State of the Word 2025: It’s A Vibe 🔗 **Source:** [State of the Word 2025: It’s A Vibe](https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/) > [!note]+ Document Notes > ```markdown > > --- > tags: [WordPress, open-source, AI] > author: The WP Minute > source: The WP Minute > reference: [https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/] > date created: 2025-12-03 00:00 > > --- > > # 🏷️ Title: State of the Word 2025: It’s A Vibe > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - Include links cited in or relevant to the article. ## 📝 Summary - What happened: Matt Mullenweg delivered State of the Word 2025, launching WordPress 6.9 and reflecting on a turbulent year. - Why it matters: Shows how WordPress, Automattic, and the broader community are repositioning around AI, data portability, and WooCommerce. - Key stakeholders: Automattic, WordPress community, agencies, plugin/theme builders, WooCommerce ecosystem, educators. - Risks and tradeoffs: Weak executive communication, perceived Automattic dominance, unclear AI roadmap, community trust after 2024 controversies. - Bottom line: 6.9 and this State of the Word feel incremental but lay foundations for AI, data liberation, and renewed confidence in WordPress and WooCommerce. ## 📖 Main Content - The article opens with the launch of WordPress 6.9 at State of the Word 2025, framed as a holiday tradition and a symbol of how far WordPress bounced back after a grim start to 2025. - The livestream experience was poor, hurting the event’s gravitas; compared to Tokyo, this edition “felt like a meetup” and lacked Apple‑style polish and narrative weight. - The author questions the visibility and role clarity of the Executive Director of WordPress, asking for stronger leadership that bridges community, open source governance, and Automattic’s commercial role. - They argue Matt Mullenweg is ~“80% about making open source win, 20% about Automattic as commercial steward,” noting he often resists overt funneling to Automattic products and keeps emphasizing data portability and WordPress as “gold standard” for migration. - AI is presented as early-stage but foundational: AI Experiments plugin, Abilities API, and WooCommerce MCP are emerging building blocks, with James LePage’s team only six months in. - WordPress’s dominance is reiterated (43% of the web, 60% of the CMS market, ~49.4% of top 10k sites, WooCommerce on 8.9% of all sites), plus growing use in education, as evidence of ongoing opportunity. - The author is especially bullish on WooCommerce (huge headroom, under‑credited team) and a renewed interest in building with WordPress, predicting a resurgence of agency work. - They stress 6.9 may feel “flat” and not toy‑like, but is groundwork after a brutal 2024: scorched‑earth conflicts, court and trademark issues, Automattic halting major contributions, community collapse vibes, layoffs, and macroeconomic uncertainty. - The piece closes on cautious optimism: Automattic course‑corrected more than expected, the back half of 2025 looks better than feared, and anticipation is already focused on what WordPress 7+ will bring. ### 🗒️ Notes - State of the Word 2025 launched WordPress 6.9 but suffered from broken livestream and lack of event “pizzazz,” undermining its stature as a capstone moment. - Compared to Tokyo’s “Apple Day” framing, this year felt like an undercooked beta; the author compares it to getting a boring sweater while others get exciting toys. - The author wants Automattic to be a strong representative “company behind WordPress,” not to dominate, but to showcase the project and community in the best possible light. - The Executive Director role appears opaque and distant; communication on the Make blog has been largely operational since late 2024, with little inspirational or strategic guidance. - Community connectors like Anne McCarthy, Rich Tabor, and various Woo staff are praised for informal outreach and bridging gaps with non‑developer and product‑focused audiences. - The article suggests the Exec Director might be tasked more with clearly separating WordPress as a product from WordPress as an open‑source project, even if that means ripping off some bandages. - Matt Mullenweg is portrayed as genuinely pro‑open‑source and pro‑user‑ownership, pushing people to own their web presence without aggressively funneling them to WordPress.com. - A key theme is “data liberation”: WordPress should be the easiest CMS to move to, with improvements like a new importer that can rewrite URLs, positioning WordPress as the migration “gold standard.” - On AI, the author notes how rapidly things are changing and how difficult it is to retrofit a 