December 2011
Holiday Desktop Backgrounds from WordPress.com →
Illustration by Caroline Hadilaksono
We’ve got a little year-end tradition here at WordPress.com. Every year, we commission an artist to spread some WordPress-themed holiday cheer. For…
The Long and Short of It →
Would you like some more Twitter in your WordPress? We got ya. As an update to our ever-popular Tweet embedding functionality we’re supporting Twitter’s new embed API to enable richer, better…
WordPress.com Bloggers Who Covered the Biggest... →
As 2011 comes to end, we thought it’d be interesting to look back at the events that made headlines this year, and a few of the bloggers who were there in person (or closely connected to the events)…
November 2011
Black Friday sale: free Custom Design with any... →
It’s that time of the year again, and we decided to take care of all our users whether they feel like lining up in the cold to take advantage of today’s bargains or not.
This year’s offer is about…
Notifications, the Pulse of Your Blog →
Your blog lives and breathes. Today we’re launching a new way for you to check its pulse. It’s called Notifications, and it lives in the right corner of your Toolbar (Admin Bar), which appears at…
New Mobile Theme: Minileven →
There’s a good chance that visitors to your site these days will be using a smartphone. We feel it’s important to provide them with a great reading experience while on the small screen, so today…
New Theme: Strange Little Town →
Introduce a hint of wonderment into your blog with our latest free theme!
This is your invitation to take an enchanting voyage to a Strange Little Town. Our latest release is designed to transport…
October 2011
New Themes: iTheme 2 and Bold News →
If you are doing a great job on your blog and posting regularly, sometimes important posts fade away from the home page. Sound familiar? Today, we’re excited about introducing two new themes that…
New Themes: Modern News and Dusk to Dawn →
Today, our ever-growing collection of themes grows by not one, but two with the addition of Modern News and Dusk To Dawn.
If your blog is news-oriented (or if you’re ripe to start a news blog),…
3 Ways to Make Your Site More Visually Appealing →
You guys use WordPress.com in all sorts of creative ways, documenting the adventures you take…
mikeslagter.wordpress.com
…the people you meet…
…
Retro Mac Theme →
It’s impossible to overstate the influence of Steve Jobs on technologists, particularly his passion for beautiful, usable products. We work harder and have higher standards because of the bar set by…
New Theme: Funki →
It’s funky time in theme land and we are welcoming our newest addition, available for you today. Funki is a very versatile premium theme, with an artsy flare, offering customization and…
Prepare for National Novel Writing Month with the... →
November marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a project in which thousands of writers around the world work toward completing a 50,000-word novel by November 30th….
September 2011
More traffic for your blog with the follow button →
We’ve written before about our efforts at WordPress.com to help you get more attention for your work. And we’re here again with a new feature: follow.
After weeks of experimentation with…
Coming to a WordCamp Near You →
Every now and then I like to remind people about upcoming WordCamps. WordCamps are locally-organized, casual conferences held all over the world that focus on WordPress. Bloggers, developers, and…
New Theme: Nishita →
Nishita is a simple, minimally-styled photoblogging theme—now available for WordPress.com blogs. With a choice of dark or light color scheme, the muted design puts all the focus on your photos. Not…
Two New Apps for WordPress.com →
Earlier this summer we launched a few tools to make it easier for developers to create new apps for WordPress.com. Starting today, you can integrate your WordPress.com blog with Feedfabrik and
New Theme: Selecta →
Today we’ve got a treat for you — a new theme called Selecta. This might be the theme you’ve been waiting for if videos or images will be the primary focus of your blog. The design, originally…
August 2011
Giving the support site a refresh →
Keeping WordPress.com’s documentation up to date and accessible is one part of what the Happiness Team works on. We’ve long had lots of documentation, but we realized that the design and flow of…
See How You Can Personalize Your Blog with Custom... →
You already know that you can choose from over 130 awesome themes here at WordPress.com, but did you know that you can create a theme that’s entirely unique to you with the Custom Design upgrade?
New Theme: Skeptical →
Today we’re pleased to introduce the latest addition to our themes, Skeptical. Originally released by WooThemes for self-hosted WordPress.org blogs, Skeptical has seen great popularity as a blog…
Growth of WordPress →
Over on the WordPress.org blog, there’s an interesting story about the growth of WordPress, the software that powers WP.com here, and the ecosystem around it.
WP.com is different from every other…
Watch your traffic grow with Sparklines →
We have two quick announcements about new Stats features. The first one affects everyone with a WordPress.com blog. The second is just for those who have marked their blogs Private.
The…
Making your posts more beautiful →
Here at WordPress.com we care about making things look good. Automattic, Inc., our parent company, invests heavily in design: every engineering team has a full-time designer. We know making…
Now Publicize to Facebook Pages →
Since we launched Publicize for Facebook, which automatically shares a link to new posts to your Facebook account, one of the top requested features has been the ability to Publicize to Facebook…
New Theme: Next Saturday →
I’m pleased to announce our newest theme — Next Saturday. That is, the theme called “Next Saturday” launches today (not next weekend). With its rich, bright colors, three-dimensional blocks, and…
New Theme: Esquire →
The number of beautiful themes that let you publish with visually distinct Post Formats grows by one today with Mathew Buchanan’s elegant and bold, Esquire. I think you’re really going to like…
July 2011
New Theme: Blogum →
Today we are introducing a clean and minimalist theme, Blogum.
