Announced yesterday afternoon at WordPress.org, the annual State of the Word will delivered by the project co-founder, Matt Mullenweg, on December 17th, 2020 at 1600 UTC (10:00 AM CT). Continuing with so much being online, this year the keynote will be streamed on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Now will we be missing queueing up in line for a few hours to get the best seats, a rite of passage at every WordCamp US, no. But the energy and excitement in the auditorium will surely be missed.

Astute readers will note that this shouldn’t be a surprise. Back in October from your truly:

A quick word from Matt Mullenweg on whether there will be a State of the Word this year, “We’re exploring how to best recap this year and talk about possibilities for 2021 in a State of the Word like online event.”

State of the Word Predictions

So let’s try the first ever State of the Word predictions, quick and dirty version, some should be spot on, and some will be at least food for thought.

1. Acknowledgements and thanks to all who have persevered through canceled events, work stress, personal stress, and the binding and healing powers of open source
2. WordPress 5.6
3. Headless / serverless / decoupled future
4. Gutenberg
5. Optimism for 2021
6. Q&A (I guarantee this prediction – well because you can submit a video question)