20‑year‑old CMS to AI patterns that are themselves unstable and investor‑driven. - Early AI building blocks include the AI Experiments plugin, the Abilities API, and WooCommerce MCP; these are likened to having the “fixins” for a future holiday punch, not the finished drink. - The stats (43% of the web, 60% CMS market share, ~49.4% of top 10k sites, WooCommerce at 8.9% of all sites) are used to counter “WordPress is dying” narratives and highlight global and educational adoption. - Investment conversations point to two main opportunities: WooCommerce (still early, strong upside) and a renewed appetite for building with WordPress, especially in agencies. - WordPress 6.9 is acknowledged as less flashy but interpreted as infrastructure for upcoming improvements, especially post‑crisis stabilization. - The author lists 2024–early‑2025 shocks: scorched‑earth conflict, legal and trademark issues, Automattic pausing major contributions, community morale collapse, economic uncertainty, and layoffs. - Despite all that, the back half of 2025 is surprisingly positive; Automattic is credited with realignment “before the ball drops,” and the author is already looking ahead to WordPress 7+. ## 📚 References - WordPress 6.9 release notes (when available) – https://wordpress.org/news/ - State of the Word – https://wordpress.org/news/tag/state-of-the-word/ - WooCommerce – https://woocommerce.com/ - Make WordPress Project blog – https://make.wordpress.org/project/ - AI Experiments plugin & Abilities API (Dev blog) – https://developer.wordpress.org/news/ - Data Liberation initiative – https://wordpress.org/news/tag/data-liberation/ ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Paragraph A paraphrase: The latest State of the Word launched WordPress 6.9 but felt underwhelming as an event, even though it symbolized a hard‑won rebound from a rough 2024. - Paragraph B paraphrase: While critical of Automattic and leadership communication, the author believes Matt remains genuinely committed to open source, data portability, and long‑term WordPress health, with WooCommerce and AI groundwork setting up future growth. ## 📰 Newsletter WordPress just unwrapped 6.9 at State of the Word 2025—and the vibes are… complicated. The livestream sputtered and the show lacked Tokyo’s Apple‑day sparkle, but under the hood we’re seeing serious groundwork: Data Liberation improvements, early AI building blocks (AI Experiments, Abilities API, Woo MCP), and a quietly ambitious WooCommerce roadmap. If you build with WordPress, this is a “plumbing before fireworks” release. Now’s a good time to: - Revisit migration flows and lock‑in risk in your client stack. - Explore WooCommerce extensions with an eye on AI‑ready architectures. - Plug into project updates on Make and the Dev Blog to track where 7.0 might land. After a scorched‑earth 2024, the back half of 2025 looks surprisingly hopeful. Agencies and product shops may want to dust off those “WordPress is back” decks. ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Document and demo new 6.9 and AI‑related APIs (Abilities, AI Experiments) with small, copy‑paste examples. - Run focused workshops for agencies on Data Liberation and migration best practices. - Create “build with Woo again” quickstarts highlighting modern patterns and performance budgets. - Track developer sentiment and confusion around Automattic vs. WordPress roles and address in FAQs. - Facilitate office hours for non‑developer stakeholders (PMs, marketers) on what 6.9 changes in practice. #### OSPO - Clarify governance boundaries between WordPress.org project and Automattic operations; publish a short explainer. - Review open‑source licensing and dependency implications for AI integrations in core or official plugins. - Establish a documented security intake for AI‑related features and migration tooling. - Maintain an SBOM for core + major bundled components, updating each minor release. - Sponsor key community efforts that reinforce data portability and open standards. #### Community - Host post–State of the Word discussion meetups (online/local) to surface concerns and ideas. - Support maintainers with release hygiene checklists focused on AI and migration features. - Improve contributor onboarding around new APIs and tooling introduced in 6.9. - Offer sponsors transparent reporting on how contributions stabilize the ecosystem after 2024’s turbulence. - Coordinate cross‑project incident drills around data export/import failures. #### WordPress - Core: Prioritize clarity around data import/export UX, resilience, and performance; keep 7.0 focused on “finished” experiences, not just plumbing. - Core Performance: Profile