Automattic picks up After the Deadline
Online grammar and spelling checker After the Deadline has been acquired by Automattic for an undisclosed sum.
Automattic, the company behind blogging platform WordPress, announced Tuesday that it has acquired After the Deadline, a service that finds spelling and grammar errors in blog posts. The deal's terms were not disclosed.
After the Deadline's spelling-, grammar-, and style-checking tools are now available to 7.5 million WordPress blogs. It's also available as a downloadable plug-in for WordPress users.
Looking ahead, Automattic plans to make After the Deadline open-source. It hopes the community will play a part in improving it. After the Deadline's founder Raphael Mudge, will stay on at Automattic to deliver After the Deadline to non-English-speaking bloggers.
After the Deadline was first discovered by the Automattic team when WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg saw a comment on Hackernews from After the Deadline's founder discussing how his tool found errors in a New York Times article. He was intrigued and contacted the tool's founder. Just a few months later, After the Deadline is now a part of WordPress.
I've had the opportunity to use After the Deadline on a few occasions. (You can too by inputting content into its demonstration module.) It's one of the most capable error-correction tools I've ever used.
After the Deadline, available now to WordPress users, is free to use.