


<p><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/">WordCamp US</a> (WCUS), North America&#8217;s largest WordPress event, hosted over 1,500 attendees from around the world at the <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/location/">Oregon Convention Center</a> in Portland, from September 17 to 20.</p>



<p>Over four days, WordPress professionals and enthusiasts came together to explore the latest advancements and use cases, collaborate on open source projects, and strengthen community connections.</p>



<p>A dedicated team of more than 40 volunteers, led by <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/aaroncampbell/">Aaron D. Campbell</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/juliarosia/">Julia Golomb</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/katiejrichards/">Katie Richards</a>, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/sunsand187/">Sandy Edwards</a>, made the event possible.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Building WordPress</h2>



<p><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/contributor-day/">Contributor Day</a> brought together over 400 contributors across 25 teams to support the WordPress project. As with any Contributor Day, participants learned and collaborated while tackling key projects, including triaging issues, exploring performance improvements, advancing the Twenty Twenty-Five theme, and preparing for the upcoming WordPress 6.7 release.</p>



<img width="1024" height="768" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/09/IMG_7353.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1" alt="Contributor Day 2024 at WordCamp US" class="wp-image-17760" />WordPress contributors discussing all things design at WCUS 2024&#8217;s Contributor Day.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Celebrating WordPress</h2>



<p>At WCUS 2024, the inaugural Showcase Day highlighted how enterprises like <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/session/showcase-keynote-reach-for-the-sky-disney-experiences-magical-transformation-with-gutenberg/">Disney Experiences</a>, <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/session/the-news-never-sleeps-how-wordpress-powers-the-new-york-post/">The New York Post</a>, <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/session/breaking-news-cnns-rise-to-industry-leaders-in-brazil/">CNN</a>, <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/session/reinventing-vox-medias-cms-a-wordpress-migration-technical-deep-dive/">Vox Media</a>, and <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/session/how-to-use-humanity-the-open-source-theme-from-amnesty/">Amnesty International</a> are leveraging WordPress across a variety of industries. With 19 sessions, attendees gained diverse insights into WordPress’s wide-ranging capabilities and features.</p>



<img width="1024" height="768" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/09/IMG_2239.jpeg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1" alt="Disney at WCUS 2024" class="wp-image-17757" />Showcase day presentation by Alexandra Guffey and Katrina Yates of Disney on Gutenberg&#8217;s use in a complex ecosystem of sites.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Sustaining WordPress</h2>



<img width="1024" height="768" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/09/IMG_2288.jpeg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1" alt="Joseph Jacks at WCUS 2024" class="wp-image-17759" />Keynote presenter Joseph Jacks shares thoughts on the future of OSS.



<p>Joseph “JJ” Jacks, founder of OSS Capital, kicked off the first day of programming with a keynote about how open source will dominate the next wave of software. In looking at emerging trends in tech, he expressed how closed core, or closed source, software is hitting a plateau. Commercial open source companies are able to disrupt and forge the path for a shift in the space.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Sharing his optimism for the future, JJ highlighted emerging projects OSS Capital is excited about and emphasized that the most successful open source companies thrive by generating more value than they capture.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Learn WordPress</h2>



<p>The second half of the conference featured more than 20 sessions and workshops across <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/schedule/">three tracks</a>. Topics ranged from leveraging AI in WordPress to getting the most out of wp-admin.</p>



<p>Thursday&#8217;s dedicated networking session brought attendees to the sponsor hall to explore and connect with the vast ecosystem of hosts, plugins, agencies, and service providers. The WordCamp US Lounge, located within the exhibit hall, held focused discussions on hosting, neurodiversity, inclusivity, and content marketing.</p>



<p>Friday began with a <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/session/how-time-uses-patterns-to-drive-recirculation-and-engagement/">fireside chat between TIME’s CTO Burhan Hamid and WordPress VIP’s CMO Tim Hossain</a>. The duo discussed how TIME&#8217;s implementation of reusable components allowed them to scale and support major traffic-generating topics such as Taylor Swift’s Person of the Year, House of the Dragon, and political events.</p>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-1 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/09/DSC01144.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1" alt="Troubador Typewriter at the Code is Poetry Lounge, WCUS 2024" class="wp-image-17756" />WordCamp attendees stopped by the Code is Poetry lounge to try their hands at the vintage Smith Corona and have a poem written by the Typewriter Troubadour.
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/09/DSC_6862.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1" alt="Campfire Lounge at WCUS 2024" class="wp-image-17754" />Attendees take a break in the center of the exhibit hall at the “campfire&#8221; where various discussions were held throughout the event.
</div>
</div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Q&amp;A with Cofounder Mullenweg</h2>



<p>In a dynamic keynote, WordPress Cofounder Matt Mullenweg delivered <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnI-QcVSwMU">one of his &#8220;spiciest&#8221; WordCamp presentations</a>, combining insights on WordPress’s open source future with a creative twist. He opened by reading his recent <a href="https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/">post</a> that explores open source philosophy, touching on themes of freedom, collaboration, and the ongoing influence of open source projects like WordPress. Mullenweg also critiqued companies for misleadingly labeling proprietary models as open source, stressing the importance of true open source licenses for the future of software freedom.</p>



<p>Matt further emphasized WordPress’s ecosystem-driven development and highlighted the <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/">Five for the Future</a> initiative, an effort to avoid the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons">tragedy of the commons</a> and ensure that WordPress thrives for everyone. His speech addressed community concerns about companies profiting off WordPress without giving back and urged attendees to support companies that contribute to the platform’s growth.</p>



<p>Before diving into the Q&amp;A segment of the presentation, Matt expressed the importance of recognizing:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>“What we create together is bigger than any one person.”</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-2 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/09/DSC_7217-2.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1" alt="Matt Mullenweg speaking at WCUS 2024 in Portland, Oregon USA" class="wp-image-17755" />WordPress Cofounder Matt Mullenweg on the main stage at WCUS 2024.
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<img width="1024" height="684" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/09/ZSP_0761.jpg?resize=1024%2C684&ssl=1" alt="Matt Mullengweg and Brian Richards taking the stage at WCUS 2024." class="wp-image-17761" />Matt Mullenweg and Brian Richards on stage at WCUS 2024.
</div>
</div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Save the Dates</h2>



<p>In his closing remarks, emcee <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/rzen/">Brian Richards</a> expressed gratitude for the fantastic work the event organizers and volunteers contributed to produce WCUS 2024.</p>



<p>Brian reminded attendees to save the date for <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2025">WordCamp US 2025</a>, which will once again take place in Portland, Oregon, from August 26 to 29, 2025.&nbsp;</p>



<img width="792" height="1024" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/09/1000013801.jpg?resize=792%2C1024&ssl=1" alt="WCUS 2024 Attendees gather for a group photo." class="wp-image-17753" />Attendees gather at WCUS in Portland, Oregon.



<p>No WordCamp is complete without an after-party, with this year’s taking place at the <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/lets-get-social-at-the-wcus-social/">Oregon Museum of Science and Industry</a> (OMSI). Attendees concluded a week of WordPress with refreshments while visiting the exhibits—including a submarine and planetarium—and posing in the photo booth.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Stay connected</h2>



<p><a href="https://events.wordpress.org/">WordPress events</a> enable technologists, open source enthusiasts, and community members around the globe to meet, share ideas, and collaborate to drive WordPress and the open web forward.</p>



<p>Mark your calendars for <a href="https://wordpress.org/state-of-the-word/">State of the Word</a> (Tokyo) on December 16, 2024, 2025’s <a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/">WordCamp Asia</a> in Manila, <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2025/">WordCamp Europe</a> in Basel, Switzerland, and <a href="http://us.wordcamp.org/2025">WordCamp US</a> in Portland, Oregon!</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<p>This post is a collaboration between the contributors who produce content for <a href="https://wordpress.org/news">wordpress.org/news</a> and the WordCamp US Communications Team.</p>



<p>Props to the following contributors for the work reviewing/contributing to this post: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/rmartinezduque/">@rmartinezduque</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/juliarosia/">@juliarosia</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/brettface/">@brettface</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/eidolonnight/">@eidolonnight</a>, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/">@cbringmann</a>. Thank you to the Photos Team for supplying images for this post and the official WordPress social media accounts throughout the event: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/gwallace87/">@gwallace87</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/m_butcher/">@m_butcher</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/correliebre/">@correliebre</a>, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/zstepek/">@zstepek</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 21 Sep 2024 07:10:48 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Dan Soschin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"Gutenberg Times: Four #WCUS Talks, Multi-block plugin, Tabor’s new theme, and more — Weekend Edition #305";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=30091";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:108:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/four-wcus-talks-multi-block-plugin-tabors-new-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-305/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:19808:"<p>Hi there, </p>



<p>This turned out to be a slow news week in WordPress, apart from four days of WordCamp US. <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/pdx-wcus-2024-a-recap/">You can read the recap here</a>. </p>



<p>I miss my US WordPress friends, I haven&#8217;t seen since 2022. To give you a head start on watching the fantastic programming, I added four video links in this edition. I held back the newsletter for the fourth video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnI-QcVSwMU">Matt Mullenweg&#8217;s In-Person Q &amp; A</a>, which was uploaded in the wee hours of this Saturday. </p>



<p><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/">WCUS 2025</a> will take place in Portland again, August 26 &#8211; 29, 2025, and I added it in my calendar to take the long journey to the West coast in Summer once more. Will I see you there? </p>



<p>Have a splendid weekend ahead! </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>





