The WP Minute

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Hey it’s Matt from the WP Minute. 

Did you know there’s a professional group of WordPress’ers excited to meet you? If you’re looking for a more casual WP Slack membership to join, chat about the news, and share your own content with our audience —  consider joining the WP Minute membership for $79/year. 

Get access to our group of merry WordPress bandits and help support our show. Head to thewpminute.com/support to join. 

## Your 5 minutes of WordPress this week

**RepoGate**

Well, I’m glad _that_ (last) week is behind us. 

Or is it? Seems the most movement we’ve seen publicly from RepoGate is WordPress.com now showing a download and listing link for the “cloned” plugin listing. I’d say that’s a technical win for plugin authors who aren’t so happy WordPress.com is showcasing their code for an upsell to a paid hosting plan. 

Still no morale win, for the rest of us, however. 

“The thing that makes me uncomfortable is that my plugin is being used to help sell someone else’s business.” Luke Carbis says on a recent episode of [Crossword](https://crossword.fm/episodes/repository-considerations). Carbis pontificates on having a robots.txt type of solution that allows plugin authors to disallow WordPress.com from listing their plugin.

**WonderCart**

This week on the WP Minute+, I had a chance to uncover exactly what a product manager does at Bluehost. Jocelyn Hendrickson joined me to share how she helps the e-commerce experience for customers, specifically in the WonderSuite & WonderCart products. 

Bluehost is a Pillar Sponsor of the WP Minute. We thank them for the generosity, and hope your brand might also become a sponsor too!

**Gutenstats**

Filed under: “I didn’t know that was a thing!”, is the website gutenstats.blog. 

The tagline reads, “Gutenberg in Numbers. The Gutenberg block editor for WordPress is used by millions of sites — here’s insight into how.

Stats are from WordPress.com and sites running Jetpack. The post statistics only include posts created since late August 2018. The actual number is higher. 

- 81.7 Milllion active installs
- 273.4 million posts written
- 233 thousand written yesterday (as of this publication) 

If you want to see what the most popular blocks are across their tracking, head to gutenstats.blog to find out!

## Outro

That’s it for today’s episode. 

Be sure to listen to our other podcast WP Minute+ you can find it for free, where you get this podcast. Search for WP Minute in your favorite podcast app, and add both because we have some great interviews lined up. 

Thanks to our Pillar sponsors Pressable.com and Bluehost.com. Thanks to our Foundation+ sponsors thewp.world without these sponsors, support from our paying members, and you the listener — the WP Minute wouldn’t be possible. 

Get your brand in front of other WordPress professionals, become a Foundation sponsor today for $475 for the year. It’s the best sponsor value in the industry.

Head to thewpminute.com/support for more details, that’s thewpminute.com/support

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At the time of this publication, thirty-thousand plus eyeballs have landed on John Blackbourn’s tweet that has sparked an event that goes well-beyond #WPDrama this week.

It seems WordPress.com has publicly replicated the .org plugin pages. My peers at WP Tavern and The Repository have covered the many aspects of this debacle. I’m out of energy this week for anything more in-depth, so I’ll leave you with these two things:

1. Listen to my latest interview with Jon Clark of StellarWP. We’re chatting about marketing automation, YouTube creation, and video games!
2. The following text is are my thoughts on leadership and future of WordPress…

There are many leaders in the WordPress space, doing great work, and that work quickly gets washed away through a storm of scathing outrage. When Josepha asked the community in her WCUS 2023 talk, “Why is it important that we are thriving?” The answer was, “because WordPress can change a life.”

Words can also change a person’s life.

Simple words like developer meeting can make a WordPress power user feel like whatever’s going on at that table, isn’t for them. WordPress entrepreneur can cast a vibe of WordPress but with Shark Tank, and who wants that? Words that attack or summarize a persons worth through petty insults, that can change a life, immeasurably.

For WordPress to thrive people must want to contribute. Contribute to code, to design, to meetings, and above all else, to the conversations about our beloved software. It’s not about your code, your profits, your 5%, or your lowercase P — it’s that you recognize how open source WordPress empowers us.

It empowers us to do everything I just said — code, profit, 5% — and through this, it creates opportunity.

Opportunity for you, and the people that you impact, through your work, with WordPress. This has a ripple effect. The more people that discover opportunity through WordPress, the wider that ripple spreads to the next person, and to the next person.

Though there’s an odd juxtaposition this week:

A 100-year plan announced at WordPress.com to ensure your life’s work is preserved for a generation to come. But, will WordPress last 100 years like this?

