Now tracking plugin and theme mentions in WordPress news

Theme and plugin release version numbers and changelog entries can tell us a lot, but they can only tell us so much. The backstory, development or design approach and future plans for a piece of software can be very helpful to think about when deciding to extend your WordPress site with it. When you start to take in the stories of why theme and plugin authors and developers do what they do, there’s a lot of wonderful nuance in the WordPress ecosystem that isn’t always top of mind when we’re managing our sites.

Fortunately, there are a number of publications, reporters, writers and researchers who regularly take the time to tell us those stories. Whether it’s an article about a brand new plugin that solves a previously unmet need, an interview with a designer about the choices they made in developing a theme, a deep dive into a security vulnerability’s implications and how it was fixed, or an update on of one of the many paid theme or plugin businesses out there, this coverage is important.

That’s why WP Lookout now supports monitoring for mentions in the news of any theme or plugin that you’re tracking with us.

If a news source mentions that software (in the form of an in-article link to its website or WordPress.org directory entry), we’ll register that as an event worth telling you about via WP Lookout notifications, and in your tracking event history:

To begin with, we’ve launched this feature using four sources that consistently provide thoughtful and in-depth coverage of noteworthy happenings in the WordPress ecosystem: Post Status, WP Tavern, the Wordfence vulnerabilities blog and the iThemes vulnerability roundup blog. (WP Lookout is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of these organizations.)

We’ll add more sources over time as we think they’re helpful, and we certainly welcome your recommendations for sources to consider.

The news alerts feature is one more way that WP Lookout gives you the full picture of what’s happening with the WordPress software you depend on. If you’re not already, start tracking by creating a free account. Enjoy!