<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/four-wcus-talks-multi-block-plugin-tabors-new-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-305/#0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/four-wcus-talks-multi-block-plugin-tabors-new-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-305/#0-p">Plugins, Themes, and tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/four-wcus-talks-multi-block-plugin-tabors-new-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-305/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme development for full site editing and blocks</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/four-wcus-talks-multi-block-plugin-tabors-new-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-305/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and tools for the Block Editor</a></li></ol>
</div></div>



<p>Join <strong>JuanMa Garrido</strong>, <strong>André Maniero</strong>,  and <strong>Nick Diego</strong> on <strong>September 24th, 2023 at 15:00 UTC</strong> for the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/303330393/"><strong>Developer Hours: An Introduction to Data Views</strong></a>. Data Views offer a flexible way to display data as tables, grids, or lists, with options for filtering, sorting, and more. Even though it&#8217;s still being improved, you can already use the DataViews component in your projects and plugins. In this Developer Hours session, you will explore:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>How to display a custom dataset using Data Views</li>



<li>The fundamentals of the DataViews component</li>



<li>How to add a React app to a custom WordPress admin page</li>
</ul>



<p>Q&amp;A will follow the presentation. As a reminder, <strong>JuanMa Garrido</strong> recently published <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/08/27/using-data-views-to-display-and-interact-with-data-in-plugins/"><strong>Using Data Views to display and interact with data in plugins</strong></a> on the WordPress Developer Blog. </p>



<img width="600" height="338" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Dev-hours-Sep24-DataViews.webp?resize=600%2C338&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30043" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>



<p><strong>Riad Benguella</strong>&#8216;s post on the WordPress Core blog shares critical insights into <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/09/12/gutenberg-development-practices-and-common-pitfalls/"><strong>Gutenberg development practices and pitfalls</strong></a> like inefficient code patterns and the importance of adhering to coding standards. Emphasis is placed on thorough testing and clear documentation to ensure smoother development and collaboration. The post is a handy guide for current and aspiring Gutenberg developers, helping them to avoid mistakes and streamline their workflow for better results. Worth a read if you&#8217;re diving into Gutenberg or looking to polish your skills!</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>The <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/09/20/data-views-update-2/"><strong>second update on DataViews</strong></a> made it on the Make Design Blog. Here are the highlights: </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/09/19/data-views-update-2/#ensure-primary-filter-visibility">Ensure primary filter visibility 🚀</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/09/19/data-views-update-2/#re-order-table-columns-in-view-options">Re-order table columns in view options 🚀</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/09/19/data-views-update-2/#re-balance-header-area-in-list-layout">Re-balance header area in List layout 🚀</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/09/19/data-views-update-2/#combine-featured-image-and-title-field-display">Combine Featured Image and Title field display ⚙️</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/09/19/data-views-update-2/#pin-table-columns-and-rows">Pin table columns and rows 🎨</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/09/19/data-views-update-2/#advanced-filtering">Advanced filtering 🎨</a></li>
</ul>



<img width="652" height="461" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/filters.webp?resize=652%2C461&ssl=1" alt="A view of advanced filtering screen showing how you can combine different filters. " class="wp-image-30157" />



<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<p>🎙️ Latest episode: <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-107-gutenberg-19-2-data-views-and-design-systems/">Gutenberg Changelog #107 – WordPress 6.6.2, Gutenberg 19.2, Data Views and Design Systems</a> with special guest Maggie Cabrera</p>



<img width="652" height="185" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-09-14-at-17.11.43.png?resize=652%2C185&ssl=1" alt="Maggie Cabrera and Birgit Pauli-Haack, recording the Gutenberg Changelog podcast episode 107" class="wp-image-30068" />
</div></div>



<p><strong>Matt Walker</strong>, designer at Automattic, shared his thoughts on <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/09/17/design-systems-storybook-improvements/"><strong>Design Systems: Storybook Improvements</strong></a>. First, he references other design systems based on the Storybook. Then he reviewed the current space and suggests a broader architecture review. Walker is at the start of the exploration and request feedback along the way to find out if he is on the right track with his ideas. At the end of the post, you can also locate previous discussions regarding a future design system on <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/53612">color scales</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/63703">corner radius</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/63757">elevation</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/64340">typography</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-p">Plugins, Themes, and tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>



<p>In case you are keen to learn how the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/tDJ81tD_u4c?si=dMcnl86DsNe5qRnC&t=15103"><strong>Speed building battle</strong></a> with J<strong>amie Marsland</strong> went at WordCamp US, here is the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/tDJ81tD_u4c?si=dMcnl86DsNe5qRnC&t=15103">direct link</a> to the recording from the Live stream.: <strong>Brian Coords </strong>and <strong>Amber Hinds</strong> rebuilt the home page of a site from the <em><a href="https://wordpress.org/showcase/">WordPress Showcase</a></em>: <a href="https://biritemarket.com/">Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco</a>. <strong>Tracy Levesque</strong> <a href="https://x.com/LilJimmi/status/1837025116007674150">commented</a> on X: &#8220;This is one of the best things I’ve ever seen at a WordCamp. It was as riveting as watching a sporting event. Good job, everyone!!&#8221;</p>



<img width="652" height="334" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-09-20-at-10.43.13.png?resize=652%2C334&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30186" />



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Rich Tabor</strong>, product manager at Automattic,  wants you to <a href="https://rich.blog/kanso/"><strong>Meet Kanso, my best blogging theme yet</strong></a>. He wrote: &#8220;In Japanese, &#8216;kanso&#8217; means simplicity or&nbsp;plainness, embodying&nbsp;a minimalist&nbsp;aesthetic that emphasizes&nbsp;clarity&nbsp;and the elimination of the unnecessary. I wanted to create a WordPress theme that reflects this&nbsp;philosophy in&nbsp;the&nbsp;design,&nbsp;writing, publishing, and reading.&#8221; The theme comes with 16 color palettes, and offers various patterns to lay out your post list. The source code is&nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/richtabor/kanso">available on GitHub</a> and the theme is <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/kanso/">also available in the WordPress repository.</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Big Bite</strong> shared a case study about their work with <a href="https://bigbite.net/work/the-times/">The Times &amp; Sunday Times</a>. &#8220;When it comes to breaking news, every second counts. Discover how we transformed digital publishing for one of the UK’s largest publishers, resulting in record-time content creation.&#8221; You&#8217;ll find a video and impressive numbers. To read the full story, you need to give an email address, though. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Automattic&#8217;s special projects team published a list of their <a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/tools/"><strong>open-source tools and plugins</strong></a>. You&#8217;ll find five plugins and two blocks, the <a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/tools/accordion/">Accordion</a> and the <a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/tools/stretchy-type/">Stretchy Type</a> Blocks. The plugins are </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/tools/pause-renewal-actions/">Pause Renewal Actions</a>, </li>



<li><a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/tools/auto-flickr-importer/">Auto Flickr Importer</a>, </li>



<li><a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/tools/query-loop-load-more/">Query Loop Load More</a></li>



<li><a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/tools/safety-net/">Safety Net</a></li>



<li><a href="https://specialprojects.automattic.com/tools/plugin-autoupdate-filter/">Plugin Autoupdate Filter</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme development for full site editing and blocks</h2>



<p><strong>Anne Katzeff</strong> continues on her quest to create her first block theme. She shares in her 4th post of a series: <a href="https://www.askdesign.biz/blog/2024/09/building-my-first-wordpress-block-theme-part-4-child-themes/"><strong>Building My First WordPress Block Theme – part 4: Child Themes</strong></a>, how she saves changes to a child theme and syncs it to a GitHub repo for version control. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In his video, <strong>Fränk Klein </strong>answered <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESYLt_Hm2So"><strong>Theme.json V3: Common questions</strong></a>, among them: &#8220;What did version 3 change? and How to migrate from v2 to v3?&#8221; </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2024&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: <strong><strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/">2020</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2021/">2021</a></strong>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/">2022</a></strong></strong>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2023">2023</a></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and tools for the Block Editor</h2>



<p><strong><a href="https://x.com/MediumMikeDavey">Mike Davey</a></strong>, Senior editor at Delicious Brain, highlighted a few <strong><a href="https://deliciousbrains.com/golden-guides-and-hidden-gems-from-the-wordpress-developer-blog/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Golden Guides and Hidden Gems From the WordPress Developer&nbsp;Blog</a>. </strong>&#8220;The WordPress Developer Blog is a treasure trove of valuable resources that can help you stay ahead of the curve&#8221; he wrote. And he wrote about the What&#8217;s new for developers  roundup posts: &#8220;If you can only manage one post a month, make sure it’s this one. We have to warn you, though: there’s a very good chance it’ll lead you down at least one rabbit hole, and you’ll end up spending more time (and learning much more) than you intended.&#8221;</p>



<p>📣 Never miss a Developer Blog post again: <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/subscribe/">Subscribe</a>! </p>



