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 [...]

Image lovers and creative bloggers unite! Two new themes have launched today that I think you all will absolutely go gaga over. Full Frame, designed and developed by Graph Paper Press, is a single column, full-width theme for showcasing your beautiful images, galleries, and videos from edge to edge. It’s responsive and adapts to different [...]

We get a lot of questions about SEO here on WordPress.com, and no wonder — you work hard on your site and want to get the word out! SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO recommendations are intended to help your site rank higher and more accurately in search engines, like Google. Say you write a blog [...]

Howdy all! We have a bunch of awesome new themes for you today, so let’s dive right in. First up is Little Story, a premium theme with design elements and inspiration from the talented Laura Amiss. Little Story supports several post formats in different styles, large featured images on Sticky posts, a mobile-friendly layout (including [...]

We dive daily into the Reader of WordPress.com just as many of you do, sifting through the latest posts like we’re foraging in a vast forest. One of the things we love about this community is the diversity: from brave pieces of memoir to political commentaries to observations on overseas experiences, there’s something to read for [...]

Do you find yourself looking for more resources on making the most of your WordPress.com blog? Maybe you’ve always thought about going to a WordCamp, but don’t have one in your area (have you checked?) or are worried that the topics will be over your head. Maybe you’re more of a visual or auditory learner, [...]

We’re thrilled that American poet and author Kellie Elmore has made WordPress.com her home on the web. A Southerner at heart, Kellie grew up in a small town and is inspired by love and loss, nature, and “the humble surroundings of her backyard” of Southeast Tennessee.  Kellie’s debut collection of poetry and prose, Magic in the [...]

The big news on the internet the last couple of days has been that seminal RSS reader Google Reader will be shutting down on July 1, 2013. Google Reader had lots of fans, including many of us here at Automattic, but it’s time to move on. Speaking of moving on from Google Reader, did you [...]