WP Builds

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 17th July 2023.

Welcome to the 12th episode of our 'Thinking the Unthinkable' series. Today we shall be squirming in our seats as we talk about whether  'Affiliate marketing is disingenuous'. Affiliate marketing has never been our thing, but with making content there has to be some way to pay for the time. Certainly we have earned some commissions from it via our individual content. I think it fair to say we have struggled with it and here we are questioning whether it is a necessary or unnecessary evil. Is it a useful way for WordPress product owners to make some additional income? Perhaps you think that it's a sleazy way for marketers to hype products which they don't believe in? Maybe it's both, or neither! Have a listen to the podcast, and then leave is a comment.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 10th July 2023.

On the podcast today we have Vova Feldman, the founder of Freemius. Vova is an entrepreneur with a passion for software development. He was introduced to WordPress by accident. While working as a software developer in the Israeli intelligence and doing startups on the side, Vova created a SaaS product as a hobby. People started requesting a WordPress plugin for his product, which sparked his curiosity about the platform. Vova delved into WordPress and created his first plugin, realising the potential of turning his side project into a WooCommerce solution. This led to building a platform to help developers easily commercialise their own passion projects - Freemius, a platform that simplifies the process of bringing products to market. The conversation is varied, covering two quite different subjects, podcasting (Vova's new podcast) and Freemius. If you're interested in selling your WordPress product, this podcast is worth a listen.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 3rd July 2023.

It is the 11th episode of our “Thinking the Unthinkable” series, and today's thought provoking title is “No one cares what your website looks like!”. There’s a number of articles with this title and similar sentiment expressed by many UX designers and SEO’s. With limited ways to judge the abilities of a web agency, many clients are likely to approach websites as if they were a piece of work in an art gallery. This can see them getting ripped off. It is hard for us not to do the same. We know first impressions matter, and we are always searching for visual inspiration too. We get into how UX, SEO, branding, call to actions (and more) can influence the route that you might take when creating a website. Check out the episode...

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 3rd July 2023.

On the podcast today we have a lovely conversation with Derek Ashauer. He's been working with WordPress for many years, and has gone through a few changes during that time. I suspect that many of you will really identify with this podcast. The idea that you're a web developer, plugin / theme / block author, content creator etc. might suit you for a while, but perhaps you've had itchy feet from time to time. Derek certainly has! He started out building websites in decades ago, but for a variety of reasons this did not seem to be 'the thing' that he wanted to do year after year. And so, in 2013 he decided to turn his attention into plugin development. Success (whatever that means) always seemed to be a little further into the future. Although his Sunshine Photocart plugin was doing fine, it was not the end of the road. You'll hear Derek explain that he's not that comfortable with marketing, having a more self deprecating demeanour (he fits right in here). So this podcast is all about listening to a nice person talking about how to transition from being an agency, dealing with clients, to being a product owner. Just lovely!

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 19th June 2023.

This is the 10th episode of our "Thinking the Unthinkable" series and today's thoroughly unsavoury thought is “Why pay full price when we have GPL clubs?”. I think to put things in perspective we need a bit of history. We tend to think of GPL clubs as a bit shady, but you could also argue that they serve as an essential consumer rights movement within WordPress. Let's start in the year 0. In the beginning was the Word. A few millennia later in the year 2003 WordPress comes along. It would not exist without the freedoms of the General Public Licence as it was a folk of b2/cafelog. It's build on the GPL and this allows for free use of code which sits on top of WordPress. But is this fair to the developers? Is it fair your clients? Are we all going to end up with malware infected plugins and themes which will wreak havoc on our site, or should we just talk a breath, calm down, and realise that this is all just fine? Find out what we think on the podcast today.