To ask for a hand in helping WordPress thrive across members of our online and offline community in favor of spreading the larger mission: Democratize Publishing. But is that really the mission we’re all on?

You have to want this for yourself and for WordPress.

I’ve been a critic of WordPress for a while. Not to be confused with being outright critical of WordPress. My angle has always been perched at the view of, what I call, the blue-collar digital worker.

When a leader de-value’s someone’s position in a community, they aren’t knocking down one person, but an entire group of people, that feel like their worth is being ripped from them. “If that person isn’t good enough, how am I?” They might ask.

When a leader mocks the accomplishments of one person, there’s another person standing right behind them trying to find footing to reach that very same height of success. “Why should I continue if this isn’t good enough?” They might ask.

This is not thriving, this is soul crushing. Leadership loses the very thing they need in order for WordPress to thrive: Trust.

Trust that people want to wake up and go do WordPress. Whatever doing WordPress means to them.

Trust that we’re all on the same shared mission of The Four Freedoms and to Democratize Publishing.

Losing trust means you lose belief from the people on the mission with you. Sure, people will continue to write Iines of code for WordPress, because they need to survive. WordPress isn’t going to get replaced anytime soon, and most humans aren’t going to walk away from it as a means to their survival.

But they will fall out of love for it, what it meant, and what it could be. There’s no parade for leaders at the of this mission. We arrive home, shut the door, and put our laptops away.

How was your day with WordPress?

Two people started WordPress. Thousands of people have contributed lines of code to WordPress. Tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands!) have spread the good word of WordPress — faults and all.

WordPress is amazing because it can change a life. I believe it. I am it. You are it.

But after this week, I can’t help but ask: Will WordPress thrive, or simply survive the next 100 years?

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If you missed out on WordCamp US 2023, today’s episode will share some of the highlights from the talks of Matt Mullenweg and Josepha Haden Chomphosy. I urge you to watch the entirety of their presentations, but to also tweet at us to share your thoughts on the future of WordPress.

Clips include

• Mullenweg’s outlook to WordPress 6.4 and Twenty Twenty Four theme.
• What does WordPress and Collaboration look like?
• WordPress will look different soon
• A collab of LMS plugin providers takes shape
• “How to keep WordPress thriving” asks Josepha

In the news

Here’s a list of the articles or links, mentioned in today’s episode!

• FesteringVault is back with more annoyances.
• WordPress Accessibility Day 2023 (Look for an interview with Amber Hinds soon on WP Minute+!)
• WP Tavern highlighted These top agencies made a free WordPress for Enterprise PDF.
• Allie Nimmons says goodbye.
• There’s a new Consortium on the block.

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There’s a solid batch of headlines this week that I think you’ll find interesting before you head out to WordCamp US next week.

Speaking of, if you’re headed to WordCamp next week, be sure to say hi! I’d love to hear more about your experiences with the WP Minute and any feedback you might have. The entire WP Minute squad will be there like Me, Eric, and Raquel.

Equalize Digital is blasting off into outer space — literally!

NASA selected Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker for automated accessibility testing in WordPress. To make reports easier to understand for non-developers, Equalize Digital developed the front-end highlighting feature. This feature adds a “view on page” link to each issue in Accessibility Checker’s reports that, when clicked, takes users to the public view of the web page, highlights the element with a dashed pink box around it, and shows a panel explaining the issue and how to fix it.

The WP Community Collective Successfully Funds the First Fellowship for the WordPress Contributor Community.

The WP Community Collective is proud to announce the successful funding and launch of their inaugural Fellowship program, the WPCC Accessibility Fellowship. Long-term WordPress contributor Alex Stine was selected by the WPCC as the inaugural Accessibility Fellow as a result of his expertise in accessibility and seven years of experience as a WordPress contributor.

group.one strengthens WordPress commitment with acquisition of BackWPup.

WordPress plugin BackWPup is joining group.one, along with two newly acquired plugins Adminimize and Search & Replace, adding to the group’s growing WordPress ecosystem. group.one acquired the three WordPress plugins with a combined base of more than 1.1 million users from German WordPress agency Inpsyde GmbH, bolstering the group’s WordPress offering alongside flagship products WP Rocket, Imagify and Rank Math SEO.

The Make Team announced a new Blocks page on WordPress.org intending to be a strong starting point for visitors looking to see what blocks can do within WordPress and beyond.

Citing the original Github ticket created back in March 2023 from Ben Greeley “Currently, there isn’t a page on wordpress.org that explains in a compelling way what ‘Blocks’ are or markets it very effectively on the website. We have a filter in the plugin directory, which is useful, but that page is lacking the context of what blocks are, what the block editor is, and why it is so exciting. “

My First Million podcast, co-hosted by Sam Parr the founder of TheHustle.co now owned by Hubspot, interviews Awesome Motive founder Syed Bahlki.