<p>Speaking of which, if you haven&#8217;t read the<a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/09/10/whats-new-for-developers-september-2024/"><strong> What’s new for developers? (September 2024)</strong></a> edition, it was my turn to put it all together. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong><a href="https://x.com/troychaplin">Troy Chaplin</a></strong>, long-time WordPress developer and designer from Ottawa, Canada, published his first article on the WordPress Developer Blog. In his tutorial <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/09/17/how-to-build-a-multi-block-plugin/"><strong>How to build a multi-block plugin</strong></a>, you&#8217;ll learn how to build a multi-block plugin by registering several static and dynamic blocks all in one plugin while optimizing its structure along the way.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In his talk at WCUS, <strong>Damon Cook</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/VV5LXLtdwGA?si=8V98XpV0AqR5Jqj6&t=547"><strong>unleashed the power of the Interactivity API</strong></a>. He explored with the audience what this API is all about, why it matters, and how to get started with it. By the end, you’ll have a solid understanding of the Interactivity API and be ready to implement it in your projects. You&#8217;ll see some great examples, too. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>During his WCUS talk, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/j84uRtUfDUM?si=bCiiQUJ43ADMMWTG&t=4136"><strong>The Power of Extending the WordPress Editor: A Block Visibility Showcase</strong></a> on Showcase day, <strong>Nick Diego</strong> gave people a peek behind the curtains of his <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-visibility/">Block Visibility plugin</a> and showed how to make the most out of WordPress Core components. He shared some really useful tips and tricks that help you level up your own projects by extending the WordPress Editor and boosting block functionality. You can follow along <a href="https://guppy-of-fields.wp.build/">his slidedeck here.</a></p>



<img width="652" height="299" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-09-20-at-17.54.48.png?resize=652%2C299&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-30188" />



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. </p>



<p>Now also available via <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json">WordPress Playground</a>. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">Email me </a>with your experience</p>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? </em><br /><em>Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">them via email</a> or</em><br /><em> send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size">For questions to be answered on the <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, <br />send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>Featured Image: Photo by Ravi Palwe on Unsplash</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>


<form class="wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait" action="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/" method="post"><div class="ngl-form-container"><div class="ngl-form-field"><label class="ngl-form-label" for="ngl_email"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class="ngl-form-input"><input type="email" class="ngl-form-input-text" name="ngl_email" id="ngl_email" /></div></div><button type="submit" class="ngl-form-button">Subscribe</button><p class="ngl-form-text">We hate spam, too, and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone <br />except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay"><div class="ngl-message-svg-wrap"></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay-text">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type="hidden" name="ngl_list_id" id="ngl_list_id" value="26f81bd8ae" /><input type="hidden" name="ngl_double_optin" id="ngl_double_optin" value="yes" /></form>


<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 21 Sep 2024 02:32:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:24:"Matt: Are Investors Bad?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"https://ma.tt/?p=126078";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"https://ma.tt/2024/09/are-investors-bad/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2370:"<p>Some people have been interpreting <a href="https://x.com/photomatt/status/1836862087320195174">my comments</a> around private equity and investors as saying they&#8217;re all bad and you should never accept investment or trust a company that does&#8230; I don&#8217;t agree with that at all. Investors are amazing, they&#8217;re the fuel of entrepreneurship and capitalism and responsible for most of what we enjoy today. I can look in the eye of another founder and wholeheartedly recommend Automattic&#8217;s investors—True Ventures, Addition, Tiger Global, Salesforce, GIC, ICONIQ, LVMH/Aglaé, Akkadian, Wellington, Sweetwater, Alta Park, Schonfield, Chris Sacca&#8230;—and say they&#8217;ve upheld open source values and allowed us to nourish the open source ecosystem and flourish as a business. (They&#8217;re not an investor, but there are new folks like <a href="https://oss.capital/">OSS Capital</a> which are totally open source aligned.)</p>



<p>So investors, even &#8220;private equity&#8221; ones can be okay, but just like with anything, there are good ones and bad ones, so it is worthwhile to look into their track record. After an investor joins a company, what happens next? Do they change away from an <a href="https://opensource.org/">Open Source</a> license? Does the community flourish or wither on the vine as a result of their actions? It can be complex because you can have, as we do in WordPress, some companies <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/">contributing</a> and some companies just taking. Some investors, like ours, are minority investors, which means they don&#8217;t control the company. Some buy a majority share in companies and control them, and that&#8217;s where who ultimately owns things matters the most.</p>



<p>Can they change? Of course. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. I think everyone should be afforded that grace. But it can&#8217;t just be in words, it has to be in action.</p>



<p>I may make <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/session/an-in-person-qa-with-matt-mullenweg/">my keynote tomorrow</a> a deep dive presentation into some specific examples of this going poorly, because I think it&#8217;s highly relevant to WordPress&#8217; survival. Tune in! <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/livestream/friday-mt-hood/">There will be a livestream here</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 20 Sep 2024 07:00:10 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:52:"WPTavern: Patchstack Secures $5M in Series A Funding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=162227";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"https://wptavern.com/patchstack-secures-5m-in-series-a-funding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2155:"<p><a href="https://patchstack.com/">Patchstack</a>, a leading WordPress security company, recently raised $5 million in its Series A funding round. The funding round was led by Karma Ventures, G+D Ventures, and Emilia Capital, an investment firm backed by Yoast founders Marieke van de Rakt and Joost de Valk.</p>



<p>“With the Series A, we plan to accelerate Patchstack product development and build a top-level sales and marketing team,” said Patchstack&#8217;s co-founder and CEO, Oliver Sild. He believes Patchstack could “potentially hyper-automate the entire open-source software security process.” </p>



<p>In 2022, the company received a €2.7M R&amp;D grant from the European Innovation Council. Earlier this year, Patchstack was also selected by Google for its AI for Cybersecurity accelerator program, leveraging its vast dataset—the largest in the world of open-source security vulnerabilities.</p>



<p>The company’s <a href="https://patchstack.com/articles/introducing-the-patchstack-vdp-platform/">managed VDP platform</a>, developed in collaboration with the European Union, is free for all plugin and theme developers and helps projects comply with the upcoming European Cyber Resilience Act.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Last year they published 76% of all known WordPress-related security vulnerabilities and became the largest CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) Naming Authority by volume in 2023. Their Zero-Day Bug Bounty Program awarded the <a href="https://wptavern.com/record-bounty-awarded-as-critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-patched-in-litespeed-cache-plugin">highest bounty</a> in WordPress history &#8211; $14,400- to <a href="https://patchstack.com/database/researcher/185b44a7-75e2-4c31-848d-a534cb44e821">John Blackbourn</a>, who exposed a critical vulnerability in the LiteSpeed Cache plugin last month.</p>



<p>“I have been following Patchstack’s progress for some time, have had many great discussions with Oliver, and think that the team is on a noble and exciting mission to protect users of open-source technologies from cyber threats,” said Kristjan Laanemaa from Karma Ventures.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 20 Sep 2024 04:33:45 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"WPTavern: Matt Mullenweg’s Ecosystem Thinking for Open Source Success ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=162209";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenwegs-ecosystem-thinking-for-open-source-success";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3986:"<p>WordCamp US 2024 is in full swing, and Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, shared his thoughts on a powerful philosophy driving Open Source.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ecosystem Thinking</h2>



<p>Mullenweg introduced the concept of &#8220;<a href="https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/">Ecosystem Thinking</a>,&#8221;  a philosophy that drives successful collaborative projects. </p>



<p>“<a href="https://opensource.org/">Actual Open Source licenses</a> are the law that guarantees freedom, the bulwark against authoritarianism. But what makes Open Source work isn’t the law, it’s the ethos. It’s the social mores. It’s what I’m now calling Ecosystem Thinking: the mindset that separates any old software with an open source license from the software that’s alive, that’s humming with activity and contributions from a thousand places.” he noted.</p>



<p>This philosophy comprises four essential elements:</p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Learn</strong>: Embrace the beginner’s mindset and constantly engage with new ideas.</li>



<li><strong>Evolve</strong>: Apply what you learn to the next iteration, allowing real-world feedback to guide you.</li>



<li><strong>Teach</strong>: Teaching others reinforces your own understanding, spreading knowledge throughout the ecosystem.</li>



<li><strong>Nourish</strong>: Share the fruits of your success with the broader community to help everyone thrive.</li>
</ol>



<p>‘Nourish’ is the philosophy behind WordPress’s <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/">Five For the Future</a> initiative, where companies and individuals commit a portion of their resources to supporting the WordPress project and ecosystem. This ethos is what keeps Open Source alive and vibrant.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Mislabeling Open Source</h2>



<p>He also shared the challenges Open source is facing. Even though Open Source has taken over as an “intellectual and moral movement,&#8230; false prophets like Meta are trying to co-opt it.” He referenced Meta’s “open-source” AI model, Llama, as a prime example of this trend.</p>



<p>While LLaMA is free, its license restricts use for companies with over 700 million active users. Mullenweg argued that although Meta has the right to impose such terms, labeling it as &#8220;Open Source&#8221; misleads the public.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Vote with your Wallet</h2>



<p>Mullenweg encouraged the community to “<strong>vote with your wallet</strong>” by supporting companies that actively contribute to the Open Source ecosystem. He praised organizations like Newfold, Awesome Motive, 10up, Godaddy, Hostinger, and Google but warned of “parasitic entities that just want to feed off the host without giving anything back.”</p>



<p>To make his point, Mullenweg compared the Five For the Future contributions from Automattic and WP Engine, a competitor of similar size. Automattic contributes 3,786 hours per week, while WP Engine contributes just 47.</p>



<p>“Those of us who are makers, who create the source, need to be wary of those who would take our creations and squeeze out the juice. They’re grifters who will hop onto the next fad, but we’re trying to build something big here, something long term—something that lasts for generations,” he said.</p>



<p>Mullenweg urged the community to be mindful of their choices: “Think about that next time it comes up to renew your hosting or domain, weigh your dollars towards companies that give back more, because you’ll get back more, too. Freedom isn’t free.”</p>



