Post Status Podcasts

About a year ago, Vikas Singhal launched InstaWP, a serverless platform for spinning up WordPress sites instantly for demos and sandboxes, development and testing, or training and education. Along with WordPress, any combination of plugins and themes can be included. There’s GitHub integration, and InstaWP has the ability to push sites to a large number of hosts or pull them to a local development environment. (InstaWP generates Blueprints — .zip packages for WP Engine’s Local app.)InstaWP is being embraced by WordPress product developers and agencies. It has significant product testing and marketing applications since customers can spin up any number of demo sites based on a custom template, and this activity is logged. Vikas has picked up seed funding from Automattic and looks forward to announcing many new partnerships with WordPress businesses that have found InstaWP and valuable and complementary tool.Vikas sees InstaWP’s future as a marketplace for agencies, developers, and freelancers. Because of its powerful site templating and cloning capabilities, it could ultimately become a way to generate bespoke WordPress-based SaaS platforms at scale.🙏 Sponsor: StellarWPStellarWP provides WordPress solutions for all humankind. We’re a collective of leaders interested in growing WordPress companies. We build great plugins, but we don’t stop there; we continually challenge ourselves to keep innovating and improving. Reach out to us if you’re interested in learning more!🔗 Mentioned in the show:InstaWP – Instant WordPress Sites for Everyone🐦 You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:Vikas Singhal (Founder, InstaWP)Dan Knauss (Editor, Post Status)Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

Transcript ↓This week in Post Status Slack, Lesley Sim, the founder of Newsletter Glue, dropped this announcement:"While everybody is offering discounts for Black Friday, we’re planning to significantly raise prices. We’ll be narrowing our target audience and focusing mainly on medium-large publishers and online businesses; working with them more closely and providing a high level of customization and support."What motivated Lesley's decision? Where does she expect it to take her company?For some background, listen to my recent conversation with Till Krüss, whose business model for Object Cache Pro and conversations following from it were part of Lesley's thinking about her own product.In this conversation with Lesley, we talk about:Pay attention to the shape of your market and your pricing.Lesley SimLesley's experience with Black Friday sales tactics."Lifetime" memberships and licenses.Where Newsletter Glue started and how its pricing model has changed.Why freemium didn't work for Newsletter Glue.Lesley's experience entering — and leaving — the WordPress plugin directory.How Newsletter Glue's pricing has steadily evolved toward a better match with its ideal customers.How Lesley accessed enterprise agencies and clients.What Lesley has learned and hopes to achieve in the future.The technical challenges and barriers to reaching a high-end market.🔗 Mentioned in the show:Newsletter Glue is a WordPress plugin that connects your WordPress content and the block editor with a newsletter service, like Mailchimp. It simplifies newsletter publishing so you can focus on writing — in WordPress — and sending your content out from there without having to copy/paste/edit content or create layouts inside your newsletter service's separate, not-as-good design interface.InstaWP is what it sounds like: a way to launch a WordPress sandbox/demo site in less than a second.Groundhogg is Marketing Automation and CRM For Serious Agencies and Small Businesses using WordPress.LifterLMS helps education entrepreneurs enable their learners to achieve their desired outcomes, to truly change lives, and make a great living in the process.rtCamp is a WordPress VIP Gold Ageny Partner delivering enterprise-grade web publishing and digital commerce solutions with WordPress to Fortune 500 companies.The Code Company is a very specialized agency for publishers focused on the WordPress core competency: publishing! They are specialist WordPress engineers who solve complex publishing problems at scale.Human Made is one of the oldest enterprise agencies in WordPress. They've been one of the largest contributors to the WordPress core project, and the wider ecosystem and community. They make Altis DXP, the evolution of how they work with WordPress. Human Made believes Altis is a fundamental and major step forward for the WordPress ecosystem.🐦 You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:Lesley Sim (Founder, Newsletter Glue)Dan Knauss (Editor, Post Status)Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧Transcript

Can We Get to “Yes” on Better UX?What does WordPress need to do to appeal more to do-it-yourself website builders and creators who are trying to take a business, hobby, or side project online? This week in an article he shared in Post Status Slack, Eric Karkovack suggested some ways to improve the WordPress user experience, especially for DIY users setting up a website for the first time.We also have lists of plugins we disrecommend — to the point that it's a dealbreaker if a client insists on using them. And of course, these lists change a lot over time. We all know these things — but it's a kind of “open secret” within professional WordPress circles. That's understandable! Comparison is the thief of joy — and possibly revenue.Some of the things Eric wants to see happen, like a standard interface for plugins and a curated view of the plugin ecosystem, are similar to views commonly expressed by designers, developers, and people in other professional roles at WordPress agencies serving enterprise clients. And why not? In the WordPress enterprise space, are the end users really that much different than mass-market WordPress users in what they don't need to know or see — and what they do need to perform routine content creation and management tasks as easily as possible? That's where my thinking has been lately, so I had a conversation with Eric to see if we might identify areas where nearly everyone thinks WordPress offers a poor experience and how they might align themselves toward solutions. Can we get everyone to “yes” on a better UX?Don't Play Favorites — Recognize ExcellenceStandardizing admin interfaces and notifications might be easier than figuring out how to curate best-of-breed themes and plugins. But imagine, as Eric and I do in this conversation, some kind of “plugin quality score” at wordpress.org based on neutral, objective data. It might be “gamed” — in a positive way. It would encourage developers to do better, deeper, ever-maturing work.Personally, I'd like to see the maximum and the average number of queries a plugin adds to a page. That, along with PHP and WordPress versions that have been tested for compatibility (existing features of the plugin repository) would be key code quality indicators. Frequency of updates, reviews, and support responses would indicate a capacity for long-term sustainability. Raising standards for testing aimed mainly at security would be great too. All of this could be done or encouraged by key players in the WordPress ecosystem coming together to set standards for their industry. It would impact how all users of the plugin directory understand quality.Don't Hide it from the Noobs: Too Many Open Secrets About Quality are Bad for EveryoneAs of today, there are 60,153 un-curated free plugins at wordpress.org that can only be explored via external search and a limited (arguably broken) site search tool. WordPress professionals with high-end client services would never expose their customers to this chaos — so why does the WordPress community expose its newcomers to it? Anyone who has developed WordPress sites for very long has a list of plugins they prefer, particularly in combination with each other, for common feature sets and use cases. We also have lists of plugins we dis-recommend — to the point that it's a deal breaker if a client insists on using them. And of course, these lists change a lot over time. We all know these things — but it's a kind of “open secret” from professional WordPress circles. That's understandable! Comparison is the thief of joy — and possibly revenue. But we need to be more open and better at communicating these things in a problem-solving, always-learning way within appropriate channels. Open source security is a different issue, but performance and code quality standards — and the products/people who follow them in exemplary ways — should be much more visible and celebrated.