2023 has drawn a lot of criticism around AM’s products and how WP Beginner leverages it’s content juggernaut for their products. I thought it was important to include an interview with Syed that didn’t revolve around WordPress, but to understand his approach to business and life.

We have some fresh new content on the WP Minute!

This week Eric Karkovack wrote about what he’s looking forward to experience at WordCamp US next week.

I sat down with Paid Memberships Pro founder Kim Coleman to help me understand how she uses ChatGPT for her content and marketing needs.

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We have a packed episode today chock full of WordPress news goodness, including some audio clips from Courtney Robertson, Jeff Chandler, and Rich Tabor sharing what they love about WordPress 6.3. 

First up, Aurooba Ahmed shared her new project wphelpers.dev which gives you a snazzy UI for all core WordPress blocks and their functionality. 

You can expand each block and peel back the JS-y goodness that each block is powered by. Direct link right to the GitHub repo, and more developer features. If you’re coding blocks or beginning to learn WordPress development, you’ll want to bookmark this site. Post Status announced their upcoming WP Career summit.

Join us for the WP Career Summit If you’re looking for a career in WordPress, want to host a talk, or find out how to reach potential employers you won’t want to miss everything happening on October 20, 2023 when the summit kicks off. 

The WP Tavern covered a recent story pertaining to the massive backlog of plugins to be reviewed at WordPress.org. The list includes over 900 plugins awaiting approval. Sarah Gooding cites “The volunteer team responsible for reviewing plugins has undergone significant restructuring after the departure of long-time contributor Mika Epstein”

WordPress 6.3 is here! Pressable and GoDaddy have you covered with a top-to-bottom look at all of the great new features. Stick around to the end of the episode to hear more from our special guests about their WordPress 6.3 goodness.

Anne McCarthy posted an overview on how to produce WordPress demo videos for official WordPress release announcements. 

I applaud the team for opening up this marketing effort to the greater community. The article is ripe with guidance on what to consider before creating a video tutorial, and how the overhead of creating an asset like this might need to be dispersed throughout many contributing members. 

I do have a hot take here: As a content creator, make your own video tutorials and post them on your own YouTube channel, blog, or social media platform before committing to something like this. 

While this might be the only way someone like me could ever get credit for contributing to WordPress, but I’d prefer not to have such a rigid approach to how I show off WordPress — warts and all. 

Before we wrap up, I want you to check out the latest content from WP Minute’s editor, Eric Karkovack. This week he wrote a great piece exploring what it would take for other CMS’s to catch up to WordPress dominance. 

I’m still amazed that the closest CMS to WordPress is Shopify. WordPress is roughly 10x that of the e-commerce platform. 

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In this episode of the WP Minute podcast, host Matt discusses various WordPress news and topics.

He starts by highlighting a WordPress.com initiative to encourage people to transfer their domain registration from Google Domains to WordPress.com. Matt also talks about a joint effort by open source projects, including WordPress, to raise concerns about the proposed Cyber Resilience Act in the European Union.

He mentions an article about the new WordPress editor, Gutenberg, and concludes by remembering and honoring two individuals who made significant contributions to the WordPress community. Matt encourages listeners to subscribe to the podcast and mentions available sponsorships.

WordPress.com offers to pay domain transfer fees for the first million

1. WordPress.com is offering to cover the transfer fee for the first million domains that move from Google to WordPress.com. This also extends the domain registration for an additional year.
2. WordPress.com commits to matching or even lowering the renewal price that users were paying with Google Domains. This applies to over 400 top-level domains (TLDs) they offer. They also promise to keep domain prices low, only raising them if their wholesale costs increase.
3. WordPress.com has been a domain name provider for over a decade and is committed to the open and inclusive web. They aim to support users’ ability to truly own their content and identity on the web. Users don’t need a site or hosting plan to manage their domains with WordPress.com.

Link

WordPress, Drupal, Typo3, and Joomla join forces

1. Open Source Matters, Inc. (Joomla), Typo3, WordPress, and the Drupal Association have issued a joint letter to the legislators of the European Union raising concerns about the proposed Cyber Resilience Act. This is a significant move as these four organizations collectively serve over 50% of the European websites.
2. The organizations argue that the proposed regulation could undermine effective software practices due to its ban on “unfinished software”. They also express concern that the expansive definition of “commercial activity” could deter the contributions of many developers to open source software.
3. The groups see this as an opportunity to explain the unique role that Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) plays in the software that underpins much of the web and to develop a model for how regulation should be applied to it. They also aim to educate legislators and policy-makers about the shared values that open source communities have with the European Union.

