WordPress Love, When a Sponsorship Becomes True Advocacy: Bluehost Raises the Bar on Global WordCamp Sponsorship and Much More
Burlington, MA (PRWEB) February 14, 2014 -- Bluehost, an Endurance International company, (NASDAQ:EIGI), will be sponsoring every 2014 WordPress WordCamp – in the world. This announcement came on January 30 from Andrea Middleton on the blog WordCamp Central. As the first company to sign on as a multi-event sponsor, Bluehost has been a pivotal WordCamp supporter since 2005. However, to applaud the Bluehost WordCamp support is to celebrate only part of the story – one that has been a mutual love affair that has flourished over the past eight years.
For the uninitiated, WordCamps are locally organized gatherings of WordPress users and enthusiasts that combine the best of “how to” within the context of “how come?” Sessions range from basic tutorials, like how to apply themes and plugins, to advanced topics like security. WordCamps make the learning curve of self-publishing much easier.
WordCamp attendee Don Campbell, owner of http://www.expand2web.com, says, “WordCamp captures the generous spirit of the WordPress community. If you are involved with WordPress in any way, you owe it to yourself to attend. WordCamp is an event our team looks forward to every year. It gives us a chance to sharpen our skills and meet lots of amazing folks in the WordPress community."
To understand the depth of the relationship between Bluehost and WordPress, you need to first understand the open source roots of the Bluehost brand. Bluehost was founded in 2003 with one goal: to be a better hosting company. Built entirely on open source technology, the Bluehost platform has since grown to become one of the world’s leading providers of cloud-based platform solutions designed to help small and medium-sized businesses succeed online. The connection to WordPress was part of that success, and today Bluehost currently powers over one million WordPress sites.
However, the commitment to supporting WordPress WordCamps is just the starting line.
Consider that Bluehost has committed 50% of technology executive Jared Smith’s time to developing the quality and skills of participants in the open source community. As Director of Open Source Outreach, Jared serves as a speaker, teacher, mentor and conference organizer to help the community with obstacles and resources. Bluehost also employs two full-time developers that report to WordPress users. Bryan Petty and Mike Hansen, both WordPress developers, come to work at the Bluehost offices in Orem, Utah to serve a community of WordPress enthusiasts. They mend fragmented code, fix bugs and iron out the bumps in new releases.
Hari Ravichandran, CEO of Endurance International, says, “WordPress is such an important part of our history, and as the world’s largest self-hosting blogging platform, an even bigger part of our future. Our involvement and sponsorship has been a natural evolution over time, and I was glad we were in a position at Bluehost to increase the scope of our support. Our investment in WordPress is an investment in the future of Bluehost and Endurance. It makes us an even better and more relevant company.”
About Bluehost
Bluehost is a leading provider of cloud-based solutions, including web hosting services, e-commerce tools, marketing applications, and more. Built on open source, Bluehost designs and operates its own servers, develops innovative new internet technologies, and actively supports and participates in the open source community. Bluehost is dedicated to providing reliable in-house, US-based customer support. For more information, visit http://www.bluehost.com.
About Endurance International Group
Endurance International Group is a leading provider of cloud-based platform solutions designed to help small and medium-sized businesses succeed online. Less than 20 years old, Endurance serves over 3.4 million subscribers through a family of brands that includes Bluehost, HostGator, Domain.com, FatCow, iPage, BigRock and MOJO Marketplace. Endurance is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, has a presence in Asia and the Americas, and employs over 2,600 people. Endurance provides a comprehensive suite of over 150 products and services that includes web presence and mobile sites, email and e-commerce solutions, as well as more advanced offerings, such as SEO services, scalable computing, security, storage and backup, online marketing and productivity solutions. For more information, visit http://www.endurance.com.
This press release may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding our expectations for the growth of the WordPress platform and subscriber base and how such growth could affect our business. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, plans, objectives, expectations, beliefs and intentions and other statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts and statements identified by words such as “intend”, “plan”, “expect”, “believe” , “opportunity” , “seems” or words of similar meaning. Actual results may differ materially from our expectations as a result of various important factors. For additional discussion of these and other factors, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and we do not assume any obligation to update such statements.
Endurance International Group and the compass logo are trademarks of The Endurance International Group, Inc. Other brand names of Endurance International are trademarks of The Endurance International Group, Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Dani LaSalvia, Endurance International Group, http://www.endurance.com, +1 (781) 852-3212, [email protected]
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