<p>This is not the first time Mullenweg has discussed this point. “Those who care about the future of WordPress should spend their dollars with less parasitic companies,” <a href="https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-parasitic-company-and-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress-future">he said</a> in 2022. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 19 Sep 2024 18:46:32 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"Do The Woo Community: A Blog for the Community, by the Community";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=85715";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"https://dothewoo.io/a-blog-for-the-community-by-the-community/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4824:"Episode Transcript
<div class="wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<p>BobWP:</p>



<p>Well, hello, BobWP here. I am sitting in my motel room recording this while at WordCamp US. So much stuff going on, this being the Thursday the 19th, have already done 2 days of the hectic schedule and now into the official two days of the camp</p>



<p>There&#8217;s a lot I could share with you so far, but that is not why I am here. And I mean by talking to you and not where I am physically.</p>



<p>On September the 2nd I pushed out a post on Do the Woo called The Soft Relaunch of the Do the Woo Blog, It was short, and hinted a bit of what we have in store. Then while I&#8217;m here at WordCamp, I realized that in that post I said I would be telling you more about the blog. Which was not optimal nor did I plan that as it should have been.</p>



<p>So I felt obligated to do this episode while knowing I still have a few things left to do.</p>



<p>But let me share where we are at.</p>



<p>As I mentioned in that post, Ronald Gijsel and myself did a podcast while we brainstormed the ideas around what the Do the Wo blog would look like. Why was there no blog. At some point last year I decided to move posts off of the site and focus on the audio we were putting out. Several reasons for that but in hindsight it was probably a mistake or at least something I should have just let ride.</p>



<p>Then I realized, maybe I woke up, that the site had a big missing part to it. And also, I was missing blogging here at Do the Woo. For someone who has blogged since 2018, well, a void in my life. Of course, as Ronald and myself talked about the blog, it was obvious that we have the perfect site for a blog</p>



<p>Yes, a blog by the community and for the community. Want a rundown on my plans</p>



<p>I will blog of course. But hosts, guests and friends of do the woo will also guest post.</p>



<p>We are not going down the tutorial path, doing reviews, building a news blog or pitching products.</p>



<p>What we want is conversations continuing based on podcast episodes. For example, a guest wants to dive into a topic that they only were able to mention on the episode. Or perhaps they have additional thoughts that didn&#8217;t get covered. And yes, at anytime a past guest can come in and update us on something that was mentioned in their show. In other words, a lot of flexibility.</p>



<p>But what about your the listener? Maybe leaving a comment isn&#8217;t enough for you. You may have thoughts on an episode and would like to write a guest post to share them with our audience. These could be as short as a paragraph or two, or if you have a lot to say, as long as you need to make it.</p>



<p>Of course, guest posts will be scrutinized to make sure they cover what we are looking for.</p>



<p>We have a three things that will make your content that you post here so valuable. One we will be sharing soon, and the other two likely will be worked on for the next several month.</p>



<p>And, we will soon have things in place if you want to do a guest post, or maybe even become a regular. Things like guidelines, forms to submit your interest to us, etc, etc. In fact I will write a blog post something after I return home here from WordCamp US when all of these things are in place.</p>



<p>So that&#8217;s it. If you did carve out sometime to actually listen to this and you are still at WordCampUS, please let&#8217;s connect and at least say hi if we haven&#8217;t already. And to everyone out there, we are excited to share and amplify even more voice from this community.</p>



<p>Until the next time.</p>
</div>




<p>In this episode, <strong>BobWP</strong> records from his hotel room at WordCampUS, sharing exciting updates about the soft relaunch of the <em><strong>Do the Woo</strong></em> blog. </p>



<p>Bob reflects on past decisions, including the removal of blog posts from the site, and how he now realizes the blog’s absence created a void in the community. </p>



<p>He outlines plans for the blog&#8217;s future, including contributions from hosts, guests, and even listeners, creating an open space for continued conversations around podcast episodes. </p>



<p>Keep your eyes and ears open to hear more about how <em>Do the Woo</em> is amplifying voices and building stronger community connections.</p>



<p><strong>Links</strong></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://dothewoo.io/blog/the-soft-relaunch-of-the-do-the-woo-blog/"><strong>The Soft Relaunch of the Do the Woo Blog</strong></a></li>



<li><strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/unpacking-blogging-a-blogstorm-with-ronald-gijsel-and-bobwp/">Unpacking Blogging, a BlogStorm with Ronald Gijsel and BobWP</a></strong></li>
</ul>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 19 Sep 2024 17:29:54 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: WordPress.com Offers 1,000 Free Premium Websites to University Students";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=162113";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-offers-1000-free-premium-websites-to-students";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1636:"<p>WordPress.com <a href="https://wordpress.com/blog/2024/09/17/free-websites-students/">announced</a> that it is giving away 1,000 free premium websites exclusively to university students. This offer is a fantastic opportunity for students to build their online presence.</p>



<p>The first thousand students who <a href="https://wordpress.com/students/">sign up</a> will receive a premium WordPress.com website for one year, complete with a free custom domain name, SSL certificate, 13 GB of storage, access to premium themes, and an ad-free experience. With these features, students can create professional websites to showcase their portfolios, projects, or blogs.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“This offer is perfect for students looking to stand out in their personal and professional journeys, &#8221; WordPress.com said in the official announcement.</p>



<p>Interested students can fill out a <a href="https://wordpress.com/students/">simple form</a> with their educational details and email address. After submitting, they will receive an email asking them to verify their student status. Once verified, a unique code will be provided within 24-48 hours to unlock their free premium website. </p>



<p>Recently, the WordPress community has been trying to find ways to attract new users in the backdrop of discussions about the WordPress market stagnating. Executive Director of the WordPress Project, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, has also recently spoken about how <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/episode-85-wordpress-in-education/">WordPress equips students</a> with essential skills for thriving in their future careers.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Sep 2024 19:19:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"WPTavern: #137 – Jamie Marsland on Heading the WordPress YouTube Channel";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=161607";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:88:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/137-jamie-marsland-on-heading-the-wordpress-youtube-channel";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:44561:"Transcription<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how YouTube can promote the WordPress project.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice. Or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today, we have Jamie Marsland, and it says third appearance on the podcast, which is a first.</p>



<p>Jamie has recently embarked on an exciting new journey as the head of the WordPress YouTube channel at Automattic. This role is set to amplify the WordPress story through engaging and informative video content, capitalizing on YouTube&#8217;s reach to over 2.7 billion monthly users.</p>



<p>As you&#8217;ll hear, Jamie only started his role a few days prior to recording, but he&#8217;s already full of plan lists to transform the WordPress YouTube presence. Automattic created this role to ensure a more focused effort on growing the channel, which currently has around 36,000 subscribers, significantly lower than some of the other WordPress YouTube channels.</p>



<p>Jamie envisions targeting distinct groups. Beginners, DIYers, developers and designers, agencies and freelancers, product suppliers, and the community. Each piece of content will aim to add value whilst trying to maintain some fun.</p>



<p>Throughout our conversation, Jamie shares his insights into why this role is necessary, especially in light of commercial rivals like Wix and Squarespace, who possess enormous marketing budgets. He discusses the importance of bringing new users into the WordPress ecosystem, whether they&#8217;re complete beginners or migrating from other platforms.</p>



<p>We also explore Jamie&#8217;s broader vision for the channel, including making high quality content that genuinely adds value to the viewer, regardless of its production quality. He stresses that every video needs to answer the question of what value it brings to the audience. Fun and engagement are key themes, but quality content is paramount.</p>



<p>We also touch on his plans to bring in other voices, aiming to build a diverse team that reflects WordPress&#8217; global reach.</p>



<p>Jamie also talks about the balance between engaging the YouTube algorithm and producing valuable content. He shares his experiences and strategies for creating content that draws listeners in, emphasizing the importance of creativity in ensuring all target groups find something of interest.</p>



<p>Jamie assures us that his new role won&#8217;t mean an end to his own popular YouTube channel, which has been advocating for WordPress for many years. He plans to continue creating content on this channel, whilst focusing on growing the official WordPress channel.</p>



<p>Towards the end, Jamie hints at the changes that might start materializing by October, post WordCamp US. He&#8217;s eager to hear from the community, so if you have innovative, fun or valuable content ideas, Jamie wants to know.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in the evolving landscape of WordPress on YouTube, Jamie strategic approach, or how you might contribute to this exciting venture, this episode is for you.</p>



<p>If you want to find out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Jamie Marsland.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast, again by Jamie Marsland. How you doing, Jamie?</p>



<p>[00:04:35] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I am really sorry about all these appearances. I&#8217;m great, thank you, Nathan.</p>



<p>[00:04:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Honestly, the reason that you&#8217;re appearing many times is because you have many things to say. But I believe you&#8217;re the first person to appear for a third time. And it wasn&#8217;t all that long ago that we were talking about your speed builds happening at WordCamp Europe. Well, maybe that is going to come up today. Let&#8217;s find out.</p>



<p>[00:04:53] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Well, it&#8217;s coming to WordCamp US in a few weeks time, so there you go, there&#8217;s a plug for that.</p>



<p>[00:04:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well, it&#8217;s exciting. Well, maybe we can get into that specifically a little bit later, but that&#8217;s not the main reason. The main reason is because you&#8217;ve taken on a brand new role. And rather than me butcher what that role is and what you&#8217;re doing, you just want to give us your brief potted bio?</p>



