Automattic has announced the launch of VIP support for Web hosts of WordPress blogs. This expands VIP hosting and support services currently available to VIP WordPress clients, who include media companies, sports leagues and Fortune 500 companies.
The new services include better support for major infrastructure, annual review of clients’ entire WordPress hosting stack, an annual security audit and review of best practices and a one-day onsite training of clients’ WordPress-focused staff. Pricing starts at $250,000 per year.
WordPress VIP services are growing at a rapid clip. Hosted VIP WordPress sites are currently pulling in 1 billion pageviews per month. Accordingly, Automattic reports that revenues from VIP services have more than doubled year-over-year.
As we reported in August WordPress has seen strong growth overall this year. Around 15% of the world’s websites are powered by WordPress, up from 8.5% last year. It also sustains a community of thousands of self-employed WordPress developers who make a median hourly rate of $50.
And For The Non-VIPs…
The expansion of VIP services follows the announcement in October of a first-time ad partnership with Federated Media, allowing regular WordPress bloggers – those who don’t pay $250,000 or more for the privilege – to monetize their content.
But the WordPress experience is steadily changing for those users; in response to stiff competition from more social free blogging sites like Tumblr, everyday WordPress users are having social networking features thrust upon them.
What content management system do you use? Are you happy with it? Share your experiences in the comments
