WordPress 3.8 Released This Week
Almost 20% of the world wide web is now using a WordPress website or blog. If you’re familiar with WordPress, then you know why. It’s simple to use, has endless customization options even for those with limited coding knowledge, and it’s free.
Even as WordPress gained in popularity and grew beyond web logging (blogging) into the most dominant CMS in the world, it retained the same front-end look for users and site administrators. With the release of WordPress 3.8, that has changed. Get ready for a new experience.
When to Update to WordPress 3.8
If your business depends on holiday website traffic – especially ecommerce sites – then it’s probably best to wait until after the holiday season to upgrade to WordPress 3.8. The last thing any business owner wants is to run into a compatibility issue between WordPress and a plugin during the busiest time of the year.
I always recommend to upgrade as soon as possible, but be smart about it and make a backup of your site and database before you do. If you’re not currently using BackupBuddy, then I recommend installing it immediately and keeping at least one recent, complete backup available at all times.
So What’s New in WordPress 3.8?
New fonts, new icons, more user-friendly admin experience. It’s all been upgraded. You’ll notice some of the changes as soon as the you update to WordPress 3.8. You can change your admin color scheme to better suit your personality if you don’t like the default.
There’s a new responsive default theme: Twenty Fourteen: A “Magazine Style” Default Theme. There are several updates to Theme and Widget management that are meant to make modifications and manipulation much simpler.
For a complete rundown on what’s new, check out this article by Torque.
