In an article by Roger Montti he notes that WordPress is losing marketshare and that Astro download numbers are growing rapidly.

The Generate team conducted a user survey and got a lot of feedback. If you are a user then you’ll find the results and discussion interesting.

For years WordPress com floundered in trying to get their message out. This supposed comparison video does a good job of keeping it interesting while highlighting their services and advantages. See Craylor’s attempts to get a $500 site from WordPress com, Fiverr, and Craigslist.

You may have noticed the Ollie Menu Designer and other newer plugins showing up first when you go to install a plugin. This is new and part of a move to help “hidden gems” get discovered.

Katie Keith did some research to ask about plugins whose sales were in decline or flat. There are some interesting findings such that 80% of plugin sales were the same or lower as last year and different types of plugins are more vulnerable than others.

I enjoy reading these Year in Review articles. This one from Katie Keith at Barn2 is very interesting. While overall performance was very good, there was a 17.8% drop in new sales. She reports that other WordPress plugin shops saw something similar and she talks about possible causes. The roundup is an interesting look into what it takes to lead a WordPress plugin company.

Curious what was popular during Black Friday? Here are the top 10 sellers according to a poll in the WPLTDS Facebook group. There was at least one surprise.

A challenge for developers is how to market and sell their plugins. In this interview Nathan Wrigley speaks with Dave Grey, the author of Nag Me Not. In the podcast they talk about a sponsorship model, which might be a good option for certain types of plugins. If you don’t want to listen, there is a nice summary on the page.

A switch like this would mean significantly change how brands drive visibility and traffic online.