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2012 at Automattic

Twenty-twelve was an exciting year for Automattic. We added 48 new Automatticians and it’s been delightful to see the effect the new folks have had on the company. We made over 40,000 commits to our various repositories, about half of those on WP.com alone. Contained in those commits are countless improvements to the experience for WP.com, but I’m just as proud of the things we removed and streamlined: the WP.com homepage has been drastically simplified, and a completely revamped reader is launching this week. Engagement started rising again after being flat in 2011. Support responses that used to take days now take hours or less. We added 75M uniques to our our network. There is a demo WordPress app on every iPhone and iPad in every Apple store I’ve visited in the US. (If you contribute to WordPress, show it to your friends next time you’re in a store and say “I help make this!”) We did two acquisitions, one announced, one not yet. It looks like we’ll grow the team by at least another 60 people this year. There’s so much more already done that hasn’t been announced yet or that’s coming that I’m bursting to share, but the surprise is at least half the fun. Stay tuned. 🙂

22 replies on “2012 at Automattic”

Watching the WordPress community grow and change in 2012 was one of the main things that inspired me to do the same with my life and business. Automattic is creating serious inroads for businesses based around Open Source technology. It’s amazing to watch and participate in even in small ways. I’m sure 2013 will be even more exciting!

It wasn’t until I clicked through on 75m uniques, and drilled down to countries, that I zoomed in on the “added” part. 354 Million is the number of uniques muchachitos — a month — just for the United States.

Pero, cuidado:

For those of you, like myself, tempted to roll that number off your tongue to large audiences, the total US population is 312 Million (as of Jul 2011).

Next comes Brazil w/ 56M (wow!) That’s fantastic.

Of course then I had to notice India’s 27M and Russia’s 12M . . . but where is China? On page 4 with just 2M? Dum de dum dum.

Hello World indeed! Is there anyway to download those numbers?

Great year Matt, but sounds like 2013 is going to be even better. We need some initials to allow the guessing to begin (like last year). Or you could just cut to the chase already, and let the world know your plans! 😉 The surprise is only half as fun when you know what it is! 😀

Here’s to a mind boggling 2013! Thanks for all the wonderful work @Automattic and a big thanks to all others involved in making WordPress what it is! *CHEERZ!*

This is the year I was finally able to say “I helped make this” and really mean it… all because of some guy with a beard at WordCamp SF 2011 who asked all of us to find our own ways to help and contribute.

To be involved in directly in WordPress (the .org side) has been the most gratifying thing I’ve done in 2012 by a long shot; thanks for the kick in the pants, Matt!

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