(What if someone did a tutorial series walking through current WordPress code standards and the history of their evolution?)Information that maturing developers and product owners can learn from to improve their work doesn't trickle down as openly or as easily as it should. It's inside baseball, and it shouldn't be quite so insider-y. It's not out there alongside independent plugin performance reviews or clear standards and guidance for anyone who wants them.Why not?What are the barriers?Who can lift them?Industry peers and WordPress community members working together on common interests?As we end up saying in our conversation, we hope so.✨ Sponsor: GoDaddy ProManage your clients, websites, and tasks from a single dashboard with GoDaddy Pro. Perform security scans, backups, and remote updates to many sites on any host. Check up on site performance, monitor uptime and analytics, and then send reports to your clients. GoDaddy Pro is free — and designed to make your life better.Learn More:The WordPress Coding Standards can be found evolving on GitHub.  🙏 CreditsEric Karkovack, Owner at Eric Karkovack Web Design Services (Twitter)Dan Knauss, Editor for Post Status (Twitter)Olivia Bisset, Web Producer intern for Post Status (Twitter)TranscriptDan Knauss: I'm here with Eric Car Kovac, and this morning on PostIt Slack, he shared his latest article published on Specy Boy. What can WordPress do to appeal to the do it yourself market? , what brought that topic up for you this week, Eric?Eric Karcovack: I think it's a combination of things. For one, you know, we have full site editing that's been around for a little bit now, and, you know, we're not seeing like huge adoption rates with it.We're getting people to, um, you know, kind of learn what's involved with that and block themes and, um, [00:02:00] and also at the same time we're, you know, the, the changes that we've seen, The block editor over time and you know, even the, kind of, the genesis of that project I think was to kind of compete with, um, more.Content management systems, kind of like, you know, WS or Squarespace and what have you. Um, and it seems like WordPress is just going toward that market more and more as they, as they build on. And so I thought those were really nice steps in that direction, right? So we have tools that. Make it a little bit easier for someone who maybe isn't, uh, familiar with code to go in and and build a, a site.But that led me to think about, well, what else should we be doing in that area? What else could WordPress do to make it. Uh, as foolproof as possible, um, to build a basic site, not something necessarily like, um, you know, a complex, you know, high end enterprise site, [00:03:00] but just something basic that someone can do within a couple of hours.So that really kind of where that, the post came from.Dan Knauss: Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen the, uh, videos where Jamie Marsland and, uh, who else did this had, had their daughters or, Um, I think of very different ages too, but it tried to do exactly that. And, um, he had, he had his kids do, um, um, Elementor versus Gutenberg, I think it was.Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that was interesting. I mean, you really have to. That totally someone totally different from you, um, using it for the first time and Yeah, I think, I think a lot of, um, thought has gone into that user experience is, is huge. Uh, now, of course, always, always should have been, but um, Gutenberg is, is very squarely focused on the, on the user experience, building out your, your site and, and [00:04:00] pages.And, um, my, my thought though was everyone wants that. Um, it's not just the mass market, the lower and middle end, um, of that, but, um, agencies to up. The, uh, those that are serving enterprise, enterprise clients, uh, WordPress, v i p partners, um, I hear, I hear the same things from them, like, you know, even very recent conversations, um, about.How having standard interface that doesn't throw you different, totally different screens when you use, uh, a plugin in the back end. Um, that's a, a con basic design principle of there's much less cognitive load on you when the navigation is standard. Even if you've never used WordPress before, um, [00:05:00] you.You're f it seems familiar because things are intuitively laid out. Cause it's, it's like a lot of other things. WordPress is, is old enough and in so influential that it's, it's, uh, backend interface has been copied in a lot of ways. It's very, very familiar. Um, interestingly, even if people haven't used it.Um, so when you hit a plugin with, you know, crazy level of setting screens or its own interface design, um, that's not, that doesn't. Look good with, uh, with anyone really, but with a enterprise client. I, I think that's an issue. That's one of the things you talk about in here. Um, Yeah, we have you thought about that at all?Um, how, Yeah. Pretty much every market, every WordPress market, uh, could benefit from.Eric Karcovack: It's, it's funny you mentioned that cuz I really wasn't thinking of like the enterprise clients. And I [00:06:00] think the reason for that is because usually if I have a client who's a little more higher end on the, on the price scale, I'm usually building things to kind of account for all of that right?Where I can, I mean, obviously I can't change a in ui, but I can certainly do things with custom fields or blocks or what have you to try and make the, the content creation and editing process. Simple as possible for them. So by, by doing some of these things at core level, you would take away the need to build all that extra stuff on top to, you know, to make it easier for the corporate client to use.So I think it, it, it goes together pretty well. Um, The one example in terms of UI that I have in the article is, uh, you know, just looking at the standard WordPress settings page. We have the reading settings, and then next to it I have, uh, the opening screen of slider Revolution, which is, uh, plugin bundled with [00:07:00] a bunch of different schemes and, uh, like a theme forest, what have you.Um, it's like a completely different thing. And to, to that end, even Elementor is as well, I mean the, a lot of. Popular page builder plugins basically take over, uh, the UI and it's like you're in a completely different planet. And think about if you're a brand new user and you've got just Elementor or Slider Revolution on your site, you bought this theme and it comes with these things, you're kind of thinking you're dropped into a middle of Mars or something.You're not sure what, you know how to get back to where you were and what the difference is between. You know, that UI based versus, you know, the, the core WordPress ui. Uh, in a lot of ways that doesn't make sense. So I think that's something we have to try and unify. Um, I don't know how we go about doing that at the core level.Um, but I, I think if we make core as clean as possible, maybe that's at [00:08:00] least a good start.Dan Knauss: Yeah, there were, there would have to be, um, some, some standards in reusable. Patterns and, and tools. Um, I, I think that in the long run, the, uh, Gutenberg is, is supposed to eat the entire, you know, it's, it's a true ship of Tesus project where the entire thing gets rebuilt while moving.Um, And in, in some way it will be a, the goal is, is to have a unified experience at the end of that, just how quickly that happens depends on, on core contribution. Um, on the velocity of that, um, Yeah, that's for lack of that. I, I think