

How Does WordPress Make Money? - powertower
http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/how-wordpress-makes-money/7576/

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farms
Important to differentiate between WordPress (the open source project, owned
by everyone, and no-one, technically speaking), WordPress.org (the domain name
owned by Matt Mullenweg), 'The WordPress Foundation' (holder of the WP TM,
also founded and essentially controlled by Matt) and Automattic (the company,
founded by Matt, behind wp.com).

The domain name makes the $s through hosting referrals (although you'd imagine
that the wp.com self-hosted referrals have long since blown that outta the
water) - no idea how or if that rev is distributed.

Automattic, despite being 'barely for profit' (makes me chuckle that,
everytime :) would, by my guess, make the vast amount of it's cash through
adwords - they used to not show to FF users as they clicked less but they may
have changed that now... regardless, they're managed in such a way that
bloggers at wp.com will rarely, if ever see them.

Genius, from back in the day: [http://pascal.vanhecke.info/2007/11/21/making-
money-with-ads...](http://pascal.vanhecke.info/2007/11/21/making-money-with-
adsense-without-annoying-the-community-wordpresscom/)

However, they have also been aggressively monetizing some of their other
offerings like <http://akismet.com> (go try sign up there for free, also
genius), VaultPress (kicked us off a few ad spots that one did!) and, of
course, 'upgrades' to wp.com accounts.

And then there's the jetpack trojan horse into self-hosted WP installs:

[http://wpmu.org/why-jetpack-reallypacks-a-punch-and-the-
futu...](http://wpmu.org/why-jetpack-reallypacks-a-punch-and-the-future-of-
wordpress-as-a-platform/)

VIP hosting etc. has always been a moneyspinner from day 1.

Anyway, if you want a model of how an open source project can be effectively
transformed into a money-making beast, while at the same time retaining (if
not enhancing) your humble geek GPL cred, look no further.

You might not necessarily like it, but you can't fail to be impressed.

[not really a disclaimer, more FYI, I'm the CEO of <http://incsub.com> \- we
have more than a few WP interests...]

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tzs
It says they serve ads sometimes on free blogs, but if the visitor is using
Firefox, they will not serve ads.

Anyone know why not?

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mmahemoff
I don't get the third condition either. "3. The referring source is not a
WordPress powered blog. So a person reaching abc.wordpress.com from
xyz.wordpress.com won't see any Google Ads."

Why would they deny themselves this revenue?

~~~
gujk
Increases the quality of the experience for existing customers.

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graupel
I'm a VERY happy WordPress VIP hosting and support client, they are one of the
best vendors I've ever worked with - I'd encourage anyone with a site big
enough, to look at the VIP program, it's just fantastic.

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rachelbaker
Missing from the article is mention of VaultPress, the WordPress backup and
support service <http://vaultpress.com/>

~~~
dd32
and a lot of other aspects I'm sure, given the article is over 2 years old..

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kristenlee
Such a fascinating article, I guess there is money in open source software,
provided you execute as well as the Automaticc team.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Automattic. Two 't's, after the creator, Matt Mullenweg.

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farms
Hmmm, straight after posting my comment I've been somehow labeled as a spammer
:/ Any connection? If someone could untag me so I can share stuff again /
participate that'd be great...

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rick888
It also explains why they wanted the thesis theme to be GNU: so they can add
it to their services and not have to pay for it, giving them more potential
value at less cost to them.

Evil, but brilliant.