<p>[00:05:11] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I&#8217;m now working for Automattic as head of the wordpress.org YouTube channel, which is an incredibly exciting role to fulfill. So I started literally two days ago, and I&#8217;m now in day three, it&#8217;s Wednesday, isn&#8217;t it? Day three of my onboarding, of which I&#8217;m going to go onto the wordpress.org forums this afternoon as part of, when you join Automattic you do a support rotation, so I&#8217;ve got two weeks support rotation, and then I start in earnest on the YouTube channel.</p>



<p>[00:05:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Is this a brand new role? My intuition says, I think it is because I&#8217;ve not heard of it before.</p>



<p>[00:05:41] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> It is a brand new role. There is a team working diligently on the YouTube channel doing cool stuff, and they&#8217;ve grown it actually really well, but there&#8217;s no one sort of leading on the channel. Everyone in that team is doing lots of other cool stuff as well. So this is having somebody completely focused 100% on growing the channel.</p>



<p>[00:05:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, so I&#8217;m imagining that more or less everybody knows what YouTube is, and probably has gone down that alley of stepping into YouTube, and then several hours later figuring out that they&#8217;ve lost their entire day on YouTube. Why do we need this role then? So you mentioned that there&#8217;s a team. Is it just that it was felt that that effort wasn&#8217;t sort of guided correctly, that there needs to be more content? Why the role?</p>



<p>[00:06:19] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Can I give you some stats on YouTube, because this blows my mind? So as of 2024, YouTube has more than 2.7 billion users every month. That&#8217;s 51% of all people who use the internet. One third of everyone in the world uses YouTube monthly, a third of everyone in the world uses YouTube monthly. And over half the people who use the internet on their phones visit YouTube each month.</p>



<p>So YouTube is, I mean it&#8217;s just absolutely massive, and WordPress, the official channel, has as we speak, about 36,000 subscribers. And if you compare it to its, let&#8217;s say competitors, it&#8217;s lower than it needs to be. So that&#8217;s why there&#8217;s now a unrelenting focus from me on helping WordPress through that channel.</p>



<p>[00:07:02] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So is there a particular kind gap that you are trying to fill here? Because obviously, you know, YouTube is just full up of content for literally everything. Is it going to be directed mainly at a particular type of YouTube content? Do you have any sort of intuitions as how that&#8217;s going to go? You know, is it going to be related to Gutenberg, or Core? Well, I&#8217;ll leave it open to you.</p>



<p>[00:07:22] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> At the moment, and I&#8217;m obviously on day three, this is kind of how I view the world in terms of the content groups we&#8217;re going to aim content at. What I&#8217;m also asking everyone is to let me know what you think, so I&#8217;d be interested to know what you think about this, Nathan.</p>



<p>So these are the kind of groups we&#8217;re going to target content at. So I&#8217;ve got beginners, group one. DIYers, developers. We&#8217;ve got designers, agencies and freelancers, product suppliers. So that&#8217;s plugins, and themes, and service providers, and then we&#8217;ve got the community. So broadly, six groups of target viewers that, at the moment, that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m thinking the type of content we&#8217;re going to produce content for.</p>



<p>But at the top of that, we have the kind of overlying everything is, you know, every piece of content that we want to produce on that channel needs to kind of tell the WordPress story, or help tell the WordPress story, what the story is. That&#8217;s all the things that make me love WordPress. So it&#8217;s empowering, it&#8217;s free, it&#8217;s open, it&#8217;s radical, it&#8217;s fun, it&#8217;s being used by loads and loads of people. So everything needs to kind of fit under that story.</p>



<p>And then we&#8217;ve got those groups of people that we want to target content at. And then within that we&#8217;re going to have a number of different formats. And then flowing from those formats will be the actual content itself. That&#8217;s the way I&#8217;m viewing the world at the moment. Early days, I&#8217;m asking people to give me their feedback.</p>



<p>[00:08:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m going to give you a little bit of feedback on that. So you had six categories there, and they all speak to people already using WordPress. I wonder if part of the role, given all of the talk that we&#8217;ve had recently about, you know, commercial rivals in the website building space having giant marketing budgets, is that piece of advertising to the, as yet undecided, website builder. Drawing in people who are just curious about starting a career in web development, or want their own website? And obviously WordPress has that sort of free and open credentialing to it. Trying to draw them in as well and just say, okay, here&#8217;s WordPress, you&#8217;ve never used it, this is what it could do for you.</p>



<p>[00:09:12] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Yeah, and that&#8217;s a massive part of my thinking. I would probably group that group of people into beginners or pre beginners. Yeah, that was one of the biggest pieces of feedback. I put out this tweet, and put a post on Facebook and LinkedIn, and got tons of feedback and fantastic ideas from people of the type of content.</p>



<p>That was one of the strong themes coming through is, how do we bring people on board to WordPress from either, they&#8217;re looking for the first time, or they&#8217;re using something like Wix and they don&#8217;t realise where the roadblocks they&#8217;re going to hit at some point in the future? So, one hundred percent.</p>



<p>[00:09:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Just a little bit of personal story then. How did this role come your way then? So just curious as to, two sides to that really. How did the negotiations happen and, you know, how did you get into this role existing in the first place, and why the role now? I guess I&#8217;m alluding to the whole Wix thing that I mentioned a moment ago. Is it that the time is right to concern ourselves with the commercial rivals out there and the march that they&#8217;ve got into the marketplace?</p>



<p>[00:10:05] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> So I&#8217;m going to skip some steps here, just to give you a broad brush stroke. So I did some research about, I guess it was a year and a half ago was it, maybe two years ago, looking at the YouTube channels of wordpress.com, wordpress.org, and also the competitors, so Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, and a few others. Did a blog post, and then I sent the blog post around to some people within Automattic that I&#8217;d sort of been chatting to, and saying, I can help with some of this stuff.</p>



<p>Now, I&#8217;m skipping a lot of steps here, Nathan. And following from that, I had lots of discussions. And then I did a series of videos with wordpress.com and the team at wordpress.com, and started chatting to some people within Automattic. So I did 24 videos for them. Obviously more conversations around the video strategy for .com and .org. And, again, I&#8217;m skipping lots of steps.</p>



<p>Then I met up with Matt Mullenweg in Turin for an hour, and had a fantastic chat around video, and content, and competitors, and then more conversations. And then it kind of crystallised while I was on a mountain, climbing up a mountain, when I say climbing a mountain, I was walking along a mountain in France. You know, started to formulate what the role could be, what the need was, you know, my desire to do it, which was massive. So for me it&#8217;s like the perfect, because I&#8217;ve been kind of doing this stuff on my own channel for three years. So this was like the perfect opportunity to kind of work on a bigger stage really.</p>



<p>[00:11:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s great. I&#8217;m curious as to the nature of the conversation that you had with Matt. Obviously, Matt, the co-founder of WordPress, largely guides the project, if you like. We have a lot of intuitions that come from Matt, which then turn into the reality of the project. Whilst I don&#8217;t want you to reveal anything of a confidential nature, I am curious as to hear what thoughts came up in that meeting as to the importance of this job, you know, the kinds of things that he would like to have seen you doing.</p>



<p>[00:11:47] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I mean the first thing to say, it was a great conversation because I&#8217;d never met Matt before. So, we struck it off really well, which was fantastic, and massively intellectually curious, that was a very interesting conversation. But it was kind of centered around content, and the importance of video content, and what WordPress is doing in terms of video content at the moment, and just the massive opportunity there is for video content in the WordPress, official WordPress space.</p>



<p>Obviously, there&#8217;s some amazing content being produced by other creators, but on the official channel, as I say, we&#8217;ve got 36,000 subscribers. So there&#8217;s a massive opportunity to get more engagement, and sort of spread the WordPress word.</p>



<p>[00:12:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The fact that you are doing content on YouTube, does it allow you this role to also do video content elsewhere? So one of the things that comes into mind is the Learn project, so learn.wordpress.org is making lots of educational content, much of it in the form of videos. I wondered if there was any overlap with those teams, or any opportunity to overlap. Because it sounds like a lot of the pieces that you&#8217;re going to be making are educational in nature.</p>



<p>[00:12:48] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Obviously it&#8217;s very early days, and they&#8217;ve got a team producing lots of Learn content, which is currently going on the YouTube channel, which is great. There&#8217;s an interesting space which says, what is the connection? Because some of the content they&#8217;re doing is very, very good if you are going step by step through videos. But I think there&#8217;s an interesting discussion that says, how can we start to tailor some of that content? So it&#8217;s kind of more suited to specific YouTube audiences.</p>



<p>Because when you go onto YouTube, you&#8217;re kind of in a different frame of mind than if you are going onto a learning management system. And I think they&#8217;re two quite separate pieces of content, like some of the content I produce on my channel is more edutainment than just educating people around it. It&#8217;s got to kind of grab them quite quickly, and you&#8217;ll get more engagement and more learning. So there&#8217;s some interesting, definitely some interesting overlaps there. Early thinking on that though.</p>



<p>[00:13:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> One of the things that Matt said during his address in WordCamp Europe, where obviously you had your meeting with him, one of the things that I took away from that was that he wants WordPress to feel a bit more fun. I don&#8217;t really have my finger on the pulse of what entirely he made of that, but it did strike me that your speed builds was a really, you know, it was a really credible way of doing that. It&#8217;s entertainment with learning bolted in, which is really nice. You get the fun of doing it at the same time, and if you&#8217;re paying attention, you will actually learn things, which is kind of like the perfect goal.</p>



