Google and other organizations have invested $2.4 million in
WordPress.com. The Mountain View, California-based cloud giant made the move to fund a new publishing platform that will be utilized by small and medium-sized news organizations. Known as ‘Newspack’, the platform will be an Open Source solution that will leverage WordPress.com’s infrastructure.
WordPress.com is provided by Automattic Inc. (Automattic). It is the online version of WordPress, an Open Source Content Management System (CMS) which can be used to develop a web presence from a single-user blog to an enterprise-grade website. Established in 2005, Automattic is also responsible for solutions like Jetpack. A number of players (including the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, ConsenSys, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation) are supporting Newspack.
The motive behind the move is to ensure that local news organizations can compete in an environment where news consumption is becoming predominantly digital and typically only larger news organizations are able to compete. As the provider of a platform that supports more than 30% of the Internet’s websites, WordPress.com’s expertise will prove vital to the project’s success. A beta version of the platform should be available at the end of July 2019.
News organizations Spirited Media and News Revenue Hub will also contribute to the platform’s development. Like WordPress, Newspack will support plugins and it will also include Gutenberg-based editorial tools.
“It’s still very early in the process, but I expect elements of both VIP and Jetpack to inform this,” suggested the President of President of WordPress.com, Kinsey Wilson on the WordPress.org website. “Newspack will be part of the WordPress.com platform, but we’re going to be working on a highly curated experience tailored to these news organizations, with individualized support available across editorial and business,” added Mr. Wilson, who is also a journalist.
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