – if you’re on the lookout for new themes.
• Call For Contributor’s Stories – WordCamp Asia wants to hear your stories. 
• Heroku Free Tier Being Retired – this will start on October 26.
• WordPress Vulnerability Report – September 14, 2022 – the regular vulnerability roundup from iThemes.

TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS

• How To Set up Conversion Tracking for Your WooCommerce Shop – a complete guide.
• Styling your WordPress Blocks – a video tutorial from WordPress. 
• How to filter custom post types by taxonomy in WordPress – as the title says.
• WordPress Plugin Development Best Practices You Should Follow in 2022 – for our developer readers.
• How to Download Images from WordPress Media Library – using a plugin. 
• Localization vs Translation: What Are the Main Differences? – key differences between localization vs translation.

RESOURCES

• WPMU DEV Review: Manage All Your WordPress Websites from One Dashboard – our hands-on review.
• 10Web Booster Review: Optimize Both the Frontend and Backend to Accelerate Website Performance – check out our comprehensive review of this plugin.
• Nexcess Deal – get 50% off 6 months of managed WordPress with code 50OFFWP. 
• Affiliate Booster – LTD on this affiliate plugin for $49.
• BackupGuard  – get a 1-year deal on this plugin for $39. 
• AMZ Image Deal – LTD on this Amazon tool for $79.
• Marcel Schmitz on Finding Work With Codeable and Working With WooCommerce – the latest from WPTavern Jukebox.
• 5 Best Plugins to Manage Shop Manager Role in WooCommerce – from Cozmoslabs.