WP Tavern

On the podcast today we have Andrew Palmer. Andrew has been in the WordPress space for many years as a product owner and open source advocate. He founded and later sold Elegant Marketplace, and more recently is the co-founder of Bertha.ai, which is a WordPress plugin which assists you in creating text content directly in the WordPress admin. We get into how you can create AI content and when it’s suitable to do so. Can you rely on the text that’s created and hand over complete editorial control to the plugin, or does the generated content still need human intervention? We also dig into some aspects of AI which have people concerned. Are we going to become too reliant on AI tools, and will they put copywriters out of work? Will people create content simply to swamp the search engines and make it harder for truly important information to rise to the top?

On the podcast today we have Marieke Van De Rakt & Taco Verdonschot, and they’re both from Yoast SEO. I sat down with them both at WordCamp Europe and we talked about some of the recent changes that have taken place within the company. Having worked hard to build and maintain their company's reputation, they decided that it was time to steer the business in a new direction by selling it to Newfold Digital. We get into the reasons for this acquisition and the subsequent reshuffling of the management of the company. What were the details of that agreement, why did they join forces with Newfold Digital in particular, and how has the acquisition gone? We also talk about their longstanding commitment to contributing back to the WordPress project. Why have they done this and what benefits have they seen from this approach? Why do they bring so many of their team to WordCamps? Finally, we talk about their move into the Shopify space with their SaaS Shopify app.

On the podcast today we have Paul Bearne. Paul is a WordPress enthusiast who loves to come up with ways to make WordPress do things it doesn’t normally do. Having engaged with WordPress almost from the start, he specialises in the creation of highly performant, scalable, accessible and SEO friendly code. In the podcast today Paul talks about the many ways in which it’s possible to work within the WordPress ecosystem. He’s tried many of them out over the years. Paul talks through some of the different ways that you can work and draws out the benefits and drawbacks that they have. How can you find the work and what can you do to make sure that it’s as stable as it can be? If you’re already a remote worker, much of this conversation will resonate with you, but if you’re not, but are curious about your options, this podcast will be of interest.

On the podcast today we have Jonathan Wold. Jonathan joined the WordPress community seventeen years ago, and he’s been here ever since. He likes to think about WordPress as an operating system for creating on the open web, and invests his time and energy into growing the WordPress ecosystem. With that in mind he gave a talk at the recent WordCamp Europe called "Growing in WordPress through partnerships", in which he laid out his thoughts on how WordPress companies can enable greater growth by joining with other, like minded companies. Jonathan talks today about how strategic partnerships can, in some cases, make the job of selling a product easier and more rewarding. Are partnerships for everyone, or are they only for a subset of companies? How do you go about finding a partner and what are the ways that you can ensure that you’re working with the companies which offer the most benefit to you and your customers?

On the podcast today we have Sean Blakeley. Sean works for a large agency called American Eagle, a platform agnostic organisation working with enterprise clients on a wide variety of projects. After years of experiments with different approaches and collaborations between designers and developers, their team has begun to rely heavily on block patterns, and they’ve found it is greatly increasing their productivity. It’s fair to say that block patterns have revolutionised the team's approach to the entire design process. We talk about how and why Sean’s team decided to jump in early with block patterns. When they did, this was a somewhat risky strategy. There was no guarantee that patterns would begin to be widely adopted, but this strategy is now starting to bear fruit. It’s allowing their team to work with their clients in new and unexpected ways. It’s an interesting episode, and if you’re curious about how you can start to use blocks and patterns with your clients, there’s sure to be something here for you.

On the podcast today we have Akshat Choudhary. Akshat is the Founder and CEO of BlogVault, MalCare, WP Remote and Airlift. These WordPress plugins allow their customers to build, manage and maintain their WordPress websites. He’s based in Bangalore, India and we begin the podcast talking about the state of the WordPress community there. We also talk about why Akshat sees it as useful to bring himself and other members of his team so far to attend WordCamp Europe. What’s in it for them and what’s their approach to the return on this investment? We then get into a discussion of the security landscape and how the products that Akshat and his team make enable site owners to rest more easily. We go into some of the technical details of how the products work and how they fit neatly into an agency wishing to sell care plans to their website clients.

On the podcast today we have Felix Arntz. Felix is a Developer Relations Engineer at Google and a WordPress core committer. He is the lead engineer for the Site Kit plugin for WordPress and has been a regular contributor to WordPress for several years. He’s also been involved in the newly created WordPress performance team which is trying to work out how WordPress can stay ahead of the performance curve. He's on the podcast today to talk about how the WordPress community need to be focussing more on performance. Not only do search engines place more emphasis upon speed, but the rise of other CMSs might also reflect their ability to optimise their platforms, given that they don't have the plugin and theme architecture which WordPress does. It’s an interesting conversation about an area which is going to matter more and more in the months and years to come.

On the podcast today we have David Lockie. David is the Web3 Lead at Automattic, which is a new role. He’s trying to understand what Web3 is and how it’s going to alter the course of the internet in the future. Web3 can be confusing. It's new and has many different meanings depending upon which implementation you're working with. It also works in a fundamentally different way to how the web has been thus far. Perhaps you've encountered crypto currencies or NFTs, and maybe they've convinced you about the future of Web3. Perhaps they've raised concerns. David tries to explain how this decentralised approach to gathering and storing data is just beginning to find some practical applications.

On the podcast today we have Daisy Olsen. Daisy works for Automattic as a Developer Relations contributor on the WordPress Project, and she's on the podcast today to talk about Block Themes. These new themes bring additional possibilities for WordPress users in what they're able to build in the Block Editor. Now, non-technical can start to add and style things like headers, footers and navigation menus. Daisy talks about how this all works as well as what's not quite ready. We also get into what new skills you'll need to learn, as well as what new tooling might be required. It's an interesting subject and a good primer on Block Themes if you're considering jumping in.

On the podcast today we have Milan Ivanovic. Milan is a WordPress Developer at Valet.io, and is a WordCamp volunteer, speaker, and organizer. He’s the WordPress.org global translation editor, WordPress Serbia lead, and is now part of the WordCamp Europe alumni. As if that weren’t enough, Milan is one of the lecturers of the WordPress Academy in Serbia, where he has given talks and WordPress Workshops. He’s also a member of the Theme Review and Community Get Involved Teams. It’s pretty clear to see that WordPress and WordPress events play a major role in Milan’s life, and that’s what this podcast is about. We talk about the importance of the WordPress community as a whole, as well as exploring what the situation is like in Milan’s home country of Serbia. We also get into the subject of diversity and how Europe as a continent might face diversity challenges which differ from other parts of the world.