it's, um, it's a bad experience for everyone and Sure. Uh, uh, an enterprise client is really just at bottom end users, uh, employees who have as much experience maybe as the average DIY site builder, a [00:09:00] creator, someone who wants to start a podcast or, or sell a product, um, as a side project or something like that.There's, there's really no difference there. Everyone, um, has the same, uh, usability needs in general, and more or less, there's, there's big differences when you, you started talking about compliance needs with accessibility and, and so on and, and things like that. But, um, yeah, it seems like to me that there, there's a lot of opportunity for aligning, um, different parts of, of the word.Community and business community where. Plug in. Developers and owners should really want this. The same thing that, uh, agency people, um, do. And that's, they, they support each other. Um, they feed each other business. So I, I'm curious why. That hasn't [00:10:00] happened, and it seems to me like there's some information flows or I don't know.There there are probably other, other sticky barriers. Have you, did you, did that question come up for you at all? Why? Um, why?Eric Karcovack: Well, I know it's like, it's something we've talked about a little bit, right? I mean, yeah, just on, on a few different levels and with the, uh, you know, Active install data going away from wordpress.org, and maybe these folks need to band together a little more and, and share amongst each other.I, I think the reason it hasn't happened yet is because it really hasn't had to, um, you know, maybe they haven't seen necessarily the benefit of it, but when you see kind of the, the yeah. Jumble of the, the UI right now and how it, how different it can be depending on what you have installed. You know, maybe there is something that, you know, some of these larger plugin developers could work together on.Sure. Uh, it makes sense. You know, it makes sense for all of them. I mean, [00:11:00] I, I, I somehow see us heading towards some sort of consortium of, of, uh, folks who, who can't necessarily write strict standards, but maybe they have certain. You know, broad outlines of, of what they, they want to, to abide by. And, you know, the more people that do that, the better I think it is for WordPress users and for just really everyone involved, because the software's going to be easier to use and more uniform.Right.Dan Knauss: Yeah. There's, there's a lot that the, um, that, that part of the community could do for itself. I've, uh, Tried to be more vocal about, but I, I think there, there have been a few, few voices behind those ideas of you, Hey, you, there's a lot you can do, um, to shape your own industry. Um, Yeah, if you do have a shared, a shared interface framework and, um, formal or informal standards for [00:12:00] Yeah, we were talking about.Admin notifications previously. Um, that's part of it. Um, it, it'd save you a lot of time if there was a base to build on. Um, more than, more than I think exists now. Um, so that, uh, anyone starting, starting out creating a, a new plugin, um, would have some kind of, uh, head start. Really a standard interface or, or guidance at least.I don't know that there's that much, um, public information. And, uh, it's curious to me as, as, uh, as things like the W Commerce, um, partnership program kind of is a bit, looks like, a bit like a, getting into, uh, a relationship with WordPress, v i p. Um, there's criteria to go through, uh, that you have, well you have to meet, um, to become, um, a preferred agency working.Um, with w commerce.com side with [00:13:00] automatic, um, what those criteria are and what the standards are, should I think, have some kind of trickle down effect, like know what they are and, um, and have them as at least aspirational for everyone. Um, there's been some talk in, in, uh, core of, um, bringing. Some changes on, uh, on standards and testing for, uh, coding, um, coding standards for security.Uh, I think primarily performance and security. Um, and I hope those continue to get prioritized that that's what all seems, seems to need to happen to, um, to move this forward. But the one point you mentioned, um, where you're talking about modernizing the onboarding experience, Where you direct people to, where to find themes, where to find plugins that, uh, [00:14:00] that becomes challenging and touches, touches.This other recent issue we've talked about, um, it is hard to search in the, in the plugin repository is not in an ideal state and people who are trying to sell. Their plugins there, um, have a number of frustrations with, with trying to surface their, their products as relevant to what people are searching for.Um, do you think this could be part of a solution to that if, or a potential conflict point when you're curating, you're, you're curating and recommending, um, certain ones?Eric Karcovack: Well, I think as far as, as core goes, um, my idea is more. Just pointing people to the repositories. Mm-hmm. , uh, for themes and plugins, not necessarily being a, uh, a [00:15:00] curator, but, um, I, I, I see the, you know, I see there, there, there should be more impetus to improve the, the repositories and make them easier for folks to search and figure out what it is they're getting and what, you know, um, allow new entries to be a little more, uh, visible.But I think they're kind of separate things, you know, just to be able to, I mean, if, if you're installing WordPress now from the, you know, from, from your host, or if you're, you know, FTPing it up to your site, old school style, um, you know, you're, you're gonna get this little. Widget did on the, on the front screen of the dashboard that welcomes you to WordPress and gives you a few handy links, but it doesn't really tell you about how to actually use what you're, you've got.And I think that was where I, I thought improvement could be made right now. I mean the person that doesn't understand where themes reside or where plug-ins reside, they're not [00:16:00] gonna know necessarily to go under the appearance menu and look to add a theme or you know, the plug-ins menu. You know, they may find that eventually, but why not put it right out there in front of 'em so that they can easily click and say, Okay, I know what I need.I need to get a plugin that does this. And you know, cuz we have a nice interface to actually go in and. Poor plugins and themes, but Right. It's not necessarily, um, in front of, front of your mind when you, when you first install WordPress. So I thought that was, um, something that was important to, uh, you know, to, to emphasize in this.Dan Knauss: Sure. Yeah. And that, that seems like it, it's potentially in a good way, open for change with, uh, potential changes to the.org repository. And, and I imagine that as, um, as the.com marketplace. Um, and, you know, potentially other, other things like that. Um, If, if other hosts hosting W Commerce or, or [00:17:00] WordPress were to do something similar, um, that, that, that requires some kind of curation at some point or some, some way of featuring particular things like, this is what you need to do.Uh, for, for example, you know, one of my pet things is can you build a, uh, sub stack like, uh, site out of WordPress very quickly. Yes, if you know how. But, um, the, there's act, those documentations kind of emerged relatively recently for doing that with a, a couple of plugins. Um, if you dig around on wordpress.com, um, and I, like Kim Coleman is, uh, for, uh, uh, paid memberships.Pro is giving a talk right about now, I think on. On how to do that with, uh, Mail poet and their product, the Coleman's product, uh, paid membership pro. Um, that's, that's something that, um, yeah, [00:18:00] I, I agree. It's, it's tri on the, on the mass market level. It's, it's sort of the level of suggestion of here's if you want to do this, here are some ways you can do that.And. What gets recommended there, I, I guess, is, is maybe a, a thorny issue, but as you kind of move up the up the market, um, you don't want give that much. You don't want to have an onboarding screen that says install this and this and this to, uh, you know, an agency's client. Uh, you know, you don't, they don't wanna see that either.So, um, you want to actually be making those choices. For them. So it occurs to me that the thing that's not talked about OP openly but is talked about everywhere is that the upmarket WordPress and building even, you know, freelancers, small agencies to v i P agencies generally, um, you know, have their own ways of doing things.