AI‑adjacent features and importers, ensuring they don’t regress baseline performance. - Core AI: Create clear principles for AI experiments (privacy, provenance, human‑in‑the‑loop) and measurement plans. - **Core Program Team:** Run regular retros on communication gaps (Exec Director, project blog) and define minimum cadence for community‑facing updates. - Mobile: Evaluate how AI features and Data Liberation workflows should surface in mobile flows, if at all. - Playground: Provide AI and migration sandboxes where developers can safely trial new APIs and importer behaviors. - Community: Refresh WordCamp/meetup kits with sessions on AI, WooCommerce opportunities, and post‑2024 governance lessons. - Training: Build curricula on Data Liberation, modern block‑based development, and WooCommerce architecture. - Marketing: Shape narratives around “open web resilience,” data ownership, and WooCommerce headroom. - Support: Update KBs for 6.9 migration tools; define clear escalation paths for broken imports/exports. - Design: Audit 6.9’s import/export and AI experiment UIs for clarity and calmness. - Documentation: Fill DevHub/HelpHub gaps around new AI and importer APIs with examples‑first docs. - Photos/TV: Promote community talks that dissect State of the Word, AI, and WooCommerce opportunities. - Polyglots: Ensure importer and AI UI strings are well localized, especially for education markets. - Accessibility: Evaluate new workflows (import, AI prompts) for WCAG 2.2 AA compliance. - Meta: Improve .org surfacing of leadership communications and roadmaps; reduce the “black box” feel. - CLI: Ensure WP‑CLI has robust, documented commands for Data Liberation workflows. - Hosting: Align default configs for import/export, file limits, and logging to support new tooling. - Tide: Track and communicate AI‑related plugin scoring concerns, including false positives. - Openverse: Consider how AI and licensing interact; clarify reuse guidance in educational contexts. - Themes/Plugins: Mentor authors toward AI‑safe UX patterns and sustainable WooCommerce integrations. #### The WPOCC - Programs: Fund fellowships for maintainers working on migration, AI safety, and WooCommerce infrastructure. - Projects: Coordinate documentation sprints that translate State of the Word themes into concrete how‑tos. - Funding experiments: Pilot milestone‑based grants for Data Liberation and governance transparency projects. ### FAIR - Technical independence: Encourage local, verifiable storage for AI‑related metadata and export logs. - Policies and covenants: Codify funding transparency and anti‑capture principles for corporate contributors. - Productized governance artifacts: Ship reusable charters and decision‑rights templates for sub‑teams (AI, Data Liberation). ## 🧪 Hypotheses - H1: Clearer communication from the Executive Director will measurably increase community trust and contributor retention. - H2: Improved data import/export tooling in 6.9 will increase migration to WordPress from proprietary CMSs over the next 12–24 months. - H3: Early AI primitives (AI Experiments, Abilities API, Woo MCP) will drive a new class of plugins/themes within two years. - H4: WooCommerce’s share of overall WordPress economic activity will grow faster than core’s share of hosting‑only sites. - H5: Educational adoption of WordPress correlates with long‑term contributor growth and ecosystem resilience. ### 📊 Methodology - For H1: Survey contributors pre/post communication changes; track retention, new contributors, and sentiment on Make blogs/Slack. - For H2: Partner with hosts and agencies to anonymously aggregate CMS migration stats; compare pre‑6.9 vs. post‑6.9 trends. - For H3: Analyze plugin repo metadata for new AI‑tagged plugins; interview builders on API usefulness and friction. - For H4: Use ecosystem economic reports (e.g., surveys, marketplaces) to estimate WooCommerce‑related revenue vs. non‑commerce builds. - For H5: Map university and bootcamp curricula adoption; correlate with new contributor signups and patch volume over time. ### ❓ Questions - What is the explicit remit, accountability, and communication cadence for the Executive Director? - How will the project prevent AI integrations from undermining user privacy and data ownership? - What guardrails exist to avoid over‑centralization of AI infrastructure in Automattic services? - How can WooCommerce’s product strategy be made more transparent to builders betting on it? - Which metrics should define success for Data Liberation and migration work? ### 🔮 Future Research - Longitudinal studies on CMS migration patterns in response to improved portability tooling. - Comparative analysis of AI