"On June 20, 2005, @photomatt made his first hire: @donncha a software developer who had been working on the WordPress project. And with that, #Automattic was born. [...] Here’s to the next 20.”
Oh, the #Gravatar / #Automattic team wrote about federated social networks, but they did not mention #ActivityPub for #WordPress.
https://blog.gravatar.com/2025/06/13/decentralized-social-media/
" #Automattic Welcomes Clay"
https://automattic.com/2025/06/12/automattic-welcomes-clay/
"Clay, a relationship management tool that automatically organizes and intelligently searches your entire network... Joining our Other Bets division alongside the likes of Beeper and Gravatar..."
“WordPress.com’s parent company, #Automattic, has partnered with Out in Tech, the world’s largest community of #LGBTQ+ tech leaders and professionals, since 2017. We’re proud to have helped build over 250 websites for nonprofit organizations that support and advocate for LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.”
FAIR para descentralizar o WordPress
A confusão desencadeada em 2024 pelo co-fundador do WordPress e CEO da Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, pode acabar rendendo um bom fruto. Na sexta (6), um grupo de ~300 colaboradores experientes no ecossistema, com o apoio da Linux Foundation, anunciou o FAIR, uma iniciativa para descentralizar componentes críticos do WordPress.
Ao longo do embate entre Matt e a WP Engine, o controle exacerbado do executivo de recursos críticos, em especial o WordPress.org, que distribui atualizações do […]
A collective of former #WordPress #developers and contributors backed by #LinuxFoundation launched FAIR Package Manager, a new and independent distribution system for trusted WordPress #plugins and #themes.
This is a response to recent controversy after legal conflict between commercial WordPress hosting providers #Automattic and #WPEngine, after former banned the latter's access to the WordPress platform used by all WordPress sites to keep plugins and themes up-to-date.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/linux-foundation-unveils-decentralized-wordpress-plugin-manager/
The #Automattic Customer Service (sorry "Customer Happiness") team are quite nice to deal with, at least the ones at Pocket Casts. I didn't quite get what I needed, but that was more my fault for being riddled with ADHD and chronic forgetfulness than theirs.
They came to a good compromise though.
I feel I should probably call out good CS when I see it rather than just whining about the bad :D
"After last year’s fun with a photo drive, we’ve decided to repeat it this year with another #photo drive to the #WordPress Photo Directory! Once more, we’re offering up some cash prizes as a bonus. The funding for the prizes are proudly powered by Queeromattic, the collection of queers within #Automattic. "
https://lgbtqpress.com/2025/05/share-your-pride-photo-drive-is-back-for-2025/
"We’re excited to launch the Automattic Open Horizons Scholarship, a new #Automattic-funded initiative designed to support #WordPress contributors from underrepresented, underserved, and economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The fund includes an initial endowment of $30,000, which includes $6,000 provided by both Queeromattic, Automattic’s LGBTQ+ resource group, and Automattic’s Physically Disabled resource group."
https://automattic.com/2025/05/28/automattic-open-horizons-scholarship/
"We launched in Sep/2024 with a bold mission: to foster an #open, #decentralized, and #usercentric #socialweb. In just the few short months that remained in 2024, we made meaningful progress. Our participation at #W3C #TPAC and collaborations with major stakeholders like #Mastodon, #Ghost, and #Automattic have helped spark momentum for a healthier, more resilient online ecosystem.
Today we are proud to publish our 2024 #AnnualReport– the first of many."
#SWF
https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/05/06/reflecting-on-our-first-year-the-social-web-foundations-2024-annual-report/
Today, I stumbled over a blog post by #Gravatar titled “Build Your AI Identity with Gravatar’s New Tool”, and I’m glad I deleted my Gravatar account many years ago.
Coincidently, while trying to see how bad Gravatar became by reading the post, my ad blocker blocked me from visiting this domain. Former me was smart enough to add this domain to the block list, because the time of embedding third-party content in a website has passed for privacy reasons many years ago.
Leaving #Automattic this month felt like a #breakup. 
And so, like any rational person, I processed my feelings using a Venn-Euler #diagram: 
Thanks a lot @lordmatt but there is no need to give us a tip, we have the great luck that #Automattic takes good care of us 
If you think about donating to another fediverse project, simple give them a bit more 
/cc @obenland
The company behind #Wordpress, #Automattic, is getting increasingly aligned.
The employee base now consist of "Mullenweg’s strongest supporters, and people who couldn’t afford to risk leaving their jobs", neither of which will contradict #Mullenweg.
Apparently recently, Automattic has been adding watermarking to the background in internal communications systems. The result will be that those afraid of leaving will be even more compliant. What a work culture.
https://www.404media.co/automattic-wordpress-p2-watermark-leakers/
"I know that losing your job was hard," my 8-year-old said to me this evening, "So you can borrow this." He handed me his newest soft toy.
"It'll help you feel better when you're sad. Keep him for the week."
#note #work #automattic #job #employment #cute #children #parenting
I'm off for a week of full-time volunteering with Three Rings at 3Camp, our annual volunteer hack week: bringing together our distributed team for some intensive in-person time, working to make life better for charities around the world.
And if there's one good thing to come out of me being suddenly and unexpectedly laid-off two days ago, it's that I've got a shiny new laptop to do my voluntary work on (Automattic have said that I can keep it).
#note #threeRings #volunteering #laptop #computers #work #automattic #employment #devcamp #hackathon
#Wordpress.org: #Automattic entlässt 16 Prozent seiner Mitarbeiter | heise online https://www.heise.de/news/Wordpress-org-Automattic-entlaesst-16-Prozent-seiner-Mitarbeiter-10338231.html #CMS #ContentManagementSystem
Automattic's Big Bet: Layoffs Amid Growth Signal a Shift in Strategy https://tinyurl.com/mr2a33dy
WP Engine should offer free #WordPress hosting for a year to people laid off by #automattic yesterday, since they're no longer getting free hosting from .com.
The biggest surprise to me about the current #Automattic layoffs isn't the scale of it or that they're discriminating against those that were older than 40 — it's that there was a QA team.
