In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David talks with Lesley Sim about Joel Spolsky on the Block Protocol, Matt Mullenweg for taking over for the exiting CEO of Tumblr, and a blog post by Dan Devine entitled "The Complicated Futility of WordPress."

Why This Is Important: It's good to examine the views of influencers inside and outside the WordPress community about managing content (especially with blocks) and how complex content management systems (like WordPress) have become. Tumblr is a potential wildcard — social network, gateway to more advanced publishing, both, or neither?

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡

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. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• Making the Web Better With Blocks
• Twitter announcement: Matt "running Tumblr personally for a while"
• The Complicated Futility of WordPress
• Twitter conversation: Coderjerk / Matt & Others
• Lesley Sim (Twitter)
• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)

 

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In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David talks with Collins Agbonghama, the Founder of ProfilePress and the author of a few other WordPress plugins. Collins shares what he called a “small” win in Post Status Slack early in January 2022: he acquired a plugin (now LoginWP) for “5 figures” and was able to break even on a revamped, commercial “Pro” version after only four months. David and Collins talk about this accomplishment and consider how similar opportunities may exist for other WordPress entrepreneurs.

Why This Is Important: Often you hear about large product acquisitions between relatively large companies in the WordPress space, but not so much the smaller ones — even though they can be just as impactful on people's livelihoods, especially for independent developers and freelancers.

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡

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. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• People of WordPress: Collins Agbonghama
• WordPress Saved my Life
• Interview with Collins Agbonghama of ProfilePress (Formerly WP User Avatar)
• Collins Agbonghama
• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)

🙏 Sponsor: Wordfence

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"When it comes to accessibility lawsuits, we as developers should be proactive to ensure a site is as accessible as possible." — Amber Hinds

In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David chats with Amber Hinds about the things WordPress professionals should be paying attention to. Their conversation covers recent trends and news in the accessibility space: meetups, lawsuits, overlays, and design trends.

Why This Is Important: Accessibility is important to everyone, so it is critical for WordPress developers and designers to keep accessibility in mind. David and Amber only scratch the surface of this topic. Amber encourages developers to read this call from the Accessibility team to share their ideas, take part in the discussion, and suggest what to prioritize for WordPress in the near future.

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡ 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. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• 2021 Year End Report - App & Web Accessibility Lawsuits Break Records
• WordPress Accessibility Meetup
• Accessibility Checker
• 2021 lawsuit report-trends-and findings
• Digital Lawsuits
• Overview of the European Accessibility Act
• A Guide to the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation
• The ADA Lawsuit Selement Involving an Accessibility Overlay (Murphy v. Eyebobs)
• Overlay Fact Sheet
• Overlay False Claims
• WP Accessibility Plugin
• Accessibility and 2022: 13 Design Trends From a Usability Perspective
• Accessibility Team’s goals for WordPress 6.0 and beyond
• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)

🙏 Sponsor: iThemes

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"They don't talk about being at the summit until you're at the top, so [getting ahead] is a process." — Michelle Frechette

In this episode of Post Status Draft, David sits down with Michelle Frechette to talk about what Post Status is planning for its community and the WordPress crowd as a whole in the first half of 2022. They cover three new events: the Weekly WordPress Job Chat on Twitter Spaces, WP Career Summit, and the first-ever Post Status Twitter Conference. (The conference theme is “Give. Grow. Together.”)

Why This Is Important: Post Status is listening to members and watching what discussions are happening in the WordPress community. Michelle points out why each of these events is important to certain sections of the community — each event will touch the lives of many WordPress professionals in some way.

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡

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. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• WP Career Summit — Save the Date!
• Post Status Twitter Conference
• Post Status Events
• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)

🙏 Sponsor: Bluehost

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“I totally rely on [the community] now… it’s like an extended family… it means a lot to me and I’m glad that everybody’s hanging on in there with me.” —Nathan Wrigley

After the first Post Status WordPress News Draft went so well, we decided to do a more European timezone-friendly version. The group of news “avengers” that assembled in this episode are Winstina Hughes, Tammie Lister, Nathan Wrigley, Amber Hinds, Yvette Sonneveld, and Malcom Peralty — with David Bisset hosting. In three rounds of draft picks, this group assembled new and interesting picks of the most noteworthy or influential WordPress news stories of 2021.

Also: Video recordings of some of our members' single biggest news picks were included in this episode.

Post Status Comments 💬 is a stage for WordPress professionals to exchange ideas and talk about recent topics and trends.

Browse past episodes and subscribe to our podcasts on  Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or get them by RSS. 🎙️

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

Amber Hinds

1. WP Tavern: ACF Solicits Lifetime License Holders for Contributions, Urging Them to Purchase Annual Subscriptions.
2. Sheri Byrne-Haber's Blog: The ADA Lawsuit Settlement Involving an Accessibility Overlay. (Murphy v. Eyebobs)
3. WP Tavern: WordPress Classic Editor Support Extended for at Least Another Year.
4. WP Tavern: Wix Takes a Jab at WordPress with Bewildering New marketing Campaign and Wix’s Negative Advertising Campaign Falls Flat with WordPress Developers and Professionals.

Yvette Sonneveld

1. WP Tavern: WordPress Community Team Proposes Using a Decision Checklist to Restart Local Events.
2. Joost.blog: WordPress Market Share Growth Slows Down.
3. Rian Rietveld: Accessibility Overlays: Common Sense and Nonsense.
4. WIRED: An Open Source License that Requires Users to Do No Harm.
5. The Guardian: Online Forums Provide Safe Haven for People Who Suffer from Mental Health Challenges During COVID.

Tammie Lister

1. Make.WordPress.org: Pattern directory update.
2. Matias Ventura: Theme.json horizon.
3. Kjellr.com: Experimenting .
4. Aino: Theme Update Guide.