[00:19:00] That do a lot of curation and like you said, building, building custom materials. But the less you do that, the less you have to support yourself. Um, that they're essentially doing, making these choices and saying, these are the things that work well for these purposes under these conditions. And I've always thought, why should that be a proprietary trade secret, especially when it's out there, but.We're hesitant to, uh, convey that or some version of that to the, um, to the mass market. Um, what, what do you, what do you think about that? Do you think there could be some synergies there? Cause there's learning potential too, if you, if you kind of disclose, this is how we're doing it up here. Um, people who are just starting out building with WordPress are learning from leaders then.Eric Karcovack: Yeah. Um, well, one of the things I. I, I talked about with curation was, you know, maybe managed hosts are in the best [00:20:00] position to do kind of something like that, because I think some of them already do to, to a degree. I mean, many of them are buying up, you know, plugin and themes anyway. And so, you know, maybe they're in the best position to add something like this, The WordPress, um, for someone that has the fresh install, You know, in the community it's, it's interesting because there's just so many, there's so many plugins and so many opinions that you know mm-hmm.I may ask, well how do you build a membership site? And somebody may tell me, paid memberships, pros the way to go. Somebody may say, Member press, or, you know, there there could be five or six other, you know, really big players in that market. Um, same thing for forms and, you know, e-commerce may be a little bit less, but, um, you know, cuz we have one dominant, uh, you.Entity there in W Commerce. But, um, you know, if you ask about w commerce extensions, you'll probably get a couple hundred different answers on that, so. Right. You know, the curation is a, a [00:21:00] bit of a tough, a tough call. Like, I, I don't, I certainly don't think, you know, the WordPress project should be, um, doing anything other than generically taking you to the, you know, Repositories and saying, this is where you can find plugins.Now, maybe in the future they write, you know, they, they share articles or something about, well, you know, if you're going to build an e-commerce site, maybe you should consider X, Y, and Z. Not necessarily talking about. Specific plugins, but things you need to consider on your end and find to help you find the, the tool that works best for your needs and, you know, design for what your workflow is going to be.Um, so maybe if we can add some guidance in that way without necessarily favoring one product over another. Um, but I, I, I think they're, you know, for the new user, the person who wants to just build their own basic site, Having some sort of guidance in [00:22:00] not only what plugins to use, but just how to use WordPress, I think could be, you know, extremely helpful.Dan Knauss: Yes. Uh, yeah, I, I agree with you. Um, you know, the way you, you put it here was, um, Uh, yeah, the, who would be responsible for curating is the, is the really tough issue. You'd need a, a third party of some, some kind to take that on. Um, and yeah, in the mass market where everyone's competing, um, with, with their product or service, um, that's a difficult one to do.Who, who would be a third party? Who could, who could potentially navigate those, those waters? And are, are there things that the plugin repo could do that are sufficiently neutral with the kind of data that, that could be reported out that would, um, help that? Um, do we need something like Kevin Ohashi doing, um, you know, [00:23:00] plugin performance?WP plugin performance reviews, like his hosting, uh, reviews.Eric Karcovack: Yeah, that, that's interesting. You could, you, you could certainly see the repo. I mean, you know, again, you don't wanna play favorites. That's definitely, you know, gonna cause a lot of problems. Um, maybe there could be, you know, stats for, you know, different types of sites.Um, if you are into publishing, these are the most popular plugins in that category. Because we don't, It may even be listed that way now, but we don't necessarily say that. Um, so you could look at, you know, membership sites, you could look at e-commerce, um, you know, selling digital goods, all those types of things.Maybe we break it down by category a little more and just show what the trends are in that area. It doesn't necessarily have to favor anyone, but obviously it's going to show, you know, who's in the lead and who's not. Maybe that's [00:24:00] something to help people again and again, I, I put these out there as ideas.They may be extremely flawed and, uh, you know, you can certainly tell me on Twitter if, if, if you don't agree. Uh, but just I think we need to find more ways to empower people to make good decisions with WordPress. Um, that's going to keep people on the platform. Throughout and they're going to hopefully have less frustration in trying to get started because I think that's, from my experience, that's the area where people are, you know, hit that wall after installing, They're like, Okay, well what do I do next?Right.Dan Knauss: Yeah. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder if something like a, uh, plugin quality score could be developed. Which, which to some extent is being done with, with, uh, review, like combining, uh, correlating, um, support tickets and response to those and, [00:25:00] um, installs and, and things like that. But I wonder if you could, you could do a quality, um, rating that would be sufficiently neutral that people would accept.The curation that developed from that. Say, I, I keep thinking of this one. I don't, I don't know if it's realistic, but, um, I would love to know on every plugin if I install this, what's the, what's the maximum number of queries it will add to a page load? What's the average number? And, um, that right there creates an incentive to plug in developers to get that right.Learn, you know, if you're just starting out, uh, coding something, um, learn what that means, why it matters. Um, because that's, that seems to be one of the real, real slow downs. Um, and, and that's a pretty objective measure. Fewer queries, quicker response, um, from the server, [00:26:00] something like that. I don't know.Do you, do you think that that sort of thing could potentially be done, um, as. Sufficiently neutral thing coming from the, FromEric Karcovack: I think so. I think so. I mean, one idea that just kind of popped in my head was, how about we do something activity based? Hmm. Like, just for example, um, we take into account how often a plugin updates, uh, how responsive, uh, Right.You know, support requests are in the forms. That doesn't necessarily tell you the quality. Now I. You might be updating your plugin three or four times a week because it's broken, and you may be re responding to, you know, support requests without necessarily resolving problems. But that might be a way to, to, to help steer people away from plugins that.Haven't been updated in years. I mean, we have that little warning on there now that, you know, when it's been, I think, what three versions. It'll tell [00:27:00] you that, hey, this hasn't been, you know, updated in, in a while, huh? But if you had maybe some sort of activity based scoring that, you know, I mean, you know, that, that puts everybody, I think on a.Closer playing field. I don't know if it's completely level, but you know, I mean, the plugins with the most resources might, you