The WP Minute

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Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute WP Minute+ News Round Table Episode 1. This will be a monthly series on WP Minute+ Podcast. Make sure you're following the podcast!Follow WP Minute+Read the full shown notes: https://thewpminute.com/?p=12987Get the weekly newsletter: https://thewpminute.com/subscribeSupport the show! https://thewpminute.com/support Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute I’ve been learning the Twenty Twenty-Four theme deeply over the last few weeks, as I feel this is one of the most important default themes ever released. A theme that has a good set of patterns at launch, a less opinionated design than previous default themes, and with the site editing and block experience at an acceptable level for customizations. TT4 provides a solid starting point for many small business or creators looking for a new website. My only hope is that the design team behind TT4 continue to improve the feature set, and not let it sit after launch. Let’s make this theme better over the next year!I’m not surprised with Mullenweg’s offensive take on the recent price hike at Elementor, but I also feel it’s a bit short sighted for the industry as a whole. Does it have to be core vs 3rd party plugins for WordPress to survive? Do the future enhancements to site editing and blocks slowly erode the page builder market? I understand why it’s happening, and as frustrating as it can be, the fragmentation of WordPress experience has brought us a lot of choices and innovation over the years. Get the rest of the show notes: https://thewpminute.com/?p=12945 Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute Today’s update is a brief one. If you hadn’t heard the news, WordPress 6.4 was released on November 7th. Things didn’t go as smoothly has we all hoped, with the core teams rushing to release 6.4.1 to catch a nasty bug in older versions of the curl package. The good news is, everything was patched and buttoned up for users. I’ve been spending a lot of time using, reviewing, and recording videos covering the Twenty Twenty-Four theme. I think it’s a fantastic step in the right direction and expect to see more users adopting it to build out their websites. It’s really important that users are delighted when using a default theme, and I think that’s what this theme does better than the last.Read the full blog post including links. Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute WooCommerce is now Woo, kinda. Here’s a quote from their announcement Say hello to Woo.com - WooCommerce post:You can call us Woo, WooCommerce, Their Supreme Wooness — whatever you’d like. But if you want to be specific:Woo is how we refer to the brand/company.WooCommerce is the open-source ecommerce platform for WordPress — Woo’s core product.So WooCommerce is now tucked away into the inner layer of Woo’s brand. Also tucked away, according to those keeping anGet all the show notes here. Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute On the latest WP Minute, we delve into the release of WordPress 6.4 RC 2, potential implications for the WordPress professional community, and a spotlight on the upcoming Twenty Twenty-Four theme. Is it set to revolutionize the market? The episode also touches upon the challenges in the WordPress arena – from declining sponsorship dollars for media to the broader perception of WordPress among end users. Moreover, the episode delves into the nuances of the WordPress market and the potential challenges and innovations in the theme landscape. Finally, there's a special mention about supporting the WP Minute through memberships, and shoutouts to the integral sponsors of the show.Important Links:Turning Defeat into Success with Justin FerrimanOne Inbox to Rule Them AllOn People Breaking up with WordPressWordPress 6.4 Field GuideIntroducing Real-Time Editing! 🧑🏾‍💻 👩‍💻👨🏻‍💻State of the Word 2023 – Save the DateWordPress Product Black Friday Placements Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute WordPress 6.4 is coming packed full of 100+ performance updates, along with some minor iterative changes to the overall UI. In a recent YouTube video, I took a look at RC1 available now to demo. Now’s your chance to dive in ahead of time and see what changes are coming, for either you or your clients.The biggest impact will be the new Twenty Twenty Four theme, which I’ve also previewed on the channel, but sans the Google Font management feature we were all looking forward to. Fret not, if you’re running the standalone Gutenberg plugin, it’s there. (Hat tip to Mark Constable on that one.)Notable features will be:New Twenty Twenty Four themeNo more attachment pagesBlock HooksStart testing and providing feedback now.WooCommerce services down nearly 40%?Rodolfo Melogli posted that his WooCommerce services are down -37% compared to his last year billings. Rodolfo Melogli on XIn Meloglis’ post, “For context, 2022 was +31%, 2021 +7%, 2020 +10%, 2019 +7%” and expands on the actual hours billed:2023 – 914hrs so far2022 – 1138hrs2021 – 992hrs2020 – 1403hrs2019 – 1350brs2018 – 1029hrsThe heath of client services is something I’m always keeping a watchful eye on. While his experience might be silo’d to only his business, it’s important to watch where the market is being disrupted.