The WP Minute

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeGutenberg News Last week there was a bunch of new stuff with Gutenberg 13.8.0. Birgit Pauli-Haack discusses all the new features with Grzegorz Ziolkowski over on the changelog podcast. You can hear about Fluid Typography, updates to Block APIs, and WordPress 6.1 Planning. The Gutenberg Editor is testing On Tumblr and Day One Web Apps. Sarah Gooding over at WPTavern writes about the details of using the betas on Tumblr and Day One. Check that out. WooCommerce WooCommerce 6.8 has been released. Smart Shipping for new sites has been added to this release. You can see all of the recent updates by checking out the WooCommerce site. Events WordCamp Asia sold out of tickets on their first batch of standard and micro sponsor tickets in just 1 day. The second batch of tickets will be available soon. From Our Contributors and Producers The Free Rider topic around WordPress got a lot of discussion going in the WP Minute Slack channel. Joe Casabona published a podcast episode on why free riders are necessary and really not a problem that needs to be solved. If you really want to democratize publishing, then you can’t expect everyone to contribute. You have to accept and welcome the free riders. Eventually, they may want to contribute and be part of the open source community. Joe was also interviewed by Brian Coords over on MasterWP. WordCamp US is right around the corner. If you are an introvert that will be attending, you may want to listen to the Matt Report podcast with Ken Elliott. Ken is a self-described “networking introvert” that built a WordPress agency with his co-founder and he will be emceeing WordCamp US next month.  WordCamp US is sold out but you will be able to live stream for free.  The first beta release of Advanced Custom Fields PRO 6.0. is now available. It has improved performance for Repeater fields with large datasets, and a new generation of ACF Blocks with block JSON support. Go check that out if you are interested.  Marie Comet shared on Twitter a little experiment of bulk converting Classic WordPress posts to Gutenberg posts. You can check out this tool for converting classic posts to blocks and provide feedback. Wordfence has looked at the threats to Ukrainian websites since the invasion of Russia. This cyber-war has been going on since mid-March and this blog post shows the statistics for the threats.  For WordPress developers that have been using Desktop Server for many years, it was sad to see ServerPress is closing. If you are a Premium Subscriber, you will have support until your subscription is up. Check out the just-released interview with Marc Benzakein reviewing that 12 years in business and the 10 years he was a partner. GoDaddy Inc. reported their financial results for the second quarter ending June 30, 2022. Revenue was up 11%, and they announced an additional $250M share repurchase plan. GoDaddy’s CEO, Aman Bhutani said: We continue to execute well against our strategic priorities, including building a one-stop shop for connected commerce, ubiquitous presence and digital identity, wrapped in our world-class customer service. Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:  Joe CasabonaEric KarkovackRaquel LandefeldBirgit Pauli HaackCameron JonesDaniel Schutzsmith ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeThe talk around the WordPress open source and the free rider problem has been discussed by the community since May with strong opinions on both sides of the contributing fence. Josepha Haden Chomphosy wrote an article over on make.wordpress.org about the issue with Open Source (the Tragedy of the Commons) and the Free Riders.  Could it be that we are concentrating on multiple things to discuss one single problem? Josepha makes the point that the discussion should be focused on making the software as best as it can be for everyone using it.  WebP, an image format developed by Google, which is intended to replace JPEG, PNG, and GIF file formats, will soon be generated by default for new JPEG images uploaded in WordPress. WebP conversion is coming to WordPress 6.1 and it doesn't look like there will be a UI-based option to turn this off. Sarah Gooding over at the WPTavern writes about the opt-in option in depth and it seems like a ticket for this will remain open to see if this option remains as the default. Gutenberg What happens when a theme registers a pattern with a third-party block? If the user has the block plugin installed, it appears as it should. If you want to read more about how WordPress handles registering patterns in themes with third-party blocks jump over to the Gutenberg Times to read this article by Justin Tadlock. Events WordFest Live is scheduled for November 18, 2022. This is a 24-hour online festival focusing on Wellness for remote workers and sponsored by the Big Orange Heart. Submissions for volunteer speakers are open for the event. The deadline to register to be a speaker is August 15, 2022. WordCamp US will be coming up in a little less than a month. They have Announced the Round 7 speaker panel which is Matt Mullenweg. You can find all the updates on their site. We will be a contributing media partner so look for Raquel (part of the WP Minute team) at WordCamp US. From Our Contributors and Producers Speaking of the value of contributing to WordPress, our WP Minute community member, Sam Munoz wrote an article posted over on Torque that covers her appreciation of WordPress and shows where you can contribute even without knowing code. All contributions matter.  If you have missed the exciting topics in the WordPress news space you can catch up on the last three months by listening to the WP Minute Rewind on the WP Minute with Matt Mederios and Daniel Schutzsmith.  