Winstina Hughes

• Post Status Podcast 37 - David and Mary Job.

Nathan Wrigley

• WordPress.org: Openverse.
• Wordfest.com: Community.

Malcolm Peralty

• WP Tavern: Gravity Forms 2.5 Launches With an Overhauled UI and Focus on Accessibility.
• WP Tavern: ElasticPress.io Service Considers Next Move after Elasticsearch Abandons Open Source Licensing.
• WP Tavern: Elastic Hits Back at OpenSearch, Making Client Libraries Incompatible with Amazon-led Open Source Fork.
• Wordfence: GoDaddy Breached – Plaintext Passwords – 1.2M Affected.
• WP Tavern: Delicious Brains Acquires Advanced Custom Fields Plugin.
• WP Tavern: ACF 5.10 Introduces Block API v2 Support, Block Preloading, and Security Improvements.
• WP Mainline: Why Can’t I Transform Two Paragraph Blocks and an Ordered List Block Into A Quote Block?

Additional Contributions via ZipMesssage:

• ZipMessage: Biggest News Story of 2021

Follow Our Panelists (and Post Status) on Twitter:

• Yvette Sonneveld
• Tammie Lister
• Winstina Hughes
• Nathan Wrigley
• Malcom Peralty
• Post Status

"The Hippy Times are going to end at some point." —Bob Dunn

In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David has an honest and deep dive with Bob Dunn into the "versions" of the WordPress community — something Bob covered in a recent blog post that has gotten some attention recently. They discuss what each "version" was like, how money can make a community act differently, and how people position themselves, for better or worse, in reaction to changes in the community.

Also: David asks Bob if certain changes are unavoidable once a community gets to a certain size and asks what is missing from the WordPress community today that existed in the early days.

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡

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. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• Are We in WordPress Community Version 3.0?
• Twitter Poll About WordPress Version/Generations
• Conversation At Post Status
• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)

🙏 Sponsor: GoDaddy Pro

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"In 2022 at Post Status... we will be together and make the most of our online experiences." —Cory Miller

In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David and Cory chat about the key events for Post Status in 2021, including Cory's acquisition of Post Status from Brian in May, StellarWP's sponsorship of Post Status Slack to go pro, and the acquisition tracker. Cory also explains how his understanding of Post Status has changed since acquiring it.

Also: David and Cory also discuss what they hope Post Status can become in early 2022.

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡

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. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• Post Status Acquisition Tracker
• Post Status Open Web Manifesto
• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)

 

🙏 Sponsor: Go Daddy Pro

Manage 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.

"This story reminded me that big company big money doesn't mean just more profit but can also mean big contributions." - Aurooba Ahmed

It's the first-ever Post Status WordPress News Draft! The initial group of news "avengers" in this episode are Aurooba Ahmed, Jason Cosper, Daniel Schutzsmith, Robert Jacobi, and Lesley Sim — with David Bisset hosting. In three rounds of draft picks, this group assembled the most noteworthy or influential WordPress news stories of 2021.

Also: There was also a final "quick link" round with some interesting choices the guests brought to the table.

Post Status Comments 💬 provides a stage for WordPress professionals to exchange ideas and talk about recent topics and trends.

Browse past episodes and subscribe to our podcasts on  Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or get them by RSS. 🎙️

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• WordPress 5.9 Release (Aurooba Pick #1)
• Frost being acquired and made open source (Aurooba Pick #2)
• Stubbornella utilities classes twitter thread (Aurooba Pick #3)
• WP User Avatar > Profile Press Debacle (Daniel Pick #1)
• Blocks, Boards & Fishing Reels – How Gutenberg has Divided WordPress (Daniel Pick #2)
• Podcast app Pocket Casts acquired by WordPress․com owner Automattic (Daniel Pick #3)
• WordPress Performance Team (Jason Pick #1)
• theme.json drops with WordPress 5.8 (Jason PIck #2)
• Google’s FLoC and WordPress (Jason Pick #3)
• Exciting news: Yoast joins Newfold Digital (Robert Pick #1)
• Welcome to Openverse (Robert Pick #2)
• American Airlines sues online publisher and host over fake website (Robert Pick #3)
• AM Marketing Machine (Lesley Pick #1)
• Founder's Field Guide Podcast: Matt Mullenweg – The Past, Present, and Future of the Internet (Lesley Pick #2)
• Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, Nadia Eghbal (Lesley Pick #3)
• Can Matt Mullenweg save the internet? (David's Pick #1)
• Awesome Motive Has Acquired Sandhills Development (David's Pick #2)
• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)

 

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"Too many things were interrelated and we didn’t have enough people who were looking across…" —Anne McCarthy

In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David has an informative chat with Anne McCarthy. Anne is a Developer Relations Wrangler for Automattic and (among other things) has been responsible for many of the recent videos showcasing the features of Full Site Editing and WordPress 5.9. David and Anne talk about what decisions led to the delay of WordPress 5.9, her start with Automattic, COVID's effect on core contributions, and how polished Full Site Editing might be by the end of January 2022.

Also: David asks Anne what the future of the WordPress Customizer will be in a world of Full Site Editing.

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡

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. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• WordPress 5.9 Revised Release Schedule
• Why I Voted To Delay WordPress 5.9
• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)

 

🙏 Sponsor: Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms is the easiest and most trusted advanced forms solution for your WordPress website. Packed with time-saving tools and features, Gravity Forms is the only WordPress form management plugin you will ever need. Stop losing valuable leads and grow your business with Gravity.

Cory leads the first Post Status Year-End Member Huddle — on Zoom. It’s a mix of news about the year ahead for Post Status members, discussion, a year-end exercise for you, and some laughs over the best ugly sweater contest.

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