\Is the software of WordPress getting better, leading end users to DIY?Is there a competitor coming in and chipping away at our massive pie?Are budgets getting cut because of the global economy?Which also leads me to explore and circle back on a small trend I’ve spotted: web hosts getting into the services business.In a video I recorded over 2 years ago, I spell it WordPress now, I commented on Automattic getting into building websites for endusers. It’s a long listen, but Matt Mullenweg hopped in and left some comments. Click the link to jump in your Time Machine and take a trip down memory lane.Recently I spotted that Nexcess web hosting is also offering services for building websites too. Their price points range from $750 – $1,500 for core WordPress services. There’s a WooCommerce option, but I don’t have an account to see what they are charging a shop owner. Automattic’s range from $500 to $5,000.The Freelancer DilemaAs the software gets better, customers begin to focus on DIY. As page builders and AI improves, more competition also floods into the market. Web hosts cut your customer off at the hosting path before knocking on your door, reeling them back into their in-house services.What’s a freelancer to do?I believe over the next two years we’re going to see some strong consolidation for page builders on the market. Core WordPress page building will improve tremendously, and with the entirety of WordPress admin getting redesigned, potentially making all of WordPress blocks, we’re going to relive a debate we had years ago:Is WordPress a CMS or a framework?I know, we just went 0 to 100mph real quick.Freelancers looking to bolster business or stand out from the crowd should look to enhancing the services around them. Be more knowledgeable about your customer’s business, than you are about WordPress the software. Know that we’re in a 2 year dip where the chaos of where WordPress is headed, is just that, chaos.I believe we’re going to see WordPress evolve into something really great. If I could tell ChatGPT to build me an entire app using blocks and it’s a portable piece of software I can take to any host — who wouldn’t want that?Is it going to disrupt everyone? Surely.Do I trust AI to do a good job? No.Will WordPress still be the best open source software for humanity? Hope so.What I’m saying is hunker down for now. There’s still money to be made in services, when done right. Marketing, branding, packaging are going to be extremely important to your success.Important links this weekt’s been a while since I put together a grab bag of links, but here we are!WP Product Talk aired an exceptional episode on promoting your WordPress product. Go behind the scenes on how Barn2, SolidWP, and GravityKit do their holiday promos.Eric Karkovack published a list of ways for WordPress product owners can promote their products Promoting a WordPress Product? Keep These Tips in MindMatt Mullenweg shares his opinion on Twitter charging $1 to save spam. Cost of Spam Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute WordPress.org briefly introduced 1-click plugin previews this week. If you found yourself looking at the plugin page on the world’s largest directory this week you could enter the official WordPress playground to explore what the plugin had to offer.The first problem? Well, it didn’t work. This sent authors scrambling to understand why their plugins weren’t working or more generally making the case for why this lead to a worse experience overall for the end user.The root of the issue, however, was that none of these changes were communicated to authors. No deadline, no opt-out — nothing.The changes have been reverted, and while I think this is a great idea — I mean, who would’n’t want to try before you buy? — it needs much more thought, planning, and communication next time.Plugin authors: we’re really seeing whose playground this really is these days aren’t we?Ollie without onboardingOllie, the theme I covered in last week’s monologue, is now available in the repo but looking a little thinner than when it started.The block theme that made a controversial splash won’t offer its “innovative” onboarding experience for users. That feature will come in a plugin in the near future.Vote vote voteGet out and vote!The WP Weekly has launched its annual WordPress awards. Vote for all things WordPress, including this podcast. We’re in section 20. If you love our podcast, please vote for us!Nathan Wrigley is also selling awards. Name yourself your own winner for only $20. All proceeds will be donated to WPCC The WP Builds WordPress Awards 2023Open source and AIMeta is trying to shake up the AI world, specifically OpenAI and Google, with its open source Llama model.“Open source drives innovation because it enables many more developers to build with new technology,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.This open source “debate” has spurred, apparently, a lot of debate in the VC world. Here’s a recent episode of the This Week in Startups where in the first 5 minutes you can get some insight into what a billionaire investor thinks about it. Bill Gurley and Sunny Madra talk open-source vs. proprietary AI | E1825Open Source and AI is worth mentioning because Jetpack uses OpenAI, which isn’t open source at all. I’m really curious to see what Mullenweg decides to do with the AI features in Jetpack and WordPress.com as he refines that product.Going all-in on a closed sourced product like that, after alerting us all to learn AI deeply recently would be…weird.Matt Mullenweg on the Silicon SlopesSpeaking of Matt Mullenweg, he recently appeared on a short interview at the Silicon Slopes Summit.He talks to a media personality about open source, Automattic, and remote work. I wanted to play a few clips that you might find interesting. The value of Automattic, the value of the WordPress ecosystem, and how he sees his role (at least to an outsider) in the community.“ Automatic’s close to 2,000 people. The business has been very, very successful, valued at over seven billion dollars.”Matt MullenwegWordPress started very much just as a personal volunteer project. And it was really just about blogging, kind of that personal journaling. Over the years though, really in concert with the community.You know, I’m just a figurehead, really. All the good stuff from WordPress comes from the tens of thousands of volunteers around the world.Matt MullenwegOne cool thing is the WordPress ecosystem, which is over 10 billion a year of revenue going through it now is a lot of the companies look just like automatic and that they’re often distributed, they do open source and everything.Matt Mullenweg Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute The dust is settling on the Ollie theme’s onboarding experience, which was set to be included in the theme’s core functionality when author, Mike McCalister, submitted it to the theme repo.The onboarding experience bucked the trend of traditional themes and included additional functionality like an onboarding wizard, building pages with the click of a button, and embedding helpful content. You can see a walkthrough of it in my video on YouTube.This was viewed as innovative and something that the WordPress experience desperately needed.However, guidelines from the Theme Team generally draw the line at this type of functionality to go beyond what a theme should serve as: a presentation layer.Innovation. Who is responsible for innovation in WordPress?I view the Theme Team as drawing up the rules of the road for a wider range of new contributors and to safeguard end users. Help usher along the WordPress theme development experience for new contributors, guiding theme on building themes the “WordPress way.”To maximize what WordPress core features gives us, in a safe fashion. Which trickles down to the enduser. They get a theme that works with WordPress core, with code that meets WordPress standards, and is safe from malicious intent.Encourage developers to meet end user desires, all filtering through a volunteer-lead program. It’s a true testament to Open Source.Back to innovation: Is the Theme Team also responsible for pushing innovation of WordPress?Sarah Gooding collected the feedback from WordPress leadership which was largely in favor of including Ollie’s onboarding and seemed to think that this could be a useful “experiment” to progress the block based theme experience.In my world, this brings up two issues: There’s no communication layer between WordPress Core and the Theme Team. No QA process. No product meetings. No roadmap overview.This is the most common issue in product development or enterprise software sales. Customer Z wants something that has never been developed before in the core product. Sales and corporate stakehodlers get excited because this could be a shiny new toy. CEO tells product team to develop it by end of next week.Time marches on, market shifts, and now that killer-feature is just worthless tech debt. CEO turns back to the stakeholders and wants to hold someone accountable for a failed product. Product Team says that the squeaky wheel sales person is the one that wanted this in the first place, but that sales person quit 6 months ago and is now working for Sales Force.There was no true process in place for the product team to pull from the lifestream of customer feedback from the rest of the organization.Remember, I said there were two issues…Humans be huma’ning and out for for commercial interests.Call a spade a spade. Maybe in this case, a theme author a Jetpack?Seriously. Automattic/Matt aren’t the only entity out to commercialize their product. I assume, based on my interview with McCalister from seven years ago, he’s going to have a commercial option. And, as I’ve said countless times before, there’s nothing wrong with it, just say it, and not just Mike — everyone.This is the same issue I’ve been covering as a content creator and as a former theme author from 10 years ago, is that a majority of theme authors cycling through our volunteer-lead Theme Team have commercial interests at play.That’s not a bad thing. Go ahead, secure the bag.It’s that these moments in WordPress history, eventually expose the faults with a massive distribution powerhouse (that is WordPress.org) with loose community guidelines governing what could be 100’s of millions of dollars worth of commercial theme upsells.“If that theme got in, what about me?”“If they are doing it that way, why can’t we do it this way?”“How long will they be on the featured theme list for? What about us?”So there’s whatabousim debt and real technical debt to consider when providing a pass to Ollie.Conclusion(I promised myself less of this type of content, but here I am.)Do I think what Mike built into Ollie is good? Yes.Do I think it helps WordPress users using his theme? Yes.But I don’t see the upside in just this theme operating this way, making an impact across the entire WordPress ecosystem. The stress, attacks, and pressure placed on Theme Team volunteers alone don’t make this worth it. They’ll have to deal with 100’s of authors coming in to build out their own experience. And when they don’t pass the test? We rinse and repeat this vicious cycle.Commercial theme authors standing on their virtuous soapbox saying they are doing it “for the good of WordPress. Use our coupon code: GUTENBERG to save 20% at checkout.”Ollie can still make an impact by just existing in the market — even off WordPress.org. Heck, it already has. If it catches the eye of Anne McCarthy or Richard Tabor it might bring this kind of experience into core WordPress, which could be the best outcome for everyone.End users and theme authors.Or Mike could just a build a plugin or release set of code that any theme author could adopt into their theme to make this happen, which would leave a bigger impact on the community as a whole. Speaking of, I invited Mike on to the podcast, but he’s declined for now.Anyway, that’s the spirit of open source, and the excitement of being in the WordPress ecosystem. We’re able to pluck a lesson out of the clouds of chaos, which we invest back into the foundation of WordPress’ success.But I’ll die on the hill defending the volunteers that are upholding the guidelines set in the community, operating in transparency, and for the good of WordPress as whole — Every. Single. Time.Impacts of AI on content and a look ahead to WordPress 6.4This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Brian Jackson, talking all about content marketing and the impacts of AI.Brian was a prolific content marketer for Kinsta, and spent a portion of his life writing content for the brand during their growth cycle. Don’t miss the episode if you want to learn how he’s using at his plugin business, Forgemedia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFSvsiGoYGw Gutenberg 16.7 is out, which brought some new ways to manage fonts in WordPress and your patterns in site building. I reviewed those updates in my video on  Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Thanks Pressable for supporting the podcast! What hosting should feel like...nothing! https://pressable.com/wpminute I recently had the opportunity to chat with WP Minute Editor, Eric Karkovack, about some new services we are launching to better help WordPress product owners.Eric has been creating content for WordPress developers and designers for over a decade. But with recent shifts in the publishing landscape, he wanted to find new ways to serve WordPress brands by simplifying their complex products.So Eric has launched WP Product Writeup – a service to create high-quality, easy to understand white label content that gives WordPress products an edge in this competitive market. He can take his extensive WordPress experience and write product explainers, user guides, blog posts, and other materials to amplify a brand.On my side, I’ve realized that focusing on the small market of WordPress news is challenging. We love our sponsors and members, but I need to introduce another way to to help keep this site sustainable. So I’m shifting the WP Minute to offer Launch Services to directly help WordPress business owners get the word out. This includes written content from Eric, videos, sponsorship, and more.So if you need help explaining your product to everyday users in “marketing speak”, reach out to Eric at WP Product Writeup. And if you want to amplify that with a full launch campaign, check out WP Minute’s services. We hope to keep empowering each other in the WordPress community.Key TakeawaysRecent shifts in publishing landscape have impacted writersEric launched WP Product Writeup to create white label content explaining WordPress productsI’ve shifted WP Minute to offer Launch Services to directly help products market themselvesOur deep WordPress experience allows us to simplify complex topicsGoal is to empower the WP community and develop sustainable businesses Support our work at https://thewpminute.com/supportGet the newsletter at https://thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★