In this supper club episode of Syntax, Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski talk with Syed Balkhi about his experiences blogging and developing plugins in the WordPress ecosystem. Sidenote: It always perplexes me that people outside of the WordPress space don't understand the size of Awesome Motive and the accomplishments that Syed and his team have built under that brand. The latest project updates for the WordPress.org Homepage and Download page are available. These mockups look great and these designs will begin immediately in a new block theme on the WordPress.org website. New Member: This week we welcome Brin Wilson from WinningWP to the #linksquad crew. If you’re not a member yet, go to buymeacoffee.com/mattreport to join. Next Up: WP Request for Feedback minute by Brian Coords Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today: Eric KarkovackSam MunozDaniel SchutzsmithBirgit Pauli Haack ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeDaniel Schutzsmith and Matt Medeiros return for a new WP Minute Rewind! Daniel and Matt will choose 3 of their favorite WordPress news headlines from the previous month to share and expand upon. Join us as they go deeper in this longer format show. If you love WordPress news, like _really_ love WordPress news, this episode is for you! Please share this on social media and tell others to tune in. Important Links & Takeaways The WP Minute is now sponsored by MasterWPMatt is looking for a WordPress news writer. Contact us if that's you.WP Minute is now in Slack (no more Discord)What's the difference between WP Minute and other WP groups?An inside look at community journalism in the WP https://joost.blog/cms-market-share/https://www.hubspot.com/company-news/hubspot-introduces-a-powerful-and-free-drag-and-drop-website-builderhttps://www.squarespace.com/websites/fluid-enginehttps://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-teamhttps://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-ends-recent-pricing-experiment-reverts-to-previous-modelWP Minute interview with Dave Martinhttps://instawp.com/What if GoDaddy had it's own WordPress?WordPress Accessibility DayPress the IssueAmber Hinds on selling her pluginWP Lift sold for 160k USDSitecare acquires Maintain from WDSEasy Support VideosDaniel on TwitterMatt on TwitterSupport the show ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeGuest host, Amber Hinds is sharing with us her POV on Equalize Digital's first "exit." "This post tells the story of how WP Conference Schedule came to be and why we ultimately ended up selling it before even launching the paid version of the plugin."Amber Hinds Links Amber Hinds Equalize Digital Sells WP Conference Schedule Amber Hinds Blog ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeLeading off this week is Joost de Valk’s semi-annual CMS market share analysis. WordPress maintains a 43% share, the equivalent of AT&T’s wireless market share, within the CMS space. Shopify, WordPress’ closest competitor on the chart chimes in at 4.2% Shopify also shocked the industry by laying off 1,000 employees via email, penned by the companies CEO, Tobias Lütke. Juxtaposed to the the layoffs, a report from McKinsey & company, shows that 41% of workers surveyed quit their jobs due to lack of career development and advancement. Squarespace, which is holding on to the 4th spot at 2% market share, has launched their new website building experience: Fluid Engine. WordPress.com is going back in time…to their former pricing. Sarah Gooding from WP Tavern reports the .com team have ended their pricing experiment. The WordPress mobile app is shedding it’s Jetpack features, in an effort to simplify the experience: “The hope is that this change will simplify much of the UX and design of the WordPress apps for users who don’t want or need Jetpack services and tools. The WordPress apps will continue to be maintained and updated, ensuring that users can publish content from anywhere just as they can today. “ Meanwhile, the Jetpack team plans on improving the Jetpack app as they transition these features out of the core app. Have any predictions on how the Jetpack app will change over time? Tweet at us @thewpminute OR Join our members-only Slack group for $79/year. Help Josepha find a better name for Full Site Editing (FSE): Giving FSE a More User Friendly Name – Make WordPress Core. The terms “full site editing” and “full site editor” (also abbreviated as FSE) were developed to easily refer to a collection of features and now that those features are integrated into our daily WordPress experience, how can we best update the wording to be more user friendly?” This year’s Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship recipients are Margherita Pelonara, Simona Simionato, and Pooja Derashri! Simona is the COO at a consulting company that focuses on digital learning and splits her time between Valencia, Spain and Milan, Italy. Simona Simionato’s high-profile studies include a Degree in Statistics, a Master’s in International Tourism Management, and graduation in coaching – in a School officially recognized by the ICF – which enriched her professional profile as a specialized Brief Coach. Pooja Derashri hails from Ajmer, India. She started using WordPress in 2013. Pooja and her husband Anand co-founded WPVibes, a WordPress plugin development agency. Her initial involvement was as a developer. Currently, she is transitioning towards SEO and Content Marketing. Margherita Pelonara lives in Santa Maria Nuova, Italy with her husband, two sons (25 and 15 years old), two cats, and has an insane