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This week in WordPress
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New Jazzy Designs for WordPress.org Get Thumbs Up From Community
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As WordPress enthusiast and marketer Gobinda Tarafdar put it, "Finally, WP.org got a new look after a decade. I must say a decade. Previously it was not that much appealing look alike 90's HTML site. Great work, team. Kudos to the contributors who made efforts to get the new shape. Especially the #WCEU cover photo 😍 #WordPress."
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MainWP Growth Manager Mustaasam Saleem also praised the team's efforts, tweeting, "@WordPress.org Redesigned! Happy to be on their homepage representing @MyMainWP & @WPfounders. Thanks to @WCEurope 2022. 😉"
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But as Gooding notes, "Although the designs have received overwhelmingly positive feedback, their journey to development was not without a few bumps in the road." After long-time Automattic-sponsored core contributor Alex Shiels posted an update about taking the designs into development, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg's criticism of the pace of the project drew indignation from some folks in the community.
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Gooding rightly concludes, "In addition to giving WordPress.org a fresh coat of paint, the project has sparked a larger conversation about how challenging it still is to build out simple designs with the block editor, even for the people who make WordPress."
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Questions Raised About State of Block Editor and WordPress Leadership
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The WordPress.org redesign project has also sparked conversations about the state of the WordPress block editor.
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WordPress Creator Mullenweg: Designing In Wix Is Faster is Roger Montti's headline at Search Engine Journal after Matt Mullenweg commented on Alex Shiels's redesign update, "… it's such a basic layout, it's hard to imagine it taking a single person more than a day on Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, or one of the WP page builders."
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The redesign project also ignited conversations about WordPress leadership. Especially Matt Mullenweg's.
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As MasterWP's Brian Coords says in WordPress Leadership has a Public Relations Problem, "It feels like we can't go an entire month without the WordPress leadership team serving up something that feels intentionally designed to induce a chorus of groans and face-palms from anyone who follows the inner workings of the open source project."
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Meanwhile, for Post Status, Publisher and Owner, Cory Miller, unpacks the web publishing tool race and how WordPress is doing compared to projects like Ghost.
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OrganizeWP Launches with "Old School Software Pricing Model"
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The plugin organizes content in the WordPress admin with a single, unified view and UI for streamlining common actions. For $29, users get access to updates and support for version 2. Licenses are available for the current major version with no subscription.
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But what about the challenge of maintaining multiple major versions? Gravity Forms founder Carl Hancock says it, "… sounds like a nightmare to me."
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Weather Report: 75% of WooCommerce Sales Go to 3 Sellers
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"Our napkin math estimates 75% of sales go to 3 sellers," tweeted founder Alex Denning, who said the "first mover" advantage enjoyed by SkyVerge (now owned by GoDaddy), Prospress (acquired by Automattic in 2019), and Woo "is quite remarkable."
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Denning also tweeted, "Our napkin math estimates most products all-time have $10-50k revenue. You're an outlier if you get to $100k+" adding, "I'm bullish on the potential here: a thriving Marketplace with is important for the success of the ecosystem. We see first-mover sellers enjoying success; if the best time to start selling there was 5 years ago, next best is today."
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Gutenberg 13.9 "Continues Iteration and Polishing"
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Business Spotlight: LearnDash
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LearnDash is taking cutting-edge e-learning methodology and infusing it into WordPress. We're trusted to power the learning programs for major universities, small to mid-size companies, startups, entrepreneurs, and bloggers worldwide.
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- Press the Issue: Digital producer Allie Nimmons and developer Teron Bullock talk about navigating negative criticism online without sacrificing one's professional reputation.
- The WP Minute: Winstina Hughes discusses what inspired her to launch Sponsor Inclusion in Tech, an initiative that aims to connect people who want to speak at WordCamps with companies willing to pay for their travel and/or lodging.
- Do the Woo: On a recent episode, Google-sponsored core contributor Adam Silverstein discusses how WordPress core ties into the performance for large plugins like WooCommerce.
- Post Status Live: Host Cory Miller and WordPress VIP Lead Solutions Engineer Sean O'Shaughnessy use blind case study examples to illustrate WordPress hosting at a massive scale.
- Post Status Excerpt: LearnDash Product Manager Jack Kitterhing joined the latest episode to talk about using Gutenberg and Full Site Editing to prevent learning products from being copied and resold.
- Post Status Excerpt: MasterWP editorial director (and new Post Status contributor—more on this later) Nyasha Green talks about pay transparency in the hiring process, and how this disproportionately affects candidates of color.
- WP Tavern Jukebox: Yoast's Marieke Van De Rakt and Taco Verdonschot sat down with host Nathan Wrigley during WordCamp Europe to talk about the SEO company's acquisition by Newfold Digital.
