Making the Social Web a Better Place: ActivityPub for WordPress Joins the Automattic Family 

If you’re a blogger or content creator who wants to reach a wider audience, the ActivityPub plugin is perfect for you.

We’re excited to announce that Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, has acquired the popular WordPress plugin ActivityPub

This innovative plugin brings a whole new level of social networking to your website by integrating it with the wider federated social web. When installed, the plugin allows you to easily share your content and interact with users on Mastodon and other platforms that also support the ActivityPub protocol

Just as Automattic aims to do with all of our products, this plugin helps to decentralize the web, break down silos, and foster a more connected online ecosystem. 

Why you should use the ActivityPub plugin

If you’re a blogger or content creator who wants to reach a wider audience, the ActivityPub plugin is perfect for you. Just as Jetpack Social — another one of our great plugins! — automatically shares content to large social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, ActivityPub automatically allows anyone on a federated network to follow your blog’s posts, which will show up in their Home feed. The federated networks include:

Responses on those platforms show up in your WordPress post’s comments, allowing you to interact directly with readers across the fediverse, streamlining engagement and creating a more cohesive online presence. 

Moreover, in using ActivityPub for WordPress, you’re supporting the open source movement, promoting transparency and collaboration, and empowering users to take control of their online experience and contribute to a more diverse and inclusive internet landscape.

How to install ActivityPub for WordPress

Installing the ActivityPub plugin is a breeze, even if you’ve never added a plugin before. 

1. From your dashboard’s left-side menu, navigate to the plugin marketplace and search “ActivityPub” (all one word). Alternatively, you can click here and go directly to the plugin page. 

2. Click “Install and activate.” 

3. Once activated, you can click “Manage plugin,” which allows you to choose the type of content that will show up in fediverse feeds — if you’re not quite ready for that, you can always access it later under “Settings” → “ActivityPub.” 

At Automattic, our philosophy has always been to democratize publishing and make the web a better place. In our acquisition of ActivityPub for WordPress, we’re doing that for the social web.  


Missing out on the latest WordPress.com developments? Enter your email below to receive future announcements direct to your inbox. An email confirmation will be sent before you will start receiving notifications - please check your spam folder if you don't receive this.

Join 97,987,175 other subscribers

24 Comments

  1. thisness

    This is great news! Any plans for adding this capability to WordPress.com blogs?

    Liked by 7 people

  2. Steve Sawczyn

    I have waited a long time for an announcement like this, but it seems that this functionality may only be available for WordPress Business and above? When I tried to install this on my Premium plan, I was told that I would need a plan upgrade, but not what that upgrade might be: it’s presumably an upgrade to business as I don’t find any other options that would support plugin installation. I’d absolutely love to incorporate ActivityPub into my blog as I truly believe in the open web, but I’m not willing to pay 3X what I’m already paying just to gain access to a single plugin. Is there some other way to add this to accounts lower than Business tier? If not, I truly hope that Automattic will consider merging this somehow into Jetpack, so that all of us can truly take part in the open web.

    Liked by 6 people

    • Jerry B

      Hi there, for the moment this plugin is in beta, so it has not been incorporated with the WordPress.com platform directly. For now, the only way to use this feature is to upgrade to the Business Plan or use a self-hosted WordPress site with a “traditional web host.”

      We don’t have a specific timeline for adding this functionality for all WordPress.com sites, but we would announce it here in our blog. Thanks for your patience!

      Liked by 6 people

  3. Affiliated Madness

    First comment 😁. This is really cool actually, thank you for making such a great post. Once I get some things in place I’m definitely going to have to make use of this awesome plugin!

    Liked by 3 people

  4. scribblans

    It should be understood that installing this plug-in — that democratises publishing and makes the web a better place — requires your subscription to be on the Business plan or higher, so is not for Personal or Premium accounts.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. minecraftchest1

    Now for it to be available for all users, not just buisness.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Carolyn S.

      We’re working on it! Since it hasn’t been integrated into WordPress.com yet (which will take some time), the only way to use this feature at the moment is to upgrade to the Business Plan or use a self-hosted WordPress site with a “traditional web host.”

      We don’t have a specific timeline for adding this functionality for all WordPress.com sites, but we would announce it here in our blog. Thanks for your patience!

      Like

  6. Lou Carreras

    You were right installing the plugin was amazingly easy. but I couldn’t find the entry for manage plugin which would allow me to to set things up. Have I missed something here?

    Liked by 5 people

  7. Maho-Art

    It is not very clear to me when someone make a statement that they are demonstrating a product or access when they are busy buying up independent related businesses and determining to use factor of those products.

    I’ve always understood the “market” to be an amalgamation of varied interests in a field interactions, buying, selling and trading. Today all portals of such activities are being owned and influenced by fewer and fewer minds, in an arena of slavish drones waiting for the next offering. In such a case how can we believe the market is free, or the processes democratic? This is truly a quandary of perception.

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Ana Daksina

    Open source, transparency and collaboration, empowering, user control, diversity and inclusiveness ~ what wonderful words! 👏👏👏

    Liked by 4 people

  9. Shine✨

    👍

    Liked by 2 people

  10. Shuvo Azam

    👍

    Liked by 2 people

  11. hamadalikhan776

    Fantastic effort, Nice idea

    Liked by 3 people

  12. Oftaane Asaffa

    Awesome

    Liked by 3 people

  13. Chris Till

    Pretty ridiculous to announce that it’s available and not mention that it’s in beta and only available to business customers at this time. So we all went to install it and were confused.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Carolyn S.

      We’re working on it! Since it hasn’t been integrated into WordPress.com yet (which will take some time), the only way to use this feature at the moment is to upgrade to the Business Plan or use a self-hosted WordPress site with a “traditional web host.”

      We don’t have a specific timeline for adding this functionality for all WordPress.com sites, but we would announce it here in our blog. Thanks for your patience!

      Liked by 2 people

      • Chris Till

        That’s fair enough. Happy to wait. I used to have a self-hosted site when I was a kid, but found it to be quite a lot of hassle in the end compared to wp.com, which I guess is the whole idea. And it definitely seems like a good idea to embrace this kind of open social system after what we’ve seen happen at Twitter.

        Also, re-reading my comment, it comes across as a lot less polite than was intended. So I apologise for that.

        Liked by 1 person

  14. isabella1892

    Awesome!

    Liked by 2 people

  15. Anthony Friday

    This is a good plug in.. Thanks so much for this.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. Bonneywakgari

    Best

    Liked by 3 people

  17. butterflylovers2023@outlook.com

    How do we add it onto our website? How much does it cost? Is it only in beta? Etc…

    Liked by 2 people

    • Fotis

      Hi, you can install it from the Plugins Marketplace. Here’s a direct link: https://wordpress.com/plugins/activitypub
      The plugin itself is free. However, to install it on your WordPress.com site, you’ll need to upgrade to the Business or eCommerce plan. Those are the only plans that allow the installation of plugins.

      Like

  18. Oguzhan kartal

    Carolyn by sayfayí begendi

    Liked by 2 people

Please do not use these comments for asking questions, support, or bug reporting. Use the forums or support contact form for that.

Please read our comment guidelines before posting.

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Create your new blog or website for free

Get Started

%d bloggers like this: