Derek Hanson

The Word of the Year is Freedom

The Founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic had a pretty fun inception moment when he joined the TBPN livestream in the middle of the 2025 edition of State of the Word. Sharing the future of personal, open source communication through Beeper, the release of WordPress 6.9, and the state of links on the internet
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My journey to Automattic: The short version

Chance encounters that lead to friendships make all the difference in our lives.
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Site Wide Counter Block

My latest Telex AI experiment: The Site Wide Counter Block. I’m not an extremely prolific blogger, but there are many people who blog every day or week. Some bloggers have been writing for years. I always find it impressive when I see a website or blog note its beginning date is in the early 2000s.
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Telex AI is the Future of WordPress

Telex AI is a new experiment by Automattic. If you can imagine it, you can create it by prompting the AI to build you a block for WordPress. The experience is pretty wild and feels like Loveable but for Gutenberg. If you haven’t spent any time playing Telex AI, stop reading this post and do
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Not about free beer

Freedom on the web isn’t free stuff Not about free beer
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Pizza Dough

I’m loving making pizza. I’ve been doing it for a few years, and I think I’ve finally found a great recipe. After watching lots of YouTube videos and Instagram Reels, I am starting to dial in the process. The recipe below is pretty hands off and calls for one rise. What I started doing and
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Designing for WordPress with smart Figma design systems

My first episode as host of Publishing Flow on the Open Channels FM podcast networks.
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Scroll to Top block by the Special Projects team

One of my favorite parts about working for the Automattic Special Projects team is the opportunity to create cool tools for WordPress users. Whether it’s a block missing in Gutenberg, a unique plugin that solves a real problem for WooCommerce users, or a classic theme feature modernized for the site editor, our expert team of
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Transform WordPress Page Loads with View Transitions

I just came across the View Transitions plugin by Felix Arntz and the WordPress Core Performance Team, an experimental tool that brings the smooth feel of native apps to traditional WordPress sites. Instead of the usual hard reloads, the plugin uses the browser’s cross-document View Transitions API to deliver fade, slide, wipe, or swipe effects
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Jetpack is not what you thought it was

People might be starting to figure out something I’ve known for a while: Jetpack is awesome! Mike McAlister, founder of OllieWP, an amazing WordPress theme with an elegant onboarding experience that WordPress core needs to adopt yesterday, was “pleasantly surprised to see how far it has come!” when choosing Jetpack for his video hosting. It’s
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Enhance Your WordPress Site with Gravatar

The #gravatar plugin for #wordpress is slick! I haven’t even scratched the surface of it, but I already love it. My post template now uses the profile block. Are you reading this post on desktop? The block is right there 👉 I don’t have to edit my bio multiple places, just my Gravatar profile. My
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Fun week of baking and cooking

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Recent Notes

Short form posts. These are quick thoughts that might turn into full posts. Click the date to leave a comment.

October 31, 2025

I had a great conversation recently with Andrew Sutton and Hari Gudatti, both of Iowa State University, about WordPress, open source, cloud infrastructure, WordPress.com hosting, WP Cloud, Pressable, Jetpack, and the value of owning your own domain.

I was excited to hear a young college student share a passion for open source. The more connections we can make with the next generation(s), the more we can continue the mission of open source and collaboration. WordPress is the leader in open source ideology, and it is one of the best communities for anyone to join at any level.

Let’s continue to champion WordPress, open source, collaboration, and community. Together, we can continue to thrive and change the world.
October 2, 2025

Woo is doing a ton to improve performance. I’m especially excited to see more use of the interactivity API. #woo #woocommerce #wordpress
September 22, 2025

WordPress 6.9 is coming in December! The accordion and stretchy blocks are great new additions to core. My favorite feature is inline comments. Although, command palette everywhere is very close. If you haven’t navigated WordPress admin with keyboard shortcuts, wait until you give it a try. It’s so nice to jump around your site with just a quick command.
July 28, 2025

There are some things that are annoying about Grammarly, but I appreciate the updates about my productivity it sends me. Recently, I hit a pretty significant milestone.

I eclipsed 1,000,000 words since I started using Grammarly in December of 2024. As of this note, I have written 1,132,190 words. That’s crazy!

The Grammarly insights share some other fun stats in these updates, such as your most common error, what your primary tone is, and if you use unique words. These change from week-to-week, so my error messages and tone shift quite regularly. However, one thing that remains consistent is that I use more unique words than 99% of Grammarly users.

That’s something…I guess.
June 10, 2025

Studio by WordPress.com has been my favorite new tool for WordPress. It has pushed a TON of amazing features over the past year, and they really ramped up the development cycle cadence.

This is snappy local environment that anyone looking to try out WordPress, test themes and plugins, or create a robust developer workflow will enjoy. Hats off to Nick Diego for shepherding Studio!

#wordpress #studio #studiobywordpress #wordpresscom #wordpresscomstudio

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