WordPress.com is a blog web hosting service provider owned by Automattic and powered by the open source WordPress software. The WordPress project is a meritocracy, run by a core leadership team, and led by co-founder and lead developer Matt Mullenweg. The team governs all aspects of the project, including core development, WordPress.org, and community initiatives. It provides free blog hosting for registered users and is financially supported via paid upgrades, "VIP" services and advertising. The site opened to the public on November 2005. There were over 56 million individual blogs using the service as of October 2012, which receive more than 100 million pageviews per day. WordPress ranked 19 in Alexa rank on February 2014 . Registration is not required to read or comment on blogs hosted on the site, except if chosen by the blog owner. Registration is required to own, or post in, a weblog. All the basic and original features of the site are free-to-use. However, some features (including CSS editor, domain mapping, Domain Registration, Removal of Ads, Website Redirection, Video Upload, and storage upgrades) are available as paid options. Some notable clients include CNN, CBS, BBC, Reuters, Sony and Volkswagen. In September 2010, it was announced that Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft's blogging service, would be closing, and that Microsoft would instead be partnering with WordPress.com for blogging services. On November 2012, WordPress.com announced that Bitcoins would be accepted as a payment method for everything except for domain and theme purchase outside certain bundles.