Matt Mullenweg blogged that Automattic has received a Series D funding round of $300 million. He had some interesting comments in an interview with TechCrunch about how much they want to grow WordPress, comparing it to Android’s 85% market share and even going beyond that:
What we want to do is to become the operating system for the open web. We want every website, whether it’s e-commerce or anything to be powered by WordPress. And by doing so, we’ll make sure that the web can go back to being more open, more integrated and more user-centric than it would be if proprietary platforms become dominant.
I’ve long been inspired by Automattic. They were the best company to acquire Tumblr and they seem well-positioned to make a dent in the dominance of Facebook and Twitter. But also I’m thinking about one of the IndieWeb’s principles:
Plurality. With IndieWebCamp we’ve specifically chosen to encourage and embrace a diversity of approaches & implementations. This background makes the IndieWeb stronger and more resilient than any one (often monoculture) approach.
WordPress is at 34% of web sites right now, and I can easily see it getting to 50%. Growing bigger than that might take away one of the beautiful things about the web: the diversity and flexibility to move between platforms. I’m rooting for Automattic to take market share away from the big social networks, but there should be a variety of tools available to build web sites, including platforms like Micro.blog.