- Torque Social Hour: How can WordPress power the Metaverse? In this episode, Anthony Burchell talks about Three Object Viewer, a WordPress plugin that enables 3D functionality for VR/AR experiences.
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#WPCommunityFeels: Sam Munoz
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This week, what's inspiring Sam Munoz, Community Manager for Developer Relations at WP Engine. Sam has been a freelance WordPress expert since 2018 and has a passion for serving the community and empowering women in tech through mentorship & outreach.
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A podcast worth listening to: Truthfully, I have taken a break from podcasts for a while and have replaced them with long-form, written content instead. Because of this, I appreciate WP Owls so much for summarizing things that are happening in the WordPress space so I can easily find a round-up of news and various articles to read. I've also heard they're going through a rebrand of sorts, I can't wait to see what they come up with. It's already a pleasant reading experience, I imagine it will be even better!
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A concept worth understanding: Without question, I would spend time learning and understanding Modern WordPress. That phrase can encompass a lot of things, but what I mean by that are things like the block editor and Full Site Editing. Like many, I resisted learning and spending time embracing the new direction of WordPress, but now that I've leaned into it, I see the potential for business owners. I'd check out Learn WordPress or Carolina Nymark's incredible resource, fullsitediting.com to get started.
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A Twitter account worth following: I am such a big fan of Ellen Bauer, co-creator of @AinoBlocks, among many other projects. She is a force in the era of Modern WordPress and it's inspiring watching her business grow. Seeing women crush it in this space is so motivating to me.
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An article worth reading: Brian Gardner is a good friend & colleague of mine and never ceases to inspire me. His latest article on Torque Magazine, Big Yellow Signs, is worth a read. It's all about seizing opportunities and moments to live out your truest life vision and purpose.
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A habit worth forming: Life is a series of ups and downs, which is why I practice daily and moment-by-moment gratitude as a habit. Every obstacle is an opportunity, every problem has a solution waiting to be found. Living life with a positive mindset won't fix everything, but your perspective of your life will be vastly different when you take the time to truly appreciate every little thing.
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Building Next Generation Forms with WS Form
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In this session, Mark Westguard, founder of WS Form, will be giving a demo of the key features of his incredible WordPress form plugin and how it can help GoDaddy Pro users improve their form development workflow.
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Some of the topics we’ll be covering include:
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- Powerful, no-code form building
- Responsive forms
- Rapid form testing
- Form-centric conditional logic
- Bi-directional integration
- Reduced active plugins
- Respecting accessibility
We'll have a Q&A session with Mark for those joining us LIVE. Plus, Mark has a special offer just for our GoDaddy Pro audience!
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This free virtual event is presented by GoDaddy Pro and will take place on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3pm EDT.
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Read more and register here.
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In other WordPress news...
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- If you're not following Learn WordPress Online Workshops on Meetup.com, you may be missing out on some high quality events, reports Sarah Gooding at WPTavern. WordPress experts from across the world have been collaborating on virtual events with instruction at the same caliber of excellence you might find at an in-person WordCamp.
- This week, Post Status welcomed Nyasha Green and Daniel Schutzsmith to its contributor team. Green, who is a Software Developer at Howard Consulting as well as Editorial Director at MasterWP, will be working with editor Dan Knauss to reboot Post Status' weekly podcast The Excerpt, while Schutzsmith, the Web Design & Development Manager for Pinellas County Government, will curate the site's weekly developer and technology news.
- Speaking of Post Status, owner and publisher, Cory Miller, was required to take some time away from work in late 2021 following a series of physical and emotional events. Now Miller is sharing what he learned from his time away in "Takeaways From My ‘Forced' Sabbatical," a presentation he recorded last month and published earlier this week.
- WooCommerce core developers have submitted a Request for Change (RFC) to reduce the size of the WooCommerce plugin archive. If you're using WooCommerce, be sure to review how this change could impact debugging your workflows.
- There's still time to nominate your favorite WordPress products for The WP Awards. The second annual awards, run by The WP Weekly, offers a great way to support your favorite products and companies.
- WP Engine's new WordPress Contributor Days (the next of which is coming up on August 26) offer its employees a dedicated time and space to contribute to core. Now WP Engine is working to expand its Contributor Day events to include folks outside of WP Engine.
- WP Engine has also expanded its executive leadership team to support product and tech innovation. Founder Jason Cohen has been appointed as the company's first Chief Innovation Officer. Ezinne Udezue has been appointed as Chief Product Officer and will lead product strategy and management across the company's WordPress tech brands and developer solutions, while Ramadass Prabhakar (previously the senior VP of Global Engineering) has been elevated to Chief Technology Officer.
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