Link

This project is moving hella fast

1. The author expresses their love for Gutenberg, the block editor for WordPress, but also highlights its rapid pace of development. They note that this speed can sometimes leave developers behind, especially due to the shift from PHP to JavaScript (JS).
2. The author discusses the challenges of debugging Gutenberg, particularly when encountering errors. They note that unlike PHP, where errors are logged in a file, JS errors are logged in the browser console. This shift in error handling can be confusing for developers used to PHP.
3. The author criticizes the lack of proper documentation for Gutenberg, particularly when it comes to resolving specific errors. They argue that the current documentation is inadequate and that developers often have to search through GitHub issues to find solutions to their problems. They believe this is one of the reasons why some developers have negative feelings towards Gutenberg.

Link

Remember those that have passed

WordPress dedicates this page to the memory of those we’ve lost. They’ve shaped our project and enriched our community. As we remember their passion and commitment to WordPress and open source software, we celebrate their spirit.

Forever in our hearts, their legacy endures through every line of code and every user they’ve impacted.

Link

From the grab bag!

Here are some other interesting links from the week.

• https://www.underrepresentedintech.com/webinars/sponsor/
• https://wptavern.com/classicpress-community-considers-re-forking-woocommerce-for-classic-commerce-v2
• https://jonathanbossenger.com/2023/07/28/the-state-of-wordpress-developer-tools-survey-results/
• https://us.wordcamp.org/2023/schedule/

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If you're sick and tired of the WordPress dashboard, maybe you want to give Eric's post, The WordPress Dashboard Needs Some Love, a read. Also in today's episode, I'm reminding you about our other podcast feed The WP MInute+, a free podcast that covers the long form WordPress discussions like my old podcast, The Matt Report.

The conversation I just published featuring CliftonWP highlights a lot of what a modern day WordPress entrepreneur is thinking in this fast paced iteration of our favorite CMS. Be sure to add us to your podcast app! Search for "The WP Minute" and you'll see both podcasts available to follow.

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There are a lot of exciting features coming to WordPress 6.3 which will set the tone for the next few years of our favorite CMS.

We’ll explore the upcoming state of this new release and provide some thoughts on which demographic of WordPress user it’s shaping to serve. As always, please share this on social and be sure to join the newsletter.

The Not-So-Nice Side of the WordPress Community

1. The WordPress community, like any other, has its share of negative behaviors and incidents. While the majority of the community is supportive and positive, there are instances of abuse and misconduct that can’t be ignored.
2. Several recent incidents highlight the issue: Mika Epstein, a member of the WordPress Plugin Review team, faced abusive behavior from plugin developers; Raiber Cristian, a WordPress developer, decided to stop offering free support on WordPress.org due to abusive behavior; and WordCamp Dhaka was cancelled due to concerns about corporate influence and favoritism.
3. The author suggests that the community needs to police itself, support each other, and stay informed about abusers. They also suggest that more concrete rules could be part of the solution, but acknowledge the challenges in enforcing them and the potential for unfairness.

Read the original article

Accessibility expert Adrian Roselli sued for wanting accessibility to be accessible

• Adrian Roselli, a well-known accessibility expert, is being sued by AccessiBe, a company that provides automated accessibility solutions. The lawsuit is in response to Roselli’s criticism of AccessiBe’s product.
• Roselli’s main argument is that automated tools like AccessiBe’s cannot fully ensure a website’s accessibility and may give a false sense of compliance, potentially leading to legal issues for the website owners.
• The lawsuit has sparked a backlash from the web accessibility community, with many viewing it as an attempt to silence valid criticism and discussion about the effectiveness of automated accessibility tools.

Read the original article

Vox media drops its own CMS

• It stopped licensing Chorus to external publishers last year, per Adweek, but continued to use it to power its own network of over a dozen digital media sites.
• The company still owns other tech products, including Concert, its advertising platform, and Coral, the commenting platform it acquired in 2019. But moving forward, monetizing its own audience engagement will become a bigger focus.
• Vox Media will move its own websites off of Chorus and into WordPress VIP, the enterprise arm of the 20-year-old CMS company.

