Torque Plugin Madness: Vote For Your Favorite Plugins

Tip off for the 2016 Torque Plugin Madness tournament is next week, WordPressers, so bone up on your WordPress plugins and be ready to vote for your favorite plugins as they duke it out on the hardwood (or, in this case, the Internet) for plugin supremacy.

Torque Plugin Madness is a bracket-style competition modeled after the NCAA college basketball tournament, affectionately known as March Madness. We took the 64 most popular WordPress plugins, according to the official plugin directory, and randomly placed them into four groups representing regions—The Pressers, The Wordees, The Extenders, and The Installers. How do you know it’s random? We literally pulled the plugins’ names from a box and stuck them to the board at random (check out the video to see).

Voting opens on Tuesday, March 1 at PluginMadness.com (today, you can get a sneak peek of the first round). Voting for each round will last one week, so come back weekly to vote. We’ll reveal the winner on Tuesday, April 12.

Here are the rounds and when voting for each begins:

• March 1: The Enchanting 64 (Round 1)
• March 8: The Thrilling 32 (Round 2)
• March 15: The Supreme 16 (Round 3)
• March 22: The Exceptional 8 (Round 4)
• March 29: The Phenomenal 4 (Semi-Finals)
• April 5: Championship
• April 12: Tournament Champion!

Along with bragging rights, the winner will receive a sweet trophy. Rally votes for your favorites (or for your own plugin, if it’s part of the tournament). After you vote, tell the world on your social networks using the hashtag #pluginmadness for a chance to win an awesome Torque Magazine swag pack that will keep you looking great on and off the court.

Be sure to stay tuned to Torque, the WP Engine blog, and PluginMadness.com for tournament news. You can also sign up to receive updates via email.

Upcoming Webinar: The WordPress Plugin Ecosystem

Want to learn more about some of your favorite WordPress plugins? We’re hosting a free webinar on Wednesday, March 2 examining the WordPress plugin ecosystem. We’ll look at how to choose the right plugins for your site and what goes into creating a killer plugin. We’ll also look at how hosts like WP Engine work with plugins. Joining us to discuss their plugins will be very special guests (and Plugin Madness competitors):

• B Byrne, CEO and Co-Founder, Clef; Clef Two-Factor Authentication
• Aaron Campbell, Developer, iThemes; iThemes Security
• Bjorn Seaton, Digital Marketing Manager, WPMU DEV; WP Smush
• Joost de Valk, CEO and Founder, Yoast; Yoast SEO

Register now to reserve a seat for this exciting webinar.