Hello! We’re back with our monthly roundup where we talk about what we’ve been up to and what’s cooking in the WordPress and related worlds.

As their engineering partner, we’ve been helping Grist create award-winning articles. We also implemented content syndication and Parse.ly analytics, which allowed them to expand their reader base, track conversions and fine-tune their content strategy. Are you a non-profit publisher looking to scale? Shoot us a message to see how we can help. 

Global brands leverage staff augmentation services to bridge skill gaps, manage workload spikes, and reduce TCO. In our latest blog post, we take a deep dive into our approach to staff augmentation that works so well for our clients.

WordPress news snippets

• WordPress VIP introduced the VIP API Mesh to manage connections between WordPress VIP and other platforms. It simplifies the integration of multiple backend systems and makes it easier to create, maintain, and scale unified digital experiences. 
• Read a summary of WordPress.org performance upgrades from the past year to learn how the world’s most loved CMS is leading the way to a faster web.
• Caseproof, a WordPress plugins company, acquired AccessAlly, a competing WordPress membership plugin. This acquisition makes AccessAlly part of the WPBeginner Growth Fund.
• Elementor introduced AI Copilot, their AI-based website building assistant. In similar news, WordPress.com has opened up the private beta for ‘Big Sky’, their AI-driven website builder.
• WordPress.com released Studio, their free and open-source local WordPress development environment.
• The Plugin Directory, Pattern Directory and Forum sections on WordPress.org got a facelift that aligns them with .org’s new design language.

From around the web

• Automattic acquired Beeper for $125M. Beeper is another messaging app that unifies different chat networks into one inbox; similar to Texts.com acquired by Automattic in 2023.
• GitHub announced Copilot Workspace, a Copilot-native developer environment.
• Google unveiled Gemini Code Assist, an AI code assistant that supports 20+ programming languages and popular IDEs. Its privacy and security features are aimed at helping enterprises adopt AI assistance at scale.
• Meta released Llama 3, the next generation of their open-source LLM featuring improved accuracy, reasoning skills and versatility.

Upcoming events

• WordCamp Europe 2024 schedule is out. The event will be held from June 13 to June 15 in Torino, Italy. 
• WordCamp US 2024 will hold a Showcase Day– an opportunity to explore and present the best of WordPress projects. The event will be held on the second day of WCUS, ie. September 18, and applications are open.
• WP Accessibility Day 2024 has opened the call for speakers. The 24-hour global online event will be held on October and applications are to be submitted by June 24.

Blogs by rtCampers

• A Day in the Life of an rtCamp Software Engineering Trainee by @Abhinav
• Playwright Framework for QA — A brief Overview of few concepts by @Rishav

Water cooler

Popular on our #watercooler Slack channel.

• AI-powered video creation for work
• Pointer Pointer

Link: Grist Case Study | What makes staff augmentation work so well for our clients? | We’re hiring!