The other shoe just dropped – Automattic has been selling user data for years from .com and also from .org sites that use JetPack.

Following on the announcement that Automattic is in negotiations to sell user content from Tumblr and WordPress com, Morten Rand-Hendriksen asks 10 pointed questions about data ownership.

Matt Mullenweg shares about a new “game” at Automattic and mentions a shift in focus for WordPress com and Woo Express. It is kind of cryptic, but suggests they are adopting to the ecosystem.

Automattic announced a 100 year hosting plan. Today Matt shared that there have been zero sales. Surprised?

Automattic had big plans for revitalizing Tumblr, but despite burning through a lot of cash, they haven’t been able to successfully monetize it. From a leaked memo it appears that Automattic is pulling back on resources. Here is the discussion on Mastodon.

Automattic acquires the universal messaging app Texts.

So it looks like Automattic has duplicated the WordPress org theme and plugin directories as well as the LearnWP resources. It is not clear why they did this, but it will cause more confusion as you now get two versions when searching. Matt Mullenweg was asked about it on X and he said that the dot org version appears first (?). Here is the thread of X discussing this.

Automattic made it to number 68 in the Cloud 100 with a valuation of $7.5 billion. The Cloud 100 is a list of the best private cloud computing companies. It is interesting to see the valuations of some familiar names.

The WP Minute has an excerpt from a recent chat between Seth Godin and Tim Ferris where it is briefly mentioned.