WordPress founder talks traffic, new features to Web 2.0 crowd
You have to hand it to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. At his talk at today's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, he managed to be the first conference speaker to put up a picture of a LOLcat while actually tying it into what his company is all about.
Context & Ripple Effects
Mullenweg's Web 2.0 Expo appearance caps a strong run for WordPress: months earlier, Automattic raised $29.5M ($29.5M round) and WordPress traffic overtook TypePad (traffic passing TypePad), making it the leading hosted blog platform. He had already sketched where blogging was heading in an earlier Webware interview (blogging's future), so this talk is the founder translating that momentum into product news for the conference crowd.
First-order effects
- WordPress gets prime-time validation at Web 2.0 Expo, with Mullenweg using the stage to showcase traffic growth and preview new features directly to developers and early adopters.
- Attendees and press get a first look at upcoming WordPress capabilities straight from the founder, shaping coverage of the platform's roadmap.
Second-order effects
- Hosted rivals like TypePad face continued pressure as WordPress pairs its traffic lead with visible feature velocity and fresh capital.
- The open-source-plus-hosted-service model Mullenweg champions becomes harder for closed platforms to dismiss as a hobbyist alternative.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, open-source publishing software backed by a commercial company becomes default web infrastructure — a trajectory that runs through Automattic's later positioning around open systems and its long-term ambitions.
- Conference-stage product launches by founder-led open-source companies become a repeatable playbook for legitimizing community projects as businesses.
The trend: Open-source publishing platforms evolving from community tools into commercially backed infrastructure that defines how the web's content layer is built.