<p>I did wonder that was how you were hoping to drive it, if it was supposed to be fun. If you&#8217;d got any guidelines about that, if you&#8217;ve got any thoughts on that. Because I always enjoy watching fun content more than sort of the dry stuff. But nevertheless, sometimes the dry stuff is what you need to do, so whether it&#8217;s a bit of everything, or direction is fun, over to you.</p>



<p>[00:14:26] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> We&#8217;ll bring the fun. There will be more fun, but it&#8217;s not all going to be fun. But it all needs to be great. I think the key thing is it&#8217;s going to have massive value. If it&#8217;s going on the channel, it needs to have massive value to whoever&#8217;s watching it, and that&#8217;s probably somebody within those six groups. So there will definitely be some, I&#8217;ve got some ideas, there&#8217;ll definitely be some fun stuff, and definitely more live stuff.</p>



<p>We want to try and have a connection with the end users that are using WordPress. So definitely more fun. But there&#8217;s some really cool stuff going on on the wordpress.org channel, which, with a little bit of love and attention, we can elevate to the next level quite easily. Like there&#8217;s some amazing developer stuff going on with Justin Tadlock and his team, and Nick Diego, and Ryan Welcher. Just gold dust in there.</p>



<p>And there&#8217;s some really simple things we can do really quickly to get them more views. So there&#8217;s some easy low hanging fruit. So some of that developer stuff is absolutely fantastic, but there is a lot of stuff on there that&#8217;s, at the moment there&#8217;s this automatic feed, so there&#8217;s a lot of stuff that just, it&#8217;s like a bucket, just gets dumped on there.</p>



<p>So there&#8217;s a conversation to be had around how we tailor that stuff. Do we keep that process going where it&#8217;s just automated? So we have lots and lots of videos on there, which don&#8217;t necessarily all reflect what we&#8217;re trying to reflect in terms of the WordPress story. I&#8217;m not sure that&#8217;s answered your question, but there&#8217;s going to be more fun.</p>



<p>[00:15:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Running through that, the message that you gave me at the beginning of that little section was that you want it to be of high quality. The importance is on the high quality. So if it&#8217;s fun and high quality, that&#8217;s great, if it&#8217;s serious and high quality, it&#8217;s great. But if it&#8217;s fun and low quality, no.</p>



<p>[00:15:50] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> And I think, when I say high quality, I&#8217;m not talking about production value, I&#8217;m talking about value to the person watching it. If it&#8217;s filmed on a phone in a field and it&#8217;s absolute gold dust, then that&#8217;s okay. But it has to be, every bit of content has to ask itself the question, what value am I giving to the person watching this? Why are they going to watch this piece of content? And if we can&#8217;t answer that, then it shouldn&#8217;t be on the channel anyway.</p>



<p>[00:16:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s interesting, sort of editorial guidelines, you know, if the BBC, for example, the British Broadcasting Corporation, I imagine they have a quality guideline about how it looks and feels, not just about the quality of the content. But that&#8217;s an interesting position that you take there. If the content is good but the production quality is not that great, that gets a pass.</p>



<p>[00:16:26] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I think there&#8217;s probably a couple of phases of this. The first phase is, it&#8217;s got to be all about the content. And then the second phase, then we look at the production. And you can do these together, but the most important thing is the content has got to have, it&#8217;s got to have value.</p>



<p>One of the best lessons I ever learned in running a YouTube channel is that there&#8217;s only three reasons why somebody will ever click on a YouTube thumbnail, because you are competing against lots of other people on YouTube. And those are curiosity, number one, hope, number two, or fear. Those are the three psychological triggers that make anyone click onto a YouTube video. There&#8217;s some broad guidelines we can start to introduce.</p>



<p>[00:17:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think also it&#8217;s important for the creator of the video to have a white border around them, and to be pointing at something with their mouth open.</p>



<p>[00:17:08] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Actually, no, that&#8217;s not true anymore. There&#8217;s been some stats that show that mouth open isn&#8217;t working anymore.</p>



<p>[00:17:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. Oh gosh.</p>



<p>[00:17:13] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I&#8217;m serious about that.</p>



<p>[00:17:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> People go into it at that level. So the content that you&#8217;ve created on your own YouTube channel has been you creating content, and you&#8217;ve obviously been very successful at that, and I imagine that that is the primary reason that you&#8217;ve got into this discussion, got this job. So bravo for that firstly.</p>



<p>But secondly, does this new job point to an era in which you, the head of YouTube, are making all of the content, or are you hoping to bring other voices in? And into that question I&#8217;m going to throw the sort of international thing as well, you know, different languages, different parts of the world, different perspectives.</p>



<p>[00:17:47] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> So, no, definitely won&#8217;t just be me producing videos. I mean, my plan is to make myself redundant over the next three or four years, and build a team of younger, diverse people that reflect where WordPress is heading. So that&#8217;s part of my plan. And then part of my plan is, and I&#8217;ve been reaching out to other content creators in the WordPress space, is to help them to amplify themselves, and get them on the channel as well. Because there&#8217;s some people doing some amazing stuff. And also people in the community.</p>



<p>Plus we&#8217;ve already got some existing amazing content that&#8217;s going on through people like Justin and his team, and the Learn team. So absolutely not, it won&#8217;t just be me. I will definitely be on the channel, but hopefully I&#8217;ll be a fraction of the overall content going forward. There was another part of your question, which I didn&#8217;t answer.</p>



<p>[00:18:25] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well, there was the international part, so the different languages all around the world. So it&#8217;s not just in English basically.</p>



<p>[00:18:30] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s a really interesting one. So one of the challenges you face when you run a YouTube channel is that, if you produce a piece of content that doesn&#8217;t get many views, it&#8217;s a bit of a channel killer. So what will happen is their algorithm will say, they&#8217;ve just produced, you might have one piece of content that gets like 10,000 views, if you produce a piece of content that only gets like 12 views, that will affect the overall channel views.</p>



<p>You need to be aware of that when you&#8217;re running and trying to grow YouTube channel. I&#8217;m going to go onto the international bit. So that&#8217;s one of the things we need to confront pretty quickly. We need to make sure that the content we&#8217;re producing is always creating a high number of views, otherwise it affects the overall health of the channel.</p>



<p>So one of the decisions on the international stuff is, does that fit into that? How does that fit into that? Does that affect the channel because our audience is expecting one thing and they get another thing, and it might get lower views? Or do we say, we create multiple channels for multiple languages, or do we create multiple channels for multiple, like there&#8217;s thousands of word, well, not thousands, but there&#8217;s lots and lots of WordCamps that happen around the world which are currently being presented on the YouTube channel, which might not get massive amount of views, but are very important content. So the question is, do we have a separate channel for those, so it doesn&#8217;t affect the main channel in terms of the algorithm and kind of story we&#8217;re trying to tell on those? So those are some of the kind of quite difficult decisions we need to make fairly early on.</p>



<p>[00:19:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s curious because you are having to worry about the algorithm of YouTube, not just the quality of the content, but whether the content is going to receive the click. So some part of your brain has to be engaged with how viral, for want of a better word, maybe that&#8217;s not quite right word. But, you know, something like, how viral will this piece of content be?</p>



<p>And I guess that raises concerns about, if we&#8217;re always chasing the algorithm, do we then drop the stuff which may not get the clicks or the views, but could be really important? So for example, the last piece you mentioned, I think it was number six, community, that may not get quite the number of views as, oh I don&#8217;t know, the latest, greatest new feature that&#8217;s come out in WordPress, or your speed builds, or whatever that may be. But it&#8217;s still equally important, and that&#8217;s going to be a difficult tightrope to tread, isn&#8217;t it? It&#8217;s sprinkling that stuff in that you have an intuition won&#8217;t be quite so popular, but is probably needed.</p>



<p>[00:20:31] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> But I think there&#8217;s creative ways of making that stuff interesting to people that it will get clicks. That&#8217;s the challenge of the channel, right? So all those six groups, I&#8217;m confident we could create content that is really interesting, that would get a large amount of clicks. But it needs to speak, it needs to focus on the value it&#8217;s bringing to the people that are watching it. That&#8217;s got to be the a hundred percent focus.</p>



<p>I spend a huge amount of time on my thumbnails and title, and I want to instill that in the content that&#8217;s going on the channel. I do that because, and this isn&#8217;t just me making this stuff up, this is coming from like, the best YouTubers all do this as well. And if you do that, then it focuses your video on the value you are creating. You are trying to create to the person watching it. And if you can&#8217;t get a YouTube thumbnail and title sorted out, it means you haven&#8217;t got your story straight in your head, and you&#8217;re not sure on the value of this piece of content is going to bring to the people watching it. If you can&#8217;t do that, then you shouldn&#8217;t make the video. It&#8217;s a really useful discipline to go through, and it&#8217;s one I want to instill on any piece of content going forward, because it focuses the whole point of the video.</p>



<p>[00:21:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But the bottom line is you are open to other voices, it&#8217;s not just going to be Jamie making video content. And a question which is related to that, but not entirely the same, the content that I&#8217;ve seen of you so far has been heavily related to a core version of WordPress. You know, you download WordPress from .org and you run with that. You&#8217;re not chucking a load of other things in, third party plugins, and themes, and what have you.</p>



<p>And I do wonder if that has a place in this new future. Whether or not third party plugins, themes, blocks, whatever it may be, whether there&#8217;s going to be scope for those. Maybe there&#8217;ll be an embargo on, well, it has to be in the repository. I don&#8217;t know. Again, just over to you, what are your thoughts?</p>