know, be able to, to, uh, to win on some of that. But then again, if you have a, a solo entrepreneur who's got a plugin that you know, they really are passionate about and they're constantly trying to improve and they're, you know, we know there are a lot of those out there, you know, they might be able to, to compete on that.Dan Knauss: Sure. Yeah. I, I feel, I feel like that could work if the repository made some distinction between completely free plugins and freemium model plugins, or those that have, uh, a recognized business entity behind it with. Staff and [00:28:00] like this, We exist here to support this in theory, in in perpetuity. Um, because actually there, there are some plugin if you base this on activity like TenUp.Um, there's some, Jake Goldman still has under, under his account on, uh, on the repo that are really nice, simple, single purpose plugins and I completely trust. The support for them, for them, for the, for the most part. But, um, they're not, they're not gonna be high volume, um, uh, support activity there or updates, and they're pretty simple, yet reliable.Um, it might be tricky to do that, but I, I think it would be fair to recognize. Leaders and high performers and recognized experts at, at some point. And, um, and the business, um, you know, the number of people who, you know, who actually exist to support [00:29:00] a particular plugin. That was when I was, when I'm doing things for clients and when I was doing that a lot more, um, you're looking at, I, I try to look at what's gonna be around for a long, long term.You know, the, the fewer, uh, We don't wanna make changes to themes, to major plugin changes. Um, over time we want this to be really stable. So, so to me a concern would be, Hey, this is a really nice plugin, seems really well supported, but there's no business model behind it. Or it's not one that, yeah, I think will be here in five, even just five years.Um, and the long term view. Yeah. Is another, is another criteria that's hard to, hard to suss out. Um, but those are, those are all potentially valid ways to curate, um, and indicate different, different categories of, of product that may really help people figure out what they need. Um, yeah, it's a [00:30:00] good, good question, uh, to open.Eric Karcovack: Yeah, I think there's, there's potential for it. Um, you know, any, I think anything we can do to make it, give people more confidence that what they're installing is going to work and be, you know, stable and, you know, allow them to do. What they want to do easy in a more easy fashion. I think that would, you know, definitely be a benefit.And just going back to the activity thing for just a second, I mean, how many plugins that are still, you know, somewhat maintained, Still say that their, their latest compatibility is like WordPress 5.8 or 5.9. Right. You know, just the simple fact of going in and, and testing with WordPress six or 6.1, maybe that gets you, you know, some brownie points in that as well.Just that you version checked and you know, you're keeping up with that. Because I see that as another issue [00:31:00] in the repository where, There may be plugins that work perfectly well, but you're still a little hesitant because it, Yeah. You know, the compatibility hasn't been updated in two years or three years.So that could also be, you know, aDan Knauss: factor. And it's not just compatibility to WordPress, it's, uh, you know, word WordPress, GUIs and, and compatibility for php. So plug in, plug in compatibility with, uh, which, what up to what version of PHP will it. Will it operateEric Karcovack: and Yeah. Just checking. Yeah, I know. Uh, like I'm looking at a, a plugin now it says PHP version 5.4 or higher.So there you go. Ah, right, right, right. You're in good shape, even out in a really, really old install.Dan Knauss: Yes. Right. So that raises some, some ideas. Well, that's, and that's something a DIY person isn't gonna know. They aren't, they aren't going to know. Um, you know, what version of PHP is my. Running and what does that mean and, and all that.[00:32:00] Yeah. Support activity and development activity are, are good indicators, but then you, you can game that as well. Um, well, it creates, it creates a good incentive to do that work. But then, you know, are we adding features or minor updates just to, uh, to rank higher at that point. I don't know if it would have that, that kind of effect.Eric Karcovack: I mean, we've seen it with reviews, right? Yeah. People put in the phony reviews and or higher out firms to, to do that for them. So yeah, any, anything that they put in probably could be gained. I don't know if we're gonna fully prevent that, but you hope that, you know, most developers take it as a, uh, a serious matter and, you know, try to actually put in the hard work to, to rank highly and, and.Hopefully that that's a way for them to kind of go up the charts a little bit in, in terms of how many installs they have and how many paying customers they get because of it. Right. [00:33:00]Dan Knauss: Yeah. And there's, there's such a categorical difference between people who are running their business that way. And well, it's a good, it's a good way to game things towards more support, more development, and, uh, taking an active interest in, in what's going on with your, your product.And in the way it's, uh, presented to people who are going to install it. Um, and it's. Good idea. I, I do feel that those things go together. Any, anything that improves or changes in, in core to change the onboarding experience to, um, make it easier with respect to what you install, has gotta be corresponding somehow to, um, what you see on the on.org, um, what it's putting out publicly as a, as a signal for, um, for quality.The last thing. Well close to where you, you closed was, was talking about outreach, um, that we should just show what, what WordPress can do. [00:34:00] Um, and do you think we just don't do that enough or it's not unified enough? Or just in the Gutenberg era, we're just beginning to see tutorials and guides, um, show up, especially for non-technical users.And, um, that's, that's something. on.org, Learn, Learn. Um, wordpress.org is, uh, busy trying to do, there's a ton of meetups coming out that are really geared towards this sort of thing. Um, and, and also people who are building at sites at a more advanced level. Um, do you see that as something that's just starting to happen or something altogether different that you had in mind?Eric Karcovack: I, I sort of see this as kind of like a, a. Coming of WordPress, right? Because when a lot of us, you know, who have been in this a while started, you know, if you went to a Word camp, you probably learned an awful lot about the basics of WordPress. Whether you were just [00:35:00] using it as, you know, a content creator, or you were a developer.And I think we've kind of lost that along the way a little bit. We've kind of focused so much on the more advanced topics. And then of course, the pandemic, you know, took away a, a lot of the in person events. So I, I think, you know, the word camps are one way to really start showing, you know, new users what's possible and you know, how to, to do the basics.Um, you know, I, I would, I honestly, I would love to see that at Word Camp us or one of the really. International events, you know, have a track just for new people, uh, you know, where they can ask experts questions, you know, that people that, you know, we, we see in the post status slack or we see on online all the time.You know, if, if a new user's able to ask them questions that, you know, that can go a long way towards selling them on the platform and keeping them there. Um, and you mentioned the learn [00:36:00] tool. Well, I, I think that's fantastic. That's actually something I brought up on the, uh, on the slack the other day. You know, Has there been any effort to kind of integrate that with the core software so that you can easily find tutorials?Uh, maybe through a plugin or, or something like that? Because we have various WordPress support, uh, tools that are third