Read the original article

Use ChatGPT to Generate Group Conversation Topics for Your Online Community

• The article discusses how AI, specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT, can be used to generate conversation topics for various online communities, including those focused on Brie cheese lovers, video game wiki writers, backyard gardeners, and digital nomad business owners.
• The author emphasizes the importance of a well-crafted prompt in generating relevant and engaging conversation topics. Being clear and specific in communicating what you want from the AI greatly improves the chances of getting a useful response.
• The article also promotes Paid Memberships Pro, a WordPress plugin for building and managing online communities. The plugin allows users to sell free and paid subscriptions to their community and offers a variety of add-ons and integrations designed for community websites.

Read the original article

Links from the grab bag

• Jeff Matson has officially joined Pressable’s marketing team
• Syed Bahlki defends WordPress with a $1M wager
• WPCoffeeTalk: Going deeper with Bluehost new Wondersuite
• Watch the 6.3 product demo

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Matt explores some of the more challenging aspects of the WordPress project, in today's episode. With so many parts of the project being planned or already underway, the challenge to keep up with the software's evolution might become rather difficult. Pointing to a WordCamp talk from Courtney Robertson "We are they" Matt provides a bit of a public service announcement to dealing with the upcoming changes.

Read this week's news updates on the website.

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In this WP Minute podcast episode, Matt discusses changes in WordPress. He focuses on a feature called the Command Palette. This used to be known as the Wayfinder. Matt talks about how this is similar to things you can find in Apple's Spotlight and Descript Notion. He also looks at the competition between WordPress and new platforms like Wix and Squarespace.

Then, Matt talks about what it's like to run a WordPress news site. He shares his experience trying to work with WordCamp, but getting rejected. He thinks about how the relationship between media and events like WordCamp could get better. This episode gives a straightforward look at the challenges of running a WordPress media site and why it's important for people to know your brand. If you're interested in what's next for WordPress or how media partnerships work, this is a great episode to listen to.

WordPress 6.3 Will Introduce A Command Palette

• WordPress 6.3 will feature a new tool called the Command Palette, designed to be a quick search and command execution tool.
• There was a discussion about renaming the Command Center to Wayfinder, but the majority of participants were against it due to translation and comprehension issues.
• The decision to move forward with the name Command Palette was made because it's easier to translate, consistent with other tooling outside of WordPress, and it matches the current functionality.
• The API for the Command Palette is now public and ready for developers to create their own custom commands.

Original Article

Podcasting as a Marketing Strategy

• The article discusses the potential of using podcasting as part of a marketing strategy, regardless of the industry.
• The podcast episode features a conversation between Michelle and Hazel about the different podcasts she manages and how podcasting can help spread the word about a company.
• They discuss the importance of understanding what your audience wants to hear and where they look when considering podcasting as a marketing strategy.
• Michelle provides a presentation about starting a podcast, which can be accessed through a link in the article.

Original Article

CMS Market Share Analysis June 2023

• WordPress continues to lead the CMS market share, remaining stable over the last year.
• Shopify shows a small decline, but still presents strong financial numbers.
• Prestashop, which was acquired in 2021, is the fastest-growing CMS in the top 10 and shows real promise.
• The article provides an in-depth analysis of the CMS market share, with special attention to eCommerce platforms.

Original Article

AI Website Builder: The Next-Gen Builder Created by 10Web

• 10Web offers an AI-powered website builder that allows users to build or recreate any website in minutes.
• The platform provides AI-generated content and images, and allows customization with a drag-and-drop editor.
• In addition to the AI Website Builder, 10Web offers services like automated WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting, cloud hosting, BuddyBoss hosting, and more.
• The platform also offers a range of plugins and a blog for users to explore.

Original Website

How Guildenberg Hopes To Improve the WordPress Ecosystem

• Guildenberg is an organization aiming to address challenges faced by product founders in the WordPress ecosystem, which lacks cohesiveness and standards for code and marketing.
• The organization believes that product creators are key to growing the WordPress ecosystem and mitigating the tradeoffs of decentralization.
• Guildenberg plans to help products succeed through collaboration, without picking winners and losers.
• The WP Minute article includes a Q&A with Jonathan Wold, CEO of Guildenberg, who shares his vision for bringing positive and profitable change to the WordPress ecosystem.

Original Article

10 WordPress Site Editor (FSE) Features You Didn't Know About

• The WordPress Full-Site Editing (FSE), also known as the Site Editor, is a relatively new addition to the WordPress platform and is under continuous development.
• The article discusses some lesser-known features of the WordPress Site Editor that can help users build better designs and customize their sites more effectively.
• One of the features highlighted is the ability to change style variations, which allows users to change the entire look of their theme with a single click.
• Another feature is the ability to edit styles for individual blocks, which can be applied site-wide, providing a consistent look across different templates.

Original Article

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