The Blogum Theme
Designed by WPShower, Blogum has a grid-based layout and is designed in a modern style. This…
New Theme: React →
Today, we’re happy to launch React, a simple and elegant theme designed especially for business websites. In fact, React is for anyone who would like a clean design to showcase their work and…
New Theme: Piano Black →
Say hello to Piano Black, the newest theme to launch on WordPress.com. This dark and elegant theme showcases your content with a design that feels sophisticated yet techy and modern.
WordPress.com oEmbed Provider API Now Available →
Last week, we introduced support for OAuth2 and launched develop.wordpress.com, as we’re eager to empower the developer community to extend WordPress.com in new and meaningful ways.
Today, we’re…
New Theme: Matala →
Today we’re excited to launch Matala, our newest theme. You might recognize this one — it was once the primary theme for ma.tt, Matt Mullenweg’s blog. Last year, Matala was released to the …
New Theme: Château →
Today we are introducing an elegantly designed and typographically pleasing theme, Château.
The Château Theme
Designed by Ignacio Ricci, Château has been crafted with close…
WordPress for webOS: A New Way to Blog →
It’s a new way to blog, on a new type of platform. Today we’re excited to share a glimpse of the future for all the WordPress mobile apps. Drumroll please! I give you WordPress for webOS, available as a download for the HP TouchPad with support for more webOS 3.0 devices coming in the future.
June 2011
New Theme: Twenty Eleven →
Last year on WordPress.com we introduced the world to the first new WordPress default theme in 5 years — the first annual default theme — Twenty Ten. Now it’s our pleasure to introduce you all to…
May 2011
Now More Than Ever: Just Write →
Writers are as different as the stories they produce, and their ideal writing environments vary no less. One thing most writers agree on, though, is that one of the toughest challenges is overcoming…
Batters Up: Major League Baseball Now on... →
Attention baseball fans, today we’re launching a triple-header of new themes just for you.
We’ve partnered with MLB.com to bring its Fan, Modern, and Retro blog themes to WordPress.com….
Now share Google Docs and Google Calendars →
For many of you, your WordPress.com site isn’t just about communication, it’s about collaboration, too.
We’re taking collaboration and sharing one step further today at WordPress.com by enabling…
April 2011
New Theme: Mystique →
Example of Mystique’s single page view.
I think you’ll agree this theme has a certain mystique to it. This fun, colorful theme is flexible enough to fit any type of site — it’s…
New Theme: Tapestry →
We love blogging, and we know you do too, but we also have a special interest in making blogging lovely for your readers as well. It’s for that reason that we’ve taken a shine to Post Formats and…
Security Incident →
Tough note to communicate today: Automattic had a low-level (root) break-in to several of our servers, and potentially anything on those servers could have been revealed.
We have been diligently…
New Theme: The Morning After →
Say hello to The Morning After, a classic and popular magazine-style theme that has withstood the test of time. Based on its great success for self-hosted sites we’re excited to bring it to you for…
Twitter Blackbird Pie Just Got Even Sweeter →
Last November we launched Twitter Blackbird Pie, a quick and easy way to reproduce beautiful, full-fledged tweets — not just static screenshots of tweets — in your posts, pages, and even comments.
March 2011
Automattic’s Worldwide WP 5k →
As Scott mentioned in his How is WordPress.com Made? post, at Automattic we work from all over the world, and we use internal blogs for socializing and exchanging non-work ideas in…
New Theme: Rusty Grunge →
It is time to introduce a new free theme which goes by the appropriately evocative name of Rusty Grunge. It goes without saying, this theme has all the rusty and grungy elements needed to appeal…
New Theme: Liquorice →
Add a dash of color to your site with Liquorice, a wonderful new theme now available on WordPress.com.
Gorgeous textures and smooth-as-silk typography make this a striking backdrop for your…
Guided Transfers to .org →
When we launched Jetpack a few days ago Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg said to Techcrunch, “If you’re on WordPress you’re part of the family, it shouldn’t matter if we host you or not.”
…
Boost your self-hosted WordPress with Jetpack →
WordPress.com has grown into one of the most amazing cloud architectures in the world. This has enabled blogs hosted here to have features unavailable on self-hosted WordPress installs. This makes…
Some Turbulence →
You’ve probably noticed that the ride has been a bit bumpy on WP.com the past week with a widely covered DDoS attack last week and then another interruption a few hours ago from an unrelated…
WordPress Takes SXSW →
Next week a bunch of us from Automattic, the makers of WordPress.com, will be attending South by Southwest Interactive. It’s one of our favorite events of the year, and we hope to see…