Yesterday, Iain Poulson and Ashley Rich launched community-curated, news-sharing site WP Content. The launch comes on the heels of ManageWP.org shutting down its own news-sharing service and the WordPress community losing out on a valuable resource.
Both Poulson and Rich are based in the UK and work for Delicious Brains, a development company that focuses on building products for WordPress. Their new venture was met with enthusiasm when Poulson first announced it on Twitter.
Long before I was a writer for WP Tavern and needed to keep an eye out for the latest news, ManageWP.org was one of my go-to sources for catching up with everything happening in the WordPress community. There is always so much going on that even the Tavern cannot stay on top of it all. ManageWP.org helped me become a voracious reader of ideas, tutorials, and other news within the industry. For that, I am certain I owe the team a debt that cannot be repaid.
After shutting the doors, they left us with a message on the site that read, “After many years of serving the WordPress community, we’ve made the difficult decision to shut down ManageWP.org. Several factors led us here, but it ultimately came down to the team being unable to give ManageWP.org the attention it deserves.”
It is only the news-sharing site at ManageWP.org that is shutting down. The ManageWP.com company and service are still alive and well.
ManageWP.org launched when WordPress held a mere 20% of the web back in 2013. GoDaddy acquired the ManageWP company in 2016 but allowed it to operate independently, including the news-sharing site. In many ways, ManageWP.org felt as much a part of the identity of the WordPress community as our site. For seven years, users have shared articles, upvoted their favorites, and found a legitimate source to stay informed on a wide range of topics around WordPress.
“Thank you to everyone who shared inspiring stories, useful resources, and special announcements with us,” read the final message on the site. “It’s been a treat.”
While many of us were disappointed to see the site shut down, sometimes it is time for something new. We can say goodbye to a great service and make room for someone else to take up the mantle. So, goodbye, ManageWP.org. Thanks for all the good years. And, welcome, WP Content.
“After @managewp closed down their community news site, we felt there should be a place where the #WordPress community can submit articles and up vote them,” tweeted the WP Content team.
The newly-built WP Content site is simple to use. It works similarly to other sharing sites such as Reddit. Users can sign up for an account to share stories themselves or upvote other stories. All visitors are free to follow through and read stories without signing up.
The front page of the site shares the currently trending and most recent stories. The site also breaks stories down into the following categories:
- Business
- Community
- Development
- Plugins
- Security
- Tutorials
I welcome the new venture and am glad to see someone filling in what was quickly becoming a missing piece of our community. With luck, WP Content will serve as a great resource for many years to come. The team has some big shoes to fill, but they are off to a great start.
