Winter holiday celebrations are abound, sparking parties, inspiring decorations, and sending travelers everywhere to spend time with loved ones. The virtual offices of WebDevStudios are active and exciting, but our website agency still remains dedicated to our clients’ website projects.
Here is the latest installment of WebDevStudios company news for December. Check out what our team was up to this month.
Holiday Festivities
As everyone knows, WebDevStudios (WDS) likes to keep our remote work culture fun and engaging. We had a slew of festive activities to celebrate the winter holidays and new year, beginning with our most important activity.
WDS Charity Challenge
Giving back is important to us. We do this monthly by participating in Five for the Future, but we also do it annually by raising funds for charity.
We divided our group into two teams for this year’s Charity Challenge. You can contribute to each team’s efforts. Below are links to support the charity of your choice.
Make your donation soon. Our fundraising efforts end on December 31st.
Secret Santa
Our website company held a Secret Santa gift exchange. We used Elfster to assist with randomly selecting gift recipients and Secret Santas.
Participants met for a scheduled event via Zoom. One by one, each team member revealed their gift. It was a great time and bonding opportunity.
Festivus Tree Contest
WDS teammates submitted their holiday trees to compete for the best. Senior Frontend Engineer, Alfredo Navas, won this year’s competition.
Ugly Sweater Contest
Trees and gifts are great, but no winter holiday is complete without the donning of the ugliest sweater you own. We had a contest to prove it. Marketing Manager, Laura Coronado, won with her holiday pink flamingo sweater.
WordCamp Asia
We said it once. We’re saying it again. WordCamp Asia 2023 is the hottest ticket in the world, especially because it’s been long sold-out.
Earlier this month, WDS Backend Engineer, Lax Mariappan, participated in an a WordCamp Asia Contributor Day livestream presentation where he shared his WordPress journey. You can watch it on YouTube.
WordCamp Asia has now announced its final schedule after publishing eight announcements of speakers. Among those featured is WDS Account Manager, Laura Byrne. Her talk is titled “Disillusioned at Age 50: Turning a 10-year WordPress hobby into a successful new career as a woman who doesn’t code.”
You should also note that Lax is a WordCamp Asia Contributor Day organizer and WDS Engineering Manager, JC Palmes, is a Global Lead of the event. Keep up with WordCamp Asia by visiting the event’s website.
WordPress State of the Word
On December 15th, State of the Word was presented in person in New York City and livestreamed on YouTube. This event is the annual keynote address delivered by the WordPress project’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg.
You can watch the presentation in its entirety below. Pay special attention at 1:38:00 when Laura Byrne convinces Matt to commit to another all-women release squad WordPress release in the second half of 2023.
WP Product Talk
Before Twitter Spaces was shut down, Kimberly Coleman, Co-Founder of Paid Memberships Pro, hosted a spaces event with WDS CEO, Brad Williams as a guest. Brad talked about our participation in Five for the Future, saying, “We’ve been participating in Five for the Future for eight years now and have contributed 11,000 hours of company time to WordPress.”
As of the publication of this blog post, you can still access the recording on Twitter, although that could expire any day. Act quickly and listen now while you still can.
Pluginize
Here are the latest Pluginize plugin updates you need to know about.
WP Search with Algolia
Last month, we released Version 2.3.1. This Uis a minor update to fix an immediate bug that was introduced in the previous release.
Custom Post Type UI (CPTUI)
In December, we released three updates for CPTUI, our most popular plugin.
- Version 1.13.2: Removes the forcing of underscores in taxonomy slugs, making it easier to optimize taxonomies for SEO purposes
- Version 1.13.3: Features PHP8 compatibility fixes as well as third-party taxonomy filters added
- Version 1.13.4: A bug fix release
WebDevStudios Is Hiring
Do you want to know the best way to kick off the new year? It’s with a new job! WebDevStudios is now recruiting:
Don’t put off your goals any longer. Visit our Careers page and apply online today.
From our team to you and yours, happy holidays and new year. We’ll see you in 2023.
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