strategies across major CMSs (WordPress, Drupal, proprietary SaaS). - Governance case studies on balancing corporate stewardship and community autonomy. - Economic mapping of WooCommerce’s ecosystem vs. other e‑commerce stacks. - Impact of WordPress in formal education on students’ career and open‑source engagement. ### 💡 Implications - Practice: Agencies and builders should prioritize migration‑friendly architectures and explore AI‑augmented workflows. - Policy: Governance roles and decision rights need clearer documentation to maintain community trust. - Security: New AI and import paths expand the attack surface and must be threat‑modeled. - Education: Curricula can leverage WordPress’s dominance to teach web literacy and open‑source norms. - Funding: Post‑2024 turbulence suggests the need for more diversified and transparent ecosystem funding. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - Reading level estimate: Upper high‑school / early college (roughly Flesch‑Kincaid 10–12) due to metaphors, stats, and governance context. #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: Descriptive metaphors (e.g., “holiday punch,” “Apple Day”), implicit event imagery. - Improve: Add diagrams of WordPress governance, AI architecture sketches, before/after import UX screenshots. #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: Underlying reference to the State of the Word talk (video), replay on YouTube. - Improve: Provide a 2–5 minute audio summary and podcast‑style debrief of key points. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: Rich narrative, analogies, clear opinions, some definitions via context. - Improve: Add a short glossary (Exec Director, Data Liberation, Abilities API) and explicit comparisons to prior releases. #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: Indirect prompts to “build with WordPress” and explore WooCommerce. - Improve: Offer step‑by‑step labs for testing AI Experiments, Abilities API, and migration tools. #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: Basic stats, causal narratives (crisis → course‑correction → groundwork). - Improve: Provide tables of metrics, timelines of 2024–2025 events, and explicit decision trees for adoption choices. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: Focus on community dynamics and relationships with named individuals. - Improve: Include discussion prompts for meetups and suggested group exercises (e.g., governance role‑play). #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: Reflective tone and invitation to “give yourself and WordPress some grace.” - Improve: Add explicit reflection questions and short self‑check quizzes on understanding the ecosystem. #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: Minimal connection to environmental themes. - Improve: Use “ecosystem” framing more concretely and link to sustainability of open‑source infrastructure. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: Article‑style headings, readable paragraph flow. - Improve: Ensure correct heading hierarchy and descriptive alt text for any charts/screenshots. #### Keyboard navigation - Present: Standard blog layout likely keyboard‑accessible. - Improve: Confirm visible focus states, skip‑links, and no keyboard traps in media or embeds. #### Contrast and readability - Present: Typical blog contrast likely sufficient. - Improve: Audit contrast ratios and line‑height; provide dark/light mode if not present. #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: Responsive layout likely handles zoom/resizing. - Improve: Test at 200–400% zoom; ensure no content clipping or horizontal scroll for text. #### Media and captions - Present: YouTube replay with captions (if enabled on the video). - Improve: Provide full transcript, downloadable captions, and no autoplay. #### Forms and interactions - Present: Minimal interactive elements beyond comments or subscription forms. - Improve: Ensure labels, error messages, and tap targets meet WCAG 2.2 AA. #### Standards reference - Map gaps to WCAG 2.2 AA, especially 1.4.x (contrast), 2.1.x (keyboard), 1.2.x (captions), and 1.4.10 (reflow). ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: Focus on global adoption stats and education, limited regional detail. - Improve: Highlight non‑US case studies and diverse community stories. #### Inclusive language - Present: Generally neutral tone; some playful metaphors and holiday analogies. - Improve: Add plain‑language summaries; avoid idioms that may not translate well. #### Neurodiversity support - Present: Chunked with headings and narrative flow. - Improve: Add more consistent subheadings, summaries, and icons with text labels. #### Representation - Present: Names a few individuals but doesn’t deeply explore representation. - Improve: Intentionally highlight diverse contributors and leadership voices. #### Psychological safety - Present: Acknowledges past conflict while encouraging grace and optimism. - Improve: Link to community guidelines and clear avenues for raising concerns safely. ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Causal reasoning: 2024 turbulence → need for stabilization → 6.9 as groundwork; this is plausible and evidence‑backed via events list. - Inductive reasoning: Use of adoption and market‑share stats to argue WordPress remains strong despite critics; the inference is reasonable though not exhaustive. #### Fallacies - Potential selection bias: Focus on optimistic investment conversations and selective metrics may under‑represent declining segments; could be improved with more diverse data sources. - Slight hasty generalization: Predicting broad WooCommerce growth from anecdotal investor interest; could add harder data. #### Tone of voice - Tone: Conversational, wry, slightly cynical but ultimately optimistic; uses humor (“lump of coal,” sweater metaphor) to soften critique. ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - Deny: The article does not deny past problems; it explicitly lists them (court cases, trademark issues, contribution pauses). - Attack: Critique is aimed at structures (livestream quality, role opacity) rather than personal attacks. - Reverse victim/offender: No attempt to cast Automattic or leadership as victims; acknowledges their responsibility to course‑correct and credits them when they do. ## 🎯 Conclusion - Bottom line: State of the Word 2025 and WordPress 6.9 may feel subdued, but they mark a turning point from crisis management to foundation‑building, especially around data portability, AI groundwork, and WooCommerce’s future. - Practical next steps: Builders should audit their migration paths, experiment with emerging AI tools cautiously, and position themselves for renewed demand in WordPress‑based solutions as 7.x approaches. ## 🧱 Refactor Appendix (append after 🎯 Conclusion) ### 📚 Literature Split Pad - Purpose: Stage Konik CEE units that become per-source Literature notes. - Split level: **H3**. - Include verbatim quotes under 25 words and a [view highlight] link. ### [H1] 5–10-word present-tense claim > [!quote] [State of the Word 2025: It’s A Vibe](https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/) by [[The WP Minute]] via [[The WP Minute]]. Published 2025-12-03. Accessed 2025-12-03. > “While we might not be getting shiny new toys this year, 6.9 feeling a bit flat, I know it’s all setting the groundwork for something better.” Two lines: context and use. Cite data if relevant. [view highlight](https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/#H1) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_[MISSING] ### [H2] 5–10-word present-tense claim > [!quote] [State of the Word 2025: It’s A Vibe](https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/) > “We continue to see the dominance of WordPress, which is awesome.” Two lines: context and use. [view highlight](https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/#H2) #xref ID:rw_[MISSING] --- ### 🔖 Atomic Split Pad (Zettel Candidates) - Purpose: Promote reusable claims into Atomic notes. - Split level: **H4**. - Each item: one idea, present tense, specific, testable. #### [Z1] WordPress 6.9 prioritizes groundwork over features - Scope/condition in one line. - Pointer to page/time or dataset. - Links: [[WordPress-Releases]] [[Infrastructure-Over-Features]] #### [Z2] Data portability strengthens WordPress ecosystem resilience - Scope/condition in one line. - Pointer to page/time or dataset. - Links: [[Data-Liberation]] [[Open-Web-Resilience]] --- ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue (Extract by Selection) - Purpose: Capture quick actions or sparks for Fleeting notes. - Extraction: **Select one line** → “Refactor: Extract selection to new note (content only).” - Keep each line short and self-contained. - [F1] Explore AI Experiments plugin and Abilities API in a sandbox — context/https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/ #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Draft meetup discussion guide on State of the Word 2025 and governance roles — context/https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/ #fleeting #inbox - [F3] Map WooCommerce opportunity areas for 2026 agency offerings — context/https://thewpminute.com/state-of-the-word-2025-its-a-vibe/ #fleeting #inbox --- <!-- deep-read:sections end -->