addiction to lipstick (and WordPress, of course!). Margherita helps women freelancers who want to take their businesses and their lives to the next level: she builds websites with WordPress, fixes them, updates them, and teaches women how to use them. From the Grab Bag! StellarWP launches a WordPress events site WP.Events - wp.eventsWP Minute community member Davinder Singh Kainth was interviewed on Torque Torque News Drop: Davinder from The WPWeekly | @thetorquemagWP Minute producer Justin Ferriman of LearnDash fame is relaunching nofilter.fm as a podcast NoFilterFM Pre-LaunchSitecare buys Maintainn from WebDevStudios Next up: Michelle Frechette with the WP Community Minute! Thanks to all of the producers this week: Davinder Sing Kainth (for voting his own article - I see you)Eric KarkovackDaniel SchutzsmithMichelle Frechette ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeWordPress support company Sitecare acquires Maintainn, excluding the team, from WebDevStudios. Hear from the founders in today’s interview to learn how the deal went down, what to look for in good acquisitions, and what the future of WordPress support companies look like. The landscape of monthly WordPress support companies has certainly changed since these two OG’s launched in 2012-2013. Sitecare plans to double-down on their packaged monthly services while WedDevStudios continues to expand their enterprise WordPress business. Links Ryan Sullivan Brad Williams Sitecare Maintainn WebDevStudios ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeWhere is the concentration on performance and other goodies in new releases of WordPress? Sarah Gooding over at the WPTavern covered how WordPress contributors have been discussing adding SVG support for more than nine years. The SVG module is currently one of the items that the Performance team contributors have identified for WordPress 6.2 as a goal for proposing the module for core. Anyone who wants to contribute can join their efforts on GitHub. Eric Karkovack wrote about the issue recently on the WP Minute. It seems that the concentration of WordPress core updates has been directly related to the Gutenberg block editor. To some members of the community, those developments have come at the expense of letting other areas of the software slip. Eric’s article makes the point that Security and Data Organization could also use some attention and he is looking for balance across the core in future releases of WordPress. If you are a Jetpack user, you will be happy to know that Jetpack AP Bot for Telegram will now let you automatically share blog posts from any Jetpack-powered WordPress site (including any site hosted at WordPress.com) directly to a Telegram channel. This free tool saves time sharing content to Telegram, where readers can subscribe to read your posts just as easily as they would via email or social media. Acquisitions: Acquisitions stay front and center for 2022. WPLift.com sold for $160k. It previously sold in 2016 for $205k. Matt Medeiros interviewed Daan Tol 6 years ago and writes about how running a media company is difficult but well worth it on the WP Minute. Events There was a call to speak at the largest WordPress event in Asia - WordCamp Asia. They are looking for speakers that can talk about relevant #WordPress topics. Check out the site to see the categories for inspiration and sign up for this huge event being held in Bangkok on Feb, 17-19, 2023. Raquel Landefeld wrote about her recent experience at WordCamp EU and the power of attending WordCamps in person. Check out her article on the WP Minute and look for her at WordCamp US this September. As a reminder: The Gutenberg Times will host a Live Q & A July 22, 2022 with the Pew Research Center. They used a mix of Core and Custom Blocks to streamline their publishing process, and create powerful charts and quizzes. You can register over on the Gutenberg Times website. WooCommerce WooCommerce 6.7 was released along with WooCommerce Blocks 7.8.3. There is also a Release Cadence update. You can review the latest on the WooCommerce site. From Our Contributors and Producers Hubspot announced the launch of a free CMS drag and drop tool to empower business builders to create reliable websites. This is an interesting offer to check out for building a website while you are working on your brand and growing your business. I always thought that Hubspot would have purchased WPEngine. It's a running theory of mine over the years. Hey! It is never too late. Daniel Schutzsmith shared the latest on how popular theme designs are now available on the WordPress.org Figma account. Users can now explore the designs for popular themes such as Stewart, Archeo, Pendant, and Wei. If you’d like to add your own theme design, you can get started using the Theme Template file. Speaking of themes, there is a proposal from the Make WordPress design team for a new kind of default theme. The discussions have started concerning the release of a new default theme (or a curated set of styled variations) with 6.1 and there is a call for comments on style suggestions. Go check out make.wordpress.org to get involved. Another new theme to investigate is Poe by Anders Norén. It is a clean and minimal block theme built with portfolios and blogs in mind and named after Edgar Allen Poe.  Mike Oliver has opened his GeneratePress @podia community. There is a lot planned for the rest of this year. You can visit his landing page at Website Builders Collective to see all the exciting things planned for the new design. P.S. If you are a product owner with something launching, let us know at the WPMinute.com/contact. James Baldacchino wrote an article over at Ellipsis about the current climate surrounding WordPress. His overall analysis showed that WordPress Year to date had a 10.4% decrease but the climate remains good.  