Chances are that if you’re running a public facing blog, you’re probably happiest when someone actually reads it. Preferably lots of someones. Your blog’s stats can give you some great ways to get to know a little bit more about your readers, and what it is about your work that most attracts them. While the […]

Writing about family life and parenthood is not simply the province of mothers: dads are carving out their own blogular niche. Single dads, stay-at-home dads, working dads, two-dad families — you can find every perspective on WordPress.com. As the US celebrates Father’s Day, here are some dad blogs we love: DorkDaddy.com What’s the point of […]

Need to get your WordPress.com Notifications on the go? With version 2.4 of WordPress for Android you’ll see all your Notifications right on your Android device. Step away yet stay connected With the new streamlined Notifications view, you can step away from your computer but still stay connected to your readers. With just a few […]

We love how blogs give us glimpses into the lives and experiences of people all over the world. We also love how they offer opinion, analysis, and on-the-ground perspectives on current events that are impossible to get anywhere else. This week, three standout posts gave us both: What is Happening in Istanbul? Hundreds and thousands […]

It’s Thursday, and you know what that means on WordPress.com: new themes! Today we’d like to introduce you Trvl. Trvl is a tumblelog theme that’s all about blogging. With a beautiful and simple design by Danny Cohen, Trvl puts your posts front and center. Literally. It supports a variety of post formats to mix up the […]

This spring, we introduced the WPLongform tag, as we wanted to give bloggers who write longer pieces (of over 1,000 words) and longform readers a space within the WordPress.com Reader to share and discover new content, from nonfiction to fiction to experimental writing. We’re glad to see many of you tagging your posts! The contributors at LibrarianShipwreck, for […]

This week, we turn up three very different Freshly Pressed posts united by their incisive exploration of unexplored, long forgotten, or unexpected experiences, experiences that have been made somehow peripheral by time, geography, or culture. They’re posts you’ve responded to, and that we hope you’ll find resonant. Notes on Email I started to think how […]

Who doesn’t love “Before and After” home improvement shots? It’s always amazing to see how just a couple of changes, like a coat of paint or a quick do-it-yourself project, can transform a living space dramatically. It’s no different when it comes to WordPress.com blog themes, in which a little customization can go a long […]

An ode to a father, a story of growing up with two mothers, a request for a cloak of visibility, and a reflection on goodbyes. Here are four Freshly Pressed standouts from this week — all quite personal pieces that have resonated with many readers. Go ahead and dive in: Why I Don’t Diet — […]

Since the dawn of time, humankind has yearned for control. While we can’t give you more control over most of your life, we can give you more control over your widgets. And today, with the new widget visibility tool, you can configure your widgets to be shown or hidden only on certain pages. Widgets are […]

All kinds of organizations make their home on WordPress.com: small businesses, municipalities, religious organizations, schools, community groups. We also provide an online HQ for quite a few non-profits, from the global to the hyperlocal. They turn to WordPress.com for an easy-to-use, low cost solution that gets them an effective web presence without diverting thousands of dollars […]

In some parts around the world, this Sunday is dedicated to the mothers out there. For Mother’s Day, we’ve rounded up sites on motherhood, parenting, and family. On WordPress.com, you’ll discover mothers on all paths: new moms, stay-at-home-moms, single moms, mothers who are full-time writers, and more. (Even mommy men, as you’ll see below.) We […]

Theme Thursday is here, and I’m excited to announce the three fantastic new themes we’ve wrangled for you this week. Handmade is a beautiful retro-styled blogging theme for foodies and crafters, designed with love by the folks at Obox Themes. Focusing on an amazing attention to detail and gorgeous typography, everything in Handmade has had […]

Happy Theme Thursday, all! Today I have two fantastic new themes for you to enjoy. First up is Newsworthy by WP Themes, a brightly-hued theme designed for news, magazine, and personal blogs. Its striking colors are sure to grab your readers’ attention at first glance! Newsworthy supports multiple authors, post formats, widgets, custom colors, and [...]

Last month Cheri took a look at longform writing on WordPress.com, and how tagging your over–1000-word posts WPLongform can help fellow bloggers, readers, and the editors of Freshly Pressed to discover longer, more in-depth material in the WordPress.com Reader. Since then you’ve shared a huge variety of work under the WPLongform tag, and in today’s post, [...]

Greetings and Salutations! Another Thursday has arrived and you know what that means … more themes! The theme machine here at WordPress.com has been cranking out few fresh, new designs that I am happy to present to you. Flora & Fauna is a colorful, illustrated premium theme designed by Aline Yamada. It’s perfect for your [...]

Today, we celebrate Earth Day. Perhaps you’re marking the occasion by attending a volunteer clean-up event in your neighborhood, talking with your children about recycling, or choosing to bike to work, all in the name of environmental stewardship. Here in the WordPress community, we’re lucky to have bloggers covering everything from sustainability, to homesteading, to [...]

We’re constantly working on updates to our mobile apps to make your WordPress.com experience on the go the best it can be. Today, we’ve jubilantly released version 2.3 of WordPress for Android to Google Play. After updating, you’ll see right away that this release includes very exciting updates to the user interface. Let’s dive in [...]

Happy Theme Thursday! It’s spring in some parts of the world, which for many means tidying and redecorating their homes. Today we have a new free theme to help you do the same for your blog! Truly Minimal, designed by FlareThemes, lives up to its name for its clean typography and elegant simplicity. The theme [...]

If you’re an author or an independent publisher, check out our new Send to Readmill widget, which makes it easy to get your prose into your readers’ iPads and iPhones. Readmill is an ebook reader that not only offers a clean, elegant reading experience, it allows you to highlight and share passages with others and [...]

Every few weeks, we’re sitting down with an Automattician to help you get to know the people who work behind the scenes to build new features, keep Automattic running, and make WordPress.com the best it can be. This week, we’re very pleased to introduce you to Ms. Sara Rosso, the ultimate WordPress fan, and World [...]

Where I live, it seems winter is refusing to loosen its grip, holding back a long-awaited spring. With two feet of snow still on the ground and frigid, breezy days, it’s nice to sit inside (by the fire) and lose myself in the delights of the Reader. Forget Calgon. Reader….take me away! Here’s just a [...]

Happy Theme Thursday! I’d like to introduce you to our newest free theme, Adelle. I hope you’ll make her feel welcome. Designed by BluChic, Adelle would love to adorn your blog. It doesn’t matter what you write about — technology, arts, crafts, food, fashion  — Adelle can handle it, with elegance and sophistication. Adelle comes [...]

Your blog’s design should reflect your personality, and we want to make that as easy as possible. That’s why, today, we’re releasing three big upgrades to the Theme Customizer on WordPress.com that make customizing your blog faster and easier. 1. A more-focused Customizer. We’ve made the Customizer more compact; open it via Appearance → Themes [...]

I’ve been on vacation the past few weeks, playing under the sun on the beaches of Hawaii. But that didn’t stop me from keeping up with the latest posts in the Reader. (Yes, I was the gal lying on the sand, absorbed in a good read on her iPad, in between snorkeling dips in the sea.) I [...]