PoP (https://getpop.org) is a WordPress framework which aims to break the information monopoly of large Internet corporations by linking autonomous WordPress websites together, allowing them to interact with each other and become part of a wider network composed of different communities. Users from different websites can interact among themselves, without the need to join a centralized service such as Facebook or LinkedIn. This way, website owners can keep control of their own data, storing it on their own servers.
PoP works by combining WordPress and Handlebars into an MVC architecture framework, in which WordPress is the model, Handlebars is the view, and PoP is the controller. Acting as the controller, PoP intercepts WordPress’ data query results, generates a response in JSON, and feeds this JSON code to Handlebars to be transformed into HTML. The result is a dynamic website, in which the back-end is fully WordPress, yet the front-end is built using javascript.
To demonstrate the framework, participants will be able to post tweets in a decentralized Twitter-like aggregator, created for the occasion.