EDD - Easy Digital Downloads 3.0 has arrived with many improvements. Jump over to their blog to see the latest. New Members This week we welcome two new members to the #linksquad crew: Patrick Gallagher and Mark Zahra. You may have reached out to them already in the Slack group. If you’re not a member yet, go to buymeacoffee.com/mattreport to join. Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:  Eric KarkovackDaniel SchutzsmithRaquel LandefeldBirgit Pauli Haack ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeFive for the Future is back on the radar, surfacing more clarification and criticism. Here’s snack pack of links from around the community addressing various opinions on the subject:  Five for the Future’s True Intentions by Josepha Haden ChomphosySarah Gooding summarizes the link aboveJoe Casabona compares 5FTF to the Creator EconomyRob Howard warns of “toxic scorekeeping.”  Gettin’ Guten with it Gutenberg Times will host a livestream July 22nd featuring PEW Research Lead Developer and Director of Digital Strategy on how they use WordPress core + custom blocks. Want to know where FSE is headed with all things media? Anne McCarthy posted the FSE Program All Things Media Summary. Product updates LearnDash has taken to the clouds with its latest hosted version of the popular WordPress LMS plugin. SpotlightWP has launched a new analytics dashboard for those of you posting to WordPress and the gram. Pure HTML and CSS WordPress builder LiveCanvas has launched their builder version 3. Product acquisition Amber Hinds' Equalize Digital has sold their WP Conference Schedule plugin to Events Calendar: “Earlier this year, we realized that continuing to support WP Conference Schedule no longer made sense,” said Hinds, “It was a distraction from our mission to improve accessibility in WordPress and took development and marketing time away from Accessibility Checker.” Events A call for organizers has been placed by the WordCamp Euorope 2023 team. The Grab bag! Call for sponsors for WordPress Accessibility Day 2022See what it looks like for a hacker to attack a WordPress wesbite.Congrats to WordPress Historian Jeff Chandler for taking on a new role at WP Engine.Part 2 with Corey Maass on Matt Report, Building Amazing Products. Next up!  Michelle Frechette with the Community Minute! New Members This week we welcome two new members to the #linksquad crew: Jonathan Wold and Juan Hernando! You can meet them in the Slack group and if you’re not a member yet, go to buymeacoffee.com/mattreport to join. Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:  Joe CasabonaBirgit Pauli-HaackDaniel SchutzsmithEric KarkovackAmber Hinds ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeGuest host Andrew Palmer is back to address the topic of collaboration. His company Bertha recently collaborated with Yoast to forge a powerful combination of AI + SEO for WordPress. If you've been on the fence about collaborating with others, there's no better time than now to start! Enjoy Andrew's -- or it is Bertha's? -- take on collaborating in WordPress! ★ Support this podcast ★

Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribeYou’d have to be living under a rock to miss the recent WP drama unfold on Twitter.  In some quickly deleted fever-induced tweets, Mullenweg likened GoDaddy to a “parasitic company” that is an “existential threat” to WordPress. Explore more of the debate in the following articles: Matt Medeiros’ take on What would GoDaddy’s WordPress look like?  WP Tavern recaps the Mullenweg twitter thread. MasterWP’s Rob Howard weighs in. Finally, GoDaddy responds to (almost) the whole shebang in a Sarah Gooding interview. Moving and shaking at Post Status Long-time Post Status news anchor David Bisset announces his departure from the position. David will be taking on the role of Product Development for WP Charitable at Awesome Motive, after the company announced the acquisition of the plugin. Michelle Frechette highlighted some of the assholes in the WordPress space. She recalls her first-person experiences in the community in  Misogyny in WordPress is Real. From our contributors and producers Rae Morey explores the Australian WordPress vibe after WP Minute Producer Cameron Jones sparked the debate on Twitter. WP Lift, long-time WordPress blog, is for sale over on Flippa. How do you like your Classic Press? Shaken, stirred, on the rocks? “Recent turbulence in the ClassicPress community has resulted in the directors resigning and new leadership installed. The WordPress fork is run under a non-profit organization called the ClassicPress Initiative. “ Sarah Gooding summarized the events at the Tavern.  Events WordCamp US tickets will go on sale tomorrow, June 30th 2022. Visit the WordCamp US website for more information. The Grab bag! Twitter announced a longform writing feature.  The Lexman artificial podcast creates a completely original interview podcast…with itself…in different voices. I enjoyed the outline of how Basecamp built the new “Bubble up” feature in HEY email. Our very own Raquel Landefeld was on the Women in WP podcast number 86. We’d never 86 the Raquel!  Eric Karkovack highlights 10 Lesser-known WordPress plugins Matt Report talks life after selling a plugin business with Corey Maass Next up!  Get the Pulse on WordPress with Raquel Landefeld New Members Welcome back Seth Goldstein for re-upping his WP Minute Producer membership.  Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:  Cameron JonesSam MunozDaniel SchutzsmithRaquel Landefeld ★ Support this podcast ★