<p>[00:22:04] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Yeah, my view is a hundred percent, I want those in there. Because it&#8217;s one of the best things about WordPress, that we have 60,000 plugins and thousands of amazing themes. The challenge is how you do that without annoying the heck out of everybody that isn&#8217;t featured on that week. I want to find formats that we can showcase stuff without annoying people that aren&#8217;t on there.</p>



<p>But if you think about it, wordpress.org is already advertising all those 60,000 plugins, so we absolutely should be. And there&#8217;s some amazing stuff happening, some amazing innovation happening, so we definitely want to showcase that stuff on the official channel, is my view at the moment.</p>



<p>[00:22:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m just curious about the cadence at which you are hoping to do this. Because at the moment, Jamie&#8217;s YouTube channel, I presume that there is importance in you getting content out on a regular basis to satisfy the algorithm. But it&#8217;s up you how often you want to do that. You know, you can take a week off here, a week off there, and go out for a walk or whatever, whenever you feel. And I&#8217;m just wondering how this is going to play. Do you have intuitions there? You know, it&#8217;s got to be several things a week, several things a day. It&#8217;s a big community after all, we could probably create that content. But, any thoughts?</p>



<p>[00:23:03] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Well, yeah, if you look, at the moment there&#8217;s tons of content going on it, but I think there&#8217;s too much content. I think the cadence will be, the first step is to get a content plan, which I&#8217;m going to share I think at this point, get a content plan together drawing on all those things that I&#8217;ve talked you through already.</p>



<p>And then I think the cadence drops out from that. Once you&#8217;ve got the content structure in terms of those groups, and then you&#8217;ve got the formats flowing from those. So like we&#8217;ve already got developer hours who have a certain cadence. And then you&#8217;ve got the content plan from that, the cadence will be dropping out from that. But my view is at least two a week.</p>



<p>But probably, as we start to power the engine many more. And, you know, the other thing that we want to do far more of is repurposing this content for like social media, because at the moment that&#8217;s not really happening. Once we get the source content the way we want it, that&#8217;ll be much, much easier. Because that&#8217;s been a lot of the growth of my channel, is resharing relentlessly on Twitter, and Facebook, and LinkedIn. LinkedIn especially at moment, actually.</p>



<p>[00:23:55] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You&#8217;ve obviously been making content recently, and I presume you&#8217;re doing that because you enjoy it. Is there any part of you which is a little bit nervous about the fact that you are going to have this more managerial role and, you know, taking care of other people&#8217;s content, and less time in the video editor, making the content, thinking about the topics, and creating the titles and the thumbnails and all that? They&#8217;ll presumably be handled by you, but also by other people. Is there a bit of you, which is, I don&#8217;t know, a little bit sad at waving goodbye to your own endeavors?</p>



<p>[00:24:20] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I&#8217;m not waving goodbye to them. So my own channel is going to carry on. And actually this will probably give me, well, it will give me more freedom to be a bit more, I&#8217;m going to be quite experimental, but probably more experimental on my own channel. So that&#8217;s definitely going to continue. I&#8217;ve paused sponsorships at the moment on that channel, just to avoid some conflicts of interest.</p>



<p>But I have to say, I did have pre-match nerves about two weeks ago when I first got the job. Because normally I wake up and I&#8217;ve got like a hundred ideas banging around my head for videos, and for about a week I literally had nothing going on in there. It was like a vacuum of ideas, which was a bit worrying. Thankfully they&#8217;re back.</p>



<p>So yeah, I&#8217;m so excited about being able to run a channel, and there&#8217;s all these amazing people that I can now, that I&#8217;m already chatting to about the stuff they&#8217;re already doing and how we can take it to the next level. So the community aspects are like incredibly exciting.</p>



<p>[00:25:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So just to be clear, there&#8217;s no embargo on Jamie ceasing doing what Jamie&#8217;s doing already. You&#8217;ve got free reign to keep making your own content. You know, you&#8217;re a good custodian of that. You don&#8217;t create incendiary content and drop a bomb walk away, or at least that&#8217;s not what I&#8217;ve seen anyway.</p>



<p>[00:25:20] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I&#8217;ve been advocating for this, for WordPress, for three years on my own channel. So it&#8217;d be a bit weird if I stopped. I&#8217;ve got over 100,000 subscribers on that channel now, so it&#8217;d be a bit weird if I didn&#8217;t keep producing video content that kind of advertise WordPress on that channel because it&#8217;s got a big audience. The same with my Twitter and LinkedIn. I&#8217;ll use all those channels to help the wordpress.org channel as well.</p>



<p>[00:25:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you know if that puts you in a unique position at Automattic? Because I don&#8217;t know, I genuinely don&#8217;t know the answer to this, but I have some thoughts that when people join Automattic, there may be contractual things that they can and cannot do. And obviously in this case, you know, that probably doesn&#8217;t matter quite so much because it&#8217;s not like you&#8217;re doing two jobs. Your YouTube channel is presumably going to be in your evenings and weekends. It returns to being more of a hobby. There&#8217;s just a thought around that, whether people have, you know, mentioned that to you.</p>



<p>[00:26:06] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> They have mentioned that to me. And it is a unique position, I&#8217;m not sure there&#8217;s any perfect scenario for it because if I hadn&#8217;t grown the channel, then I probably wouldn&#8217;t be good for the YouTube job, because I&#8217;ve got experience of running a YouTube channel. So it would be quite hard to run this. And then people would say, well, why are you running the YouTube channel if you&#8217;ve never run a YouTube channel before? That&#8217;s kind of a difficult one.</p>



<p>And also it is unique because, if you think about it, Automatticians obviously tweet and make videos on their own channels, you wouldn&#8217;t expect them not to do that because they&#8217;re tweeting. To answer you, it is a unique thing. I&#8217;m not sure there&#8217;s any easy answer to it, apart from I&#8217;m hopefully helping WordPress in everything I&#8217;m doing. That&#8217;s been the sole point of my own channels, is to advocate strongly for WordPress over the last three years. So I&#8217;ve kind of been doing this job for free until recently, when I started taking sponsorships for a while. It feels like a continuation that, but just on the official channel actually.</p>



<p>[00:27:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> When do you anticipate we&#8217;re going to see the beginnings of your endeavors here? So we&#8217;re recording this very early in September, 2024. You&#8217;re obviously doing the support role at Automattic, answering support tickets, just like every other Automattician did. And once that fortnight, two weeks is expired, presumably you&#8217;ll have your head turned onto this role. How long do you think we need to wait before we start seeing the ball rolling?</p>



<p>[00:27:23] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I&#8217;ve got two weeks rotation, and then we&#8217;ve got WordCamp US, which is very exciting. Come and check out the speed build on the 19th with Brian Coords and Amber Hinds, which is going to be an exciting one. I think we&#8217;re in the main room as well, so that could be huge if we are, that could be a big one.</p>



<p>So I suspect we&#8217;ll start seeing some changes around October. It&#8217;s important to do some groundwork first before just breaking everything. Although we could just break everything, and see how it goes. See how many people I can annoy within a shortest space of time. But I&#8217;m very impatient to get on and start improving things. But also incredibly excited because there&#8217;s so much cool stuff happening.</p>



<p>So if anyone&#8217;s got, you know, I&#8217;ve been asking people, if you&#8217;ve got anything exciting going on that you want to share with the world around WordPress, whether it&#8217;s innovative, fun, crazy, enterprise, beginner. I really want to hear your stories, so just send them to me.</p>



<p>[00:28:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> When you say send them to you, what&#8217;s the best way to do that?</p>



<p>[00:28:12] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Good question. So I&#8217;ve got an Automattic email, now this is very strange. Still don&#8217;t know what it is, I think it&#8217;s jamie.marsland@automattic.com, or just tweet me on Twitter at pootlepress. But yeah, just get in touch. Send me your ideas, I want as many ideas as possible.</p>



<p>[00:28:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And if you&#8217;re listening to this in the year 2025, I presume you&#8217;re going to be heading to youtube.com/wordpress.</p>



<p>[00:28:32] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Yes, exactly. Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:28:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m not entirely sure whether that&#8217;s the right URL, but I&#8217;ll make sure to find out, and link it into the show notes. So hopefully this episode will reach the airwaves prior to WordCamp US. And you are doing a speed build, and as you said, it&#8217;s Brian Coords. If you&#8217;re not familiar with Brian, I think it&#8217;s fair to classify him as developer. And you&#8217;ve also got Amber Hinds, and I think it&#8217;s fair to classify Amber as accessibility advocate.</p>



<p>I thought that was a really curious combination. And I wondered if that was very intentional in terms of two different outputs. If you&#8217;re following Brian, I&#8217;m presuming we&#8217;re going to see a focused on the front end, focused on the design, making it look accurate to whatever it is that you serve up. Whereas I was curious, you know, are we going to see Amber focusing on just getting the menu exactly right? Which may take the full half an hour with all the aria labels and things. Are you hoping for that?</p>



<p>[00:29:22] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> I am hoping for that. I think it could be really interesting. But in the heat of panic, who knows what might happen. I think Brian&#8217;s been practicing as well. He&#8217;s done a live practice on YouTube, which I think shocked Amber a little bit. But yeah, I think it&#8217;ll be a really interesting combination to see the two different approaches. And I still haven&#8217;t chosen the website, so if anyone&#8217;s got any ideas for that.</p>



