1. 15 years of WordPress;
2. WooCommerce removed from plugin directory;
3. Liquid Web acquires iThemes in a multi-million deal.

15 years of WordPress

WordPress has recently turned 15 years old. Yes, 15 years since Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little decided to resolve “The blogging software dilemma”. I’m proud to mention that one of the original WordPress developers was Alex King, the founder of Crowd Favorite.

WooCommerce 3.3 removed from plugin directory

Yes, you read correctly, WooCommerce 3.3 has been removed from the WordPress plugin directory. The 3.3 version which was supposed to increase theme compatibility, started to be reported right after the release by users of third-party themes with issues about categories displaying improperly. As a temporary measure, WooCommerce has removed 3.3 from the plugin directory and replaced it with 3.2.6.

According to a post on the official blog, WooCommerce 3.3.1 will replace 3.3 and will include a fix for the category display issue. This was the first time when a release was reverted, according to Coen Jacobs, a former WooCommerce developer.

Liquid Web acquires iThemes in a multi-million deal

If anybody thinks that the WordPress world can’t be spectacular or without great deals and acquisitions, is very wrong. After just celebrating 10 years of activity, iThemes has been acquired by Liquid Web, a managed hosting company founded in 1997.

Most popular iThemes products include FlexxTheme, BackupBuddy, Builder, iThemes Sync, and iThemes Security. In 2013, the company entered the e-commerce space with Exchange which was acquired in 2017 by AJ Morris allowing the company to focus on iThemes Sales Accelerator, a new product that works exclusively with WooCommerce.

iThemes will continue to operate as an independent unit within Liquid Web, Cory Miller will remain as General Manager and the company will keep its office space and employees in Oklahoma.