Automattic

Beyond Instagram: New Generation of Social Apps

TechCrunch highlights a wave of smaller, more personal social and interest-driven apps that aim to compete with major platforms like Meta, Google, Snapchat, TikTok and X. The roundup profiles multiple consumer-facing apps — including Retro, Cosmos, Indigo, Corner, Divine, Mesh, Fable, Locket, Airbuds, The Mall and Shelf — describing each app’s focus, notable features, recent product updates or backing, platform availability, and relevant founders or acquirers. The piece emphasizes these apps’ appeal to younger users and niche communities, notes acquisitions and integrations (e.g., Mesh acquired by Automattic), and calls out specific facts like user counts, archival content imports, and partnerships (e.g., Fable bundled with Everand). Publication date: 2026-06-06.

WordPress.com Grants AI Agents Write Access via MCP

Automattic has extended WordPress.com’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) to allow AI agents (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude) to create and manage content through natural-language prompts. The March 20, 2026 update adds 19 write-capable functions across six areas — posts, pages, comments, categories, tags and media — enabling agents to draft articles, create pages, moderate comments, update metadata and reorganize site structure. New features include Theme Awareness (design-aware content generation), default-draft behavior, activity logging, role-based controls and OAuth 2.1 for secure connections. Automattic says every agent action requires explicit user confirmation and preserves existing WordPress roles/permissions. Given WordPress.com’s ~43% share of websites, Automattic expects the change to accelerate MCP integrations across its products and third parties, while raising questions about trust, oversight and the volume of agent-generated content.

Bluesky CEO Transition: Toni Schneider Takes the Helm

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber announced she will step down as CEO and transition to chief innovation officer, saying the company needs a seasoned operator to focus on scaling and execution. The company named Toni Schneider — former CEO of WordPress.com parent Automattic and a partner at True Ventures — as interim CEO; CNBC notes both Automattic and True Ventures are investors in Bluesky. Bluesky was founded within Twitter by Jack Dorsey in 2019 and spun out as an independent company in 2021 when Graber became CEO. The platform ended its service agreement with X after Elon Musk’s acquisition in 2022. Bluesky has reported rapid user growth in recent years (15.2M to 21M in Nov 2024; ~28M in Jan 2025; 42M as of last month on its website).