party, you know, that'll show videos on how to do different things. We have this wonderful resource and if somebody doesn't visit wordpress.org, they're really not gonna know it's. And I think, you know, it's such an opportunity to reach people and, and teach them how to do anything from the basics to, you know, once they level up to, you know, some more advanced things, it's all right there waiting and, you know, all we have to do in some way, some respects is, you know, put it in front of them, You know, give them the opportunity to see it.Um, so those are things, you know. The WordPress community has so much great content, so many smart people. I think we [00:37:00] ought to be able to put our heads together and, and find ways to, you know, encourage new users and embrace them and, and, and, you know, kind of help them, you know, with any stumbling blocks.And because, you know, if once we kind of. Hate to say the phrase die out. You know, what, what, what is the next generation of WordPress user going to look like? How, how are they going to use the software? You know, if we want to keep it as a market leader, we want to keep it, uh, viable, you know, the new users are, you know, just criticalDan Knauss: to that, right?Yeah. I, I think that Learn is, uh, learn. WordPress is. Logical, the content that's being developed there and also the meetups that are going on, the, um, kind of webinars that are, that are happening are, um, are logical to move into the dashboard for certain, um, certain use [00:38:00] cases, um, in the, in mass market, DIY users.All right, well, It's been good talking to you again. I, I think this, this is a good, a good topic with a lot of questions in it that touch a couple of the main, main conversations and, and issues today that we've, we've been all, all thinking about, um, what to do with, uh, potential changes to the plugin repository and, and the kind of data that that comes out of there.Dot org content and information can somehow fit into the, um, into the WordPress dashboard and, um, interface there to help people and connect them with the community. Um, how we could maybe standardize, uh, the experience and some interface design, how things are, are done on the back end that, um, makes [00:39:00] it a more palatable and, uh, Less busy interruptive, um, or confused experience on, on sites with a lot of things installed, whether it's, um, someone just setting up their own, their own site, or, uh, an agency doing it for a, a high end client.Um, I think the more, the more we see those all as, uh, common problems everyone has. The better chance at br at bringing everyone towards a, an aligned solution where everyone wins. Um, ideally one, one would hope .Eric Karcovack: There's potential there. Absolutely. Hope so. Um, you know, The, the, you know, if you start the conversation, hopefully, um, you know, you bring in some good ideas and if we see a few of them implemented, uh, that's like you said, that's gonna benefit everybody.Dan Knauss: You have been listening to post status excerpt, a podcast from post Status, the [00:40:00] community for WordPress professionals. Check us out  at poststatus.com. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter, or become a member and join us in post status. We have membership plans for freelancers, agency owners, product founders, and business partners who share and support our mission of investing in the open web by growing the WordPress ecosystem and coming together for fun and networking as we give and grow together.

This week I sat down again with Eric Karkovack to talk about the three top WordPress stories on the top of our minds. Independently, we made nearly the same selections! It seems the temporary loss of active install stats at WP.org has created an opportunity to rethink long-held assumptions and find new ways forward. Our news picks are all related to this in one way or another. So there's a single throughline in this episode — what works, what doesn't, and what will take WordPress businesses forward in the product, agency, and hosting spaces.Are Active Install Counts Irrelevant to Your Plugin Business's Success? (Even if they were accurate?)There are always going to be developers who push the envelope when it comes to littering the dashboard and just making it a difficult user experience. Maybe data is part of the way we solve that.Eric KarkovacFirst up is Alex Denning's article at Ellipsis, "WordPress.org is ineffective for plugin distribution in 2022." Alex argues the likely temporary loss of Active Install Growth data for plugin owners is not a bottom-line, business-relevant concern. Apart from the revelation that that data itself was not just obfuscated and inexact but "basically garbage," Alex draws on Ellipsis' marketing experience and extensive data (as well as Iain Poulson's insights at WP Trends) to show 1-2% conversion rates are the norm for plugins in the WP.org repository. Only a couple of big players can crack the 100k+ install tiers today.The Plugin Repo's Glass CeilingAlex notes this "glass ceiling" has a lot to do with how the repo's search algorithm works. It's biased to favor plugins that have many active installs already, so if you're not there yet, it's not going to help you get there. As a result of these observations, Alex disrecommends the plugin repo for anyone thinking about launching a business there on the freemium model. He considers WP.org a poor distribution channel and assumes the freemium product model's fate is tied to it. On that point, we're doubtful and optimistic about exceptions and opportunities for plugin developers to make their own way, with or without the repo.While Eric and I don't fully agree with Alex, his data-based analysis does establish that the plugin repository is "broken" if it's intended to be a place where a small entrepreneur with a good product can break in and take off.Let's Fix What's Broken (The Plugin Repo) Not What Isn't (The Freemium Model)Matt Cromwell politely disagrees with Alex in a long, thoughtful post of his own: The Case for the WordPress Plugin Freemium Model. (There's a great Post Status Slack thread on it too.) In it, Matt describes ways plugin owners can make the wp.org plugin search engine work better for them, but he also notes a few of its deficiencies as well. His best point is that an average conversion rate is just that — an average. He's seen much better results due to marketing efforts he feels are accessible to many plugin vendors. Matt also points to examples of successful freemium plugin shops, like Paid Memberships Pro which recently did an A/B test with their pricing page, and the version with a freemium option converted better.Where Alex and Matt agree is how much the plugin repo has changed due to market saturation. It isn't an easy place to win in anymore. And I'm pretty sure Alex would agree with Matt this is true across the web as a whole — you can expect to have to work hard with stiff competition and give high attention to Google as well — not to mention all the other things that go into making and supporting a good product.Ideas for Improving the WordPress.org Plugin RepositoryEric and I also discussed the excellent suggestions for useful, actionable data that product owners — and even agencies — would like from a new, improved plugin directory. Vito Peleg's ideas are especially exciting and seemed to draw a nod from Matt Mullenweg on Twitter. We also note how better data for plugin owners might satisfy some needs that historically have led them to try all kinds of (often unpleasant) gimicks in the WordPress backend to connect with users and upsell or cross-market their products. In a comment at Post Status this week, Justin Labadie imagines how this could work as part of the plugin install process, along with other suggestions. Eric connected this line of thinking with Mark Zahra's question in a recent post at WP Mayor, Is Deceptive Marketing Ruining WordPress’ Reputation?Plugin Developers Must Make Their Own WayEric asked (and answered) a big question at the WP Minute: What should plugin developers expect from WordPress? You've got