<p>[00:29:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s Ling&#8217;s Cars, let&#8217;s be honest. It&#8217;s not going to be Ling&#8217;s Cars. Okay, well, that genuinely is everything that I&#8217;ve got to ask you today. So, Jamie Marsland, all the best. First of all, massive congratulations. Your endeavors have not gone unrecognised by just about everybody in the community. The quality of what you&#8217;ve been doing has been second to none, and utterly deserved position. And I hope it proves to be everything that you wish it to be. Well done.</p>



<p>[00:30:03] <strong>Jamie Marsland:</strong> Thank you so much, Nathan. Good to talk.</p>
</div>



<p>On the podcast today we have Jamie Marsland, and it’s his third appearance on the podcast, which is a first.</p>



<p>Jamie has recently embarked on an exciting new journey as the <a href="https://wptavern.com/jamie-marsland-joins-automattic-as-head-of-wordpress-youtube">Head of the WordPress YouTube channel at Automattic</a>. This role is set to amplify the WordPress story through engaging and informative video content, capitalising on YouTube&#8217;s reach to over 2.7 billion monthly users.</p>



<p>As you’ll hear, Jamie only started his role a few days prior to recording, but he’s already full of plans to transform the WordPress YouTube presence. Automattic created this role to ensure a more focused effort on growing the channel, which currently has around 36,000 subscribers, significantly lower than some of the other WordPress YouTube channels.</p>



<p>Jamie envisions targeting distinct groups: beginners, DIYers, developers and designers, agencies and freelancers, product suppliers, and the community. Each piece of content will aim to add value, whilst trying to maintain some fun.</p>



<p>Throughout our conversation, Jamie shares his insights into why this role is necessary, especially in light of commercial rivals like Wix and Squarespace, who possess enormous marketing budgets. He discusses the importance of bringing new users into the WordPress ecosystem, whether they&#8217;re complete beginners or migrating from other platforms.</p>



<p>We also explore Jamie&#8217;s broader vision for the channel, including making high-quality content that genuinely adds value to the viewer, regardless of its production quality. He stresses that every video needs to answer the question of what value it brings to the audience. Fun and engagement are key themes, but quality content is paramount.</p>



<p>We also touch on his plans to bring in other voices, aiming to build a diverse team that reflects WordPress&#8217; global reach.</p>



<p>Jamie also talks about the balance between engaging the YouTube algorithm and producing valuable content. He shares his experiences and strategies for creating content that draw viewers in, emphasising the importance of creativity in ensuring all target groups find something of interest.</p>



<p>Jamie assures us that his new role won&#8217;t mean an end to his own popular YouTube channel, which has been advocating for WordPress for many years. He plans to continue creating content on this channel, whilst focusing on growing the official WordPress channel.</p>



<p>Towards the end, Jamie hints at the changes that might start materialising by October, post WordCamp US. He&#8217;s eager to hear from the community, so if you have innovative, fun, or valuable content ideas, Jamie wants to know.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in the evolving landscape of WordPress on YouTube, Jamie&#8217;s strategic approach, or how you might contribute to this exciting venture, this episode is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links</h2>



<p><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/session/speed-build-competition/">Jamie&#8217;s Speed Build session at WordCamp US 2024</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/wordpress">WordPress YouTube channel</a></p>



<p><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/">Learn WordPress</a></p>



<p><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></p>



<p><a href="https://x.com/pootlepress">Jamie on X</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Sep 2024 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42:"Matt: WordCamp US &amp; Ecosystem Thinking";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"https://ma.tt/?p=125868";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:41:"https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8031:"<p>(This post should be read while listening to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vTD8rnrlYk">Wish by Joshua Redman</a>. The writing is  synchronized to the music reading speed.)</p>



<p>Contributor day just wrapped up for <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/">Portland for WordCamp US</a>. If you ever have a chance to visit a WordCamp, I recommend it. It&#8217;s an amazing group of people brought together by this crazy idea that by working together regardless of our differences or where we came from or what school we went to we can be united by a simple yet groundbreaking idea: that software can give you more Freedom. Freedom to <a href="https://paulgraham.com/hp.html">hack</a>, freedom to charge, freedom to break it, freedom to do things I disagree with, freedom to experiment, freedom to be yourself, freedom expressed across the entire range of the human condition.</p>



<p>Open Source, once <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/">ridiculed and attacked by the professional classes</a>, has taken over as an intellectual and moral movement. Its followers are legion within every major tech company. Yet, even now, false prophets like Meta are trying to co-opt it. Llama, its <a href="https://www.llama.com/">“open source” AI model</a>, is free to use—at least until &#8220;<em>monthly active users of the products or services made available by or for Licensee, or Licensee’s affiliates, is greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month</em>.&#8221; <a href="https://ai.meta.com/llama/license/">Seriously</a>.</p>



<p>Excuse me? Is that registered users? Visitors to WordPress-powered sites? (Which number in the billions.) That&#8217;s like if the US Government said you had freedom of speech until you made over 50 grand in the preceding calendar year, at which point your First Amendment rights were revoked. No! That&#8217;s not Open Source. That&#8217;s not freedom.</p>



<p>I believe Meta should have the right to set their terms—they&#8217;re smart business, and an amazing deal for users of Llama—but don&#8217;t pretend Llama is Open Source when it doesn&#8217;t actually increase humanity&#8217;s freedom. It&#8217;s a proprietary license, issued at Meta’s discretion and whim. If you use it, you’re effectively a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassal_state">vassal state</a> of Meta.</p>



<p>When corporations disingenuously claim to be &#8220;open source&#8221; for marketing purposes, it&#8217;s a clear sign that Open Source is winning.</p>



<p><a href="https://opensource.org/">Actual Open Source licenses</a> are the law that guarantees freedom, the bulwark against authoritarianism. But what makes Open Source work isn&#8217;t the law, it&#8217;s the ethos. It’s the social mores. It’s what I&#8217;m now calling <strong>Ecosystem Thinking</strong>: the mindset that separates any old software with an open source license from the software that&#8217;s <em>alive</em>, that’s humming with activity and contributions from a thousand places.&nbsp;</p>



<img width="604" height="308" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/09/Ecosystem-Thinking-1024x523.png?resize=604%2C308&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-125892" />



<p>Ecosystem Thinking has four parts:</p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Learn</li>



<li>Evolve</li>



<li>Teach</li>



<li>Nourish</li>
</ol>



<p><strong>Learn</strong> is about keeping ourselves in a <a href="https://zenhabits.net/beginner/">beginner&#8217;s mind</a>, the curiosity to always engage with new ideas and approaches.</p>



<p><strong>Evolve</strong> is where we apply those learnings to our next iteration, our next version. We see how things work in the real world: it’s the natural selection of actual usage.</p>



<p><strong>Teach</strong> is actually where we learn even more, because you don&#8217;t really know something until you teach it. We open source our knowledge by sharing what we&#8217;ve learned, so others can follow on the same path.</p>



<p><strong>Nourish</strong> is the trickiest, and most important part: it&#8217;s where we water the garden. If you&#8217;ve done the previous three steps, you&#8217;ve been very successful; now your responsibility is to spread the fruits of your labors around the ecosystem so that everyone can succeed together. This is the philosophy behind <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/">Five For the Future</a>, which you&#8217;re going to see us emphasize a lot more now.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s the ecosystem. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang">But if it’s the yin, what&#8217;s the yang</a>? This openness and generosity will attract parasitic entities that just want to feed off the host without giving anything back. There are companies that participate in the Learn/Evolve/Teach/Nourish loop like a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FernGully:_The_Last_Rainforest">FernGully rainforest</a>, and there are those who treat Open Source simply as a resource to extract from its natural surroundings, like oil from the ground.</p>



<p>Compare the Five For the Future pages from <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/automattic/">Automattic</a> and <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/wp-engine/">WP Engine</a>, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren&#8217;t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by <a href="https://www.silverlake.com/">Silver Lake</a>, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn&#8217;t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to <strong>vote with your wallet</strong>. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who&#8217;s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers? <a href="https://newfold.com/">Newfold</a>, especially since its acquisition of Yoast and Yith, gives back. (I&#8217;ve asked them to consolidate their Five for the Future pages to better represent the breadth of their contributions.) So does <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/awesome-motive/">Awesome Motive</a>, <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/10up/">10up</a>, <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/godaddy/">Godaddy</a>, <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/hostinger-international/">Hostinger</a>, even <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/google/">Google</a>. Think about that next time it comes up to renew your hosting or domain, weigh your dollars towards companies that give back more, because you&#8217;ll get back more, too. Freedom isn&#8217;t free.</p>



<p>Those of us who are makers, who create the source, need to be wary of those who would take our creations and squeeze out the juice. They&#8217;re grifters who will hop onto the next fad, but we&#8217;re trying to build something big here, something long term—something that lasts for generations.</p>



<p>I may screw up along the way, or my health may falter, but these principles and beliefs will stand strong, because they represent the core tenet of our community: the idea that what we create together is bigger than any one person.</p>



<p><em>(Hat tip to <a href="https://automattic.com/">Automattician</a> <a href="https://jordanhillier.com/">Jordan Hillier</a> for the great ecosystem image.)</em></p>



<p>Update: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnI-QcVSwMU">I ended up presenting this post and furthering the case against Silver Lake and WP Engine at WordCamp US on September 20<sup>th</sup></a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Sep 2024 03:49:28 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:48:"WpOrg\Requests\Utility\CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:9:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Tue, 08 Oct 2024 04:47:47 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Tue, 08 Oct 2024 04:30:27 GMT";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:16:"content-encoding";s:4:"gzip";s:7:"alt-svc";s:19:"h3=":443"; ma=86400";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 2";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20241007072454";}