14 DAY TRIAL // WordPress.com, the hosted version of WordPress, is celebrating this summer its 10 year anniversary, along with Automattic, the company behind it.
As a product, WordPress.com did not exist until 2005, two years after Matt Mullenweg created the open source version of WordPress.
Back then, when WordPress was still a very lightweight and very popular blogging platform, Matt had the idea to provide his own hosted version of WordPress to people without technical expertise.
WordPress.com was an unexpected success
Right from the start, the platform employed a freemium model which helped it grow its userbase, hosting blogs for free and sustaining itself via advertising, VIP accounts, and paid upgrades.
Against all odds, WordPress.com succeeded as a service, and it is currently one of Alexa's Top 50 sites on the Internet.
With over 60 million WordPress.com sites online, the platform can brag with clients like the BBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, Reuters, Sony, Volkswagen, Chrysler, NFL, Fortune, TechCrunch, Time, UPS, TED, and many more.
Automattic is now a business model for many open source projects
2.5 billion posts and 3 billion comments later, WordPress.com, through its parent company Automattic, is now also a power-house in the online world, including additional services like Akismet, the spam fighting service; Jetpack, a traffic and customization tool for WP sites; WooCommerce, a plugin for making WP-powered e-commerce stores; and VaultPress, a backup and security system for WordPress installations.
Automattic also employs 400 people around the world, being one of the first companies not requiring its employees to come to offices on a daily basis (or at all).
The company is widely respected in the open source community, and many developers have followed in Matt's footsteps, creating a company that offers paid hosting for their previously open source developed applications.
Powering around 24% of all the sites on the Internet through its open source or commercial platform, there's nothing standing in the way of WordPress in reaching 50%.