to make your own way is a message I agree with, and I brought up my conversation with Till Krüss about Performance and the Plugin Business as an example of all the possibilities that open up if you think about meeting big needs nobody else is meeting or solving big problems others are creating!Follow the Leaders, Adopt StandardsWhere we end up is 10up's newly released resource site for Gutenberg Best Practices. It's got tutorials, resources, references, example code — and they're encouraging use of their GitHub discussion board for the site. It's intended to go beyond the official WordPress documentation, according Fabian Kaegy's launch announcement. It's a “more client-services-centric approach tailored to engineering enterprise-level editorial experiences.”To me, that's a signal WordPress has turned a corner with Gutenberg. Top agency adoption of Gutenberg is huge, and as we see a growing body of accumulated knowledge, standards, and best practices emerging, it signals and amplifies a wave of change.Building Products to Scale Opens Doors and Creates Opportunities for GrowthToward the end of the show I suggest that plugin developers (as well as agencies) targeting middle and low-end markets have tended to neglect standards around performance testing and security because their customers don't need to scale and because they can treat performance and security as a hosting problem. That's a barrier to accessing high-value enterprise clients, hosts, and agencies connected to both. It represents lost opportunities and money left on the table.🔗 Also mentioned in the show:Along with 10up's Gutenberg resource hub, several other future-facing WordPress sites sharing tools and knowledge catering to different audiences emerged in the last week or so:Ollie from Mike McAlister is shaping up to be "a blog where WordPress creators can get handy tips, tutorials, and tools for the WordPress block editor and full-site editing."WPTurbo from Alex Borto offers more than 40 free WordPress code generators, snippets saved by users, and there's a dev blog.Create Pro WordPress Page Layouts in Just 10 Minutes from Jamie Marsland is a fun video tour of some layout design fundamentals that are really essential for good results with full-site editing and the block editor's power and flexibility.And, last but not least —WordPress 6.0.3 was released. Update as soon as you can! WordPress 6.1 is just around the corner, and it's a doozy. Dave Smith has the highlights on new features in this fun video.👋 CreditsEric Karkovack, Owner at Eric Karkovack Web Design Services (Twitter)Dan Knauss, Editor for Post Status (Twitter)Olivia Bisset, Web Producer intern for Post Status (Twitter)Every week Post Status Excerpt will bring you a conversation about important news and issues in the WordPress community and business ecosystem. 🎙️You can listen to past episodes of The Excerpt, browse all our podcasts, and don’t forget to subscribe on Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or by RSS. 🎧

Back in August, I had a long conversation with Till Krüss (edited down to <60 minutes here) about his path into WordPress, Laravel, and performance. Till is the developer and owner of Object Cache Pro, "a business class Redis object cache backend for WordPress." OCP offers a unique and highly successful model for partnerships between a WordPress plugin product business and a valuable niche market: hosting companies and anyone running WordPress sites at scale. Nexcess is the latest host to adopt OCP, which they announced earlier this week.Till’s particular niche is not for everyone, but some of his ideas and achievements are very portable. For one thing, what plugin owner has not felt the pain of an extraordinarily busy support forum? Till is up to (wait for it..) 5-10 minutes a day on support — which he aims to decrease. How? End-to-end unit testing to ensure the highest code quality. It’s an idea that needs to become a reality and a habit in the third-party WordPress product ecosystem, Till believes — and I think he’s right about that.What plugin owner has not felt the pain of an extraordinarily busy support forum? Till is up to (wait for it..) 5-10 minutes a day on support — which he aims to decrease. How? End-to-end unit testing to ensure the highest code quality.Performance optimization in general — and caching in particular — are possibly the oldest and most persistent hard problems for people running WordPress and similar applications at scale. Historically, performance has been a problem passed to the hosting industry by WordPress developers and users of too many plugins — or too many plugins that use too many server resources, especially as measured in database queries.A large part of the challenges people have with WordPress in the wild have to do with plugins that have not been built and tested to perform at scale. There’s likely a lot of opportunity in aligning people on performance as a key, common interest. What people are these? Product, agency, and hosting companies in the WordPress space. And, as Till’s example shows, a small WordPress company, or company of one that wants to stay that way, still can thrive today.🔗 Mentioned in the show:Till Krüss's Object Cache Pro is a (closed-source) commercial product that grew out of and exists alongside Redis Object Cache (100k+ installs on WordPress.org). ROC is a fork of an unmaintained precursor Erick Hitter and Eric Mann launched in 2014. Relay looks like it will be a successor to OCP capable of speeds up to 100 times faster than Redis. It's "a PHP extension that is both a Redis client and a shared in-memory cache."Felipe Elia recently wrote a great explainer on WordPress, Objecet Cache, and Redis.Do the_Woo recently recorded this amazing open discussion betweenScaling WordPress (Post Status Draft #51) remains one of our all-time most listened to podcast episodes, from 2016. Brian Krogsgard and Joe Hoyle take a pretty comprehensive look at WordPress performance and caching, including Redis.Jon Christopher is trying a unique business strategy with his OrganizeWP plugin that suggests cooperative ways to win outside centralized markets.Kevin Ohashi's WP Performance Tester plugin will test your server's raw capacity and show you how it compares to the current industry average established by Kevin's testing at WP Hosting Benchmarks.Mark Jacquith's Cache Buddy (2015) "[m]inimizes the situations in which logged-in users appear logged-in to WordPress, which increases the cacheability of your site."Shaun Kester's Latency Tracker (2008) was a helpful diagnostic when pre-"Managed WordPress" hosts were struggling to keep up with the booming use (and abuse) of self-hosted WordPress and other PHP/MySQL-based publishing platforms.Paul Jarvis talks about his book, Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business, with Brian Clark at Unemployable.The WordPress Core Performance Team is dedicated to monitoring, enhancing, and promoting performance in WordPress core and its surrounding ecosystem. We build and manage the Performance Lab plugin, a collection of performance-related “feature projects” for WordPress core. 🐦 You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:Till Krüss (Rhubarb Group)Dan Knauss (Editor, Post Status)Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status) The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧Transcript 

Trust can be betrayed in so many ways or failed even with the best of intentions.Dan KnaussIn this episode of Post Status Excerpt, Dan and Ny take on three issues in the WordPress community that can threaten or impair trust while also revealing how foundational trust is, especially in open source.First, they talk about Ny's article at MasterWP, "Enough with this woke stuff: and other racist speech you can unlearn," which explains microaggressions and received a significant number of macroaggressions in reply — but also far more positive support from the community.Next, "How do we rebuild trust when it's harmed?" is a question that leads into the biggest WordPress story of the week — Matt Mullenweg's apparent decision to shut down access to active install data at the WordPress.org plugin repo due to an unspecified security breach and/or privacy concern. The way communication has happened — or hasn't happened — about this decision is clearly damaging trust in the WordPress community, particularly among business owners with a product in the plugin repository. Ny points out how this all looks to a newcomer to the WordPress community — again, trust takes a beating. But while we lack clarity about the possible return of install data in some form, Dan suggests asking why this data is trusted and valued by many plugin owners. What business decisions can it helpfully inform? Are there alternative and possibly better sources of data about a plugin's users?Finally, Dan briefly talks about the emergence of draft legislation in the US Senate: the Securing Open Source Software Act. It seems likely that in the near future, US security agencies will be getting people, dollars, and new organizations involved in assessing risk in open-source software. Are WordPress auto-updates critical supply chain infrastructure? When should individual freedoms be exchanged for collective security? When do we need to know what our machines and software are doing? When don't we? Zero-trust architecture might work well for networked machines, but human relationships and communities need trust.🔗 Mentioned in the show:Nyasha Green, Enough with this woke stuff: and other racist speech you can unlearn (MasterWP)Mark Zahra, A sudden change leaves WordPress plugin devs in the dark (MasterWP)Dan Knauss, Active Install Charts Removed from Plugin Repo (Post Status)Dan Knauss, Open Source Communities: You May Not Be Interested in CISA, But CISA is Very Interested in You (Post Status)Cory Doctorow, Our technology is haunted by demons controlled by transhuman life-forms👋 CreditsNyasha Green, Editorial Director at MasterWP (Twitter)Dan Knauss, Editor for Post Status (Twitter)Olivia Bisset, Web Producer intern for Post Status (Twitter)Every week Post Status Excerpt will bring you a conversation about important news and issues in the WordPress community and business ecosystem. 🎙️You can listen to past episodes of The Excerpt, browse all our podcasts, and don’t forget to subscribe on Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or by RSS. 🎧

Katie and Andy Keith started out as a WordPress agency almost a decade ago and then tried to break into WordPress products, first with themes and then plugins. Challenges arose with reliable project management on the agency side while they tried to establish a foothold in the WordPress plugin market. The WooCommerce Extensions Store is where their business took off. With niche extensions that had no competition, they ranked very quickly.🙏 Sponsor: ElementorElementor enables web creators to build professional, pixel-perfect websites with an intuitive visual builder. Quickly create amazing websites for your clients or your business with complete control over every piece, without writing a single line of code. Join a vast community of web creators from all around the world who deliver exceptional websites using Elementor.🔗 Mentioned in the show:Barn2 PluginsWooCommerce Marketplace🐦 You can follow them on Twitter:Katie Keith (Twitter)Cory Miller (Twitter)Post Status (Twitter)The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

If [an employer] can't afford not to operate without suspicion and distrust, what does that tell you?Dan KnaussDan and Ny talk about their WordCamp US experiences both good and bad. Their conversation focuses on accessibility and disability. Ny had an experience with Uber at WCUS that made her agree with Dan's preference for traditional and preferably unionized taxi companies or public transit. They both reflect on the accessibility challenges and failures Michelle Frechette shared in Five Days Without a Shower before turning to an important article by Piccia Neri that was published at Post Status this week.Piccia's article considers the value of salary transparency in hiring and job listings after asking WordPress employers why they don't advertise a salary range in listings. Ny is optimistic pay transparency will soon be the norm in US law. Dan is optimistic the WordPress community can make the changes it needs out of empathy and regard for others plus the motivation to build a high-quality, professional workforce. They both close out this episode by expressing gratitude for the WordCamp organizers and volunteers who made WCUS possible this year. 🔗 Mentioned in the show:Post Status Excerpt (No. 63) — Pay Transparency, Mutual Respect, and the Community We NeedPiccia Neri, Salary Transparency: Why Not?Michelle Frechette, Five Days Without a ShowerUber Executive Said the Company Would Spend ‘A Million Dollars’ to Shut Me UpUber Says It Was Likely Hacked by Teenage Hacker Gang LAPSUS$ 👋 CreditsNyasha Green, Editorial Director at MasterWP (Twitter)Dan Knauss, Editor for Post Status (Twitter)Olivia Bisset, Web Producer intern for Post Status (Twitter) Every week Post Status Excerpt will bring you a conversation about important news and issues in the WordPress community and business ecosystem. 🎙️You can listen to past episodes of The Excerpt, browse all our podcasts, and don’t forget to subscribe on Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or by RSS. 🎧

There's always new people coming in, being embraced and accepted, [and being] shown the wayCory MillerIn this episode, Cory and Michelle talk about their takeaways from WordCamp US. The Post Status Huddle ahead of the conference was a great experience for them and many Post Status members. Michelle explains her experience with some accessibility challenges. Cory stresses the need for empathy and awareness about these issues. What everyone agrees on: we love getting together as a community! WordPress is an industry, and it is people. The people come first. Cory also talks about his and Post Status' interest in serving its agency-based and European members.🙏 Sponsor: PressableFounded in 2010, Pressable is a world-class managed WordPress hosting provider built on the same data network as WordPress.com and WordPress VIP. With industry-leading performance, 24/7 expert support, a 100% uptime guarantee, and seamless integrations with WooCommerce and Jetpack, Pressable provides the tools you need to manage your WordPress websites and grow your business all in one place.🔗 Mentioned in the show:WordCamp US 2022Post Status Huddle at WCUS 2022 Photo GalleryMichelle Frechette: Five Days Without a ShowerCory Miller: It's Not the Code, It's the HumansPost Status Calendar: Regular Huddles for Europe and the Americas 🐦 You can follow them on Twitter:Michelle Frechette (Twitter)Cory Miller (Twitter)Post Status (Twitter) The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

"So it's hard for people in the community to kind of branch out and communicate online. So imagine how hard it is for people who are new" —Nyasha GreenDan and Ny are looking forward to attending WordCamp US this week, which is a first for them both. In a slightly more casual conversation touching their usual topics — the business of WordPress, careers, and community — they share the things they're looking forward to seeing and doing at WCUS and in San Diego.Some of the WCUS sessions they're interested in have to do with WordPress security and bug bounty programs, cross-cultural communication, WordPress and performance, and getting young people into WordPress. Other tech and open source conferences also come up, as Ny is planning to attend All Things Open 2022 in Raleigh, North Carolina.Finally, Ny and Dan discover they both have non-tech backgrounds and started reading J.R.R. Tolkien at an early age. Ny talks about learning several languages and reading The Hobbit in Latin.🙏 Sponsor: PagelyTop-Tier Managed WordPress hosting solutions for Enterprise, the Public Sector, and Media companies. We invented Managed WordPress and we never stopped raising the bar. Expect Extraordinary👋 CreditsNyasha Green, Editorial Director at MasterWP (Twitter)Dan Knauss, Editor for Post Status (Twitter)Olivia Bisset, Web Producer intern for Post Status (Twitter)