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From enhancing classic themes with the Style Book to introducing the new Query Total block, here’s everything you need to know about this update.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Style Book Comes to Classic Themes</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the standout features in Gutenberg 19.9 is the introduction of the Style Book for classic themes. Classic themes that support editor styles (via <code>add_theme_support( \'editor-styles\' )</code>) or include a <code>theme.json</code> file now have access to the Style Book under the Appearance > Design > Styles section in the WordPress admin panel.</p>\n\n\n\n<p> For classic themes supporting the Style Book, site patterns have been relocated to Appearance > Design > Patterns, consolidating design-related features previously found under Appearance > Patterns. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">New Query Total Block</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The new Query Total block is designed to enhance the user experience. 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Under the Pages section, select the desired page, open the action menu, and choose “Set as homepage.” </li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bug Fixes </h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Several bug fixes have been addressed in this release:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Fixed site editor crashes when adding a front-page template and clicking more options.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Resolved visual alignment regressions in the navigation menu items within the Site Editor.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Addressed a critical error in the Style Book when blocks were not registered.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Corrected the List View not updating when switching editor modes.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Gutenberg 19.9 is the last release of 2024.</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 Dec 2024 18:52:25 +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:2;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:47:\"WPTavern: ‘WP Gives A Hand’ Hits Five Years\";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=182740\";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:52:\"https://wptavern.com/wp-gives-a-hand-hits-five-years\";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:1110:\"<p><a href=\"https://wpgivesahand.com/\">WP Gives A Hand</a>, a charitable initiative within the WordPress community, uniting businesses to donate a portion of their revenue to support various nonprofit organizations, has turned five. The businesses choose whichever charity they would like to donate to.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past five years, 29 companies have collectively raised more than $52,000, benefiting 19 different charitable organizations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2023, 16 participants contributed $11,200 to nine diverse charities, supporting causes ranging from climate change mitigation to poverty alleviation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the 2024 campaign, participating companies will donate a percentage of their sales between <strong>December 23 and 29</strong> to charity. 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My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<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 facing up to the challenges and successes of being in the WordPress community.</p>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today, we have Andrew Palmer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew&#8217;s journey with WordPress started almost two decades ago, after transitioning from Joomla. He went on to make significant strides in the community, co-founding Elegant Marketplace, and investing in ventures like Atarim and Bertha AI.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode, we talk about the intricacies of working within the WordPress ecosystem, comparing the free and commercial sides. Andrew shares his thoughts on the challenges of financially compensating event contributors, and the importance of non-financial contributions, such as time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He discusses the absence of a structured regulatory body in the web development industry, and how he thinks this can impact trust and credibility.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss the lack of industry wide accreditation in web development, and the controversial nature of establishing such systems within the ever-evolving WordPress environment.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We hear about his personal and business achievements, such as guiding clients to grow their recurring income, sharing successes in SEO, and the positive experiences of community events like meetups and WordCamps.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we explore his thoughts on contribution expectations, and financial struggles of freelancers, Andrew also touches on the changing nature of the industry with the rise of AI solutions, and the longterm utility of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew&#8217;s reflections on his long career, his plans to pivot towards personal interests, and his intention to remain partially involved in the community, lead to a fun conversation which all seems to boil down to perseverance in a rapidly changing industry.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;ve ever thought about the complexities and commercial dynamics of the WordPress ecosystem, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding 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>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Andrew Palmer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Andrew Palmer. Hello, Andrew.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:22] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Hello, Nathan. How are you?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, good. We tried to do this podcast a week ago, but despite the fact that everything was ready to go, we just talked for about an hour, and so hopefully this time around we&#8217;ve actually hit the record button.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew Palmer&#8217;s joining us today from the UK, and we&#8217;re going to talk about his life story in WordPress, and the fact that that story in WordPress is going to be coming to an end fairly soon.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew, anybody that doesn&#8217;t know you, would you just give us your little potted bio. We&#8217;ll explore that in more depth, but just give us the two minute elevator pitch, if you like, of Andrew Palmer&#8217;s life.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:55] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Probably about 30 seconds. Started in WordPress 20 years ago, maybe 18, by accident. Was a Joomla guy. Went into WordPress by a guy called Mark Copeman, who doesn&#8217;t speak to me anymore and I don&#8217;t understand why, maybe it was the 30,000 questions I asked. I just got lucky, I suppose.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>My SEO skillset grew over time. I had a CD printing company and a printing company at the time, we were number one in Google. Which was probably easier 18 years ago, let&#8217;s face it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then I got into products, Elegant Marketplace. Six of us got together, ended up three of us, then two of us, then one of us, for various reasons. Elegant Marketplace sold that to InMotion for silly money, still going. I&#8217;ve got nothing to do with it now. It&#8217;s been five years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spent all that money on investing in different things like Atarim. I&#8217;m an investor in Atarim. Very small shareholder now because big guys like Yoast and some guys from 123 Reg, or ex 123 reg have invested in that as well. Done a few good things there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bertha AI started that with Vito, he had to back off a couple of years ago, so we&#8217;ve been going three years with that. Vito is concentrating on Atarim, which is a collaboration software, which we&#8217;re all very proud of because it was WP Feedback, and now it&#8217;s Atarim and does every website, you know, you can go onto every website, not just WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still got Bertha AI, still got a, well, I&#8217;m closing my agency actually, my web agency, which is part of this story. Getting off social media and just having a rest from the web world and web dev, continuing with my maintenance and that&#8217;s it really. That&#8217;s what I do. I&#8217;m Andrew Palmer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:29] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> If you don&#8217;t mind me asking, Andrew, and I don&#8217;t want to know your age, but I do want to know, are you at that time of life where closing things down and having a more restful experience is the order of the day, or are you just going to carry on working but in a different arena outside of tech, outside of WordPress?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:46] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Well, I don&#8217;t mind my age because I do pretty well on it really. I&#8217;m 64. 65 in May next year. So missed out on retirement, I&#8217;m getting my pension at 65, by a month because of governments, the way they dilly dally and have different shenanigans around pensions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And my pension really is my work, so after having invested a load of money, lost a load of money, invested a load of money again, lost a load of money, and made some money, and all this kind of stuff, it&#8217;s been a bit of a nice roller coaster, gradual roller coaster. Nothing great heights or great depths.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the web dev world has changed immensely. So I&#8217;m just going to be doing something else. And whether or not I come back to the web dev world or not is anybody&#8217;s guess. Somebody said, I&#8217;ll never leave it the other day, and same person said, my finger isn&#8217;t on the pulse as much as I think it is. And maybe that&#8217;s true. So maybe I need to go away, think about what I want to do with my life. Do some stuff that I really do want to do, which is catering. I love catering. It&#8217;s in my DNA.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Had a couple of restaurants, and pizza places, and coffee shops and stuff, and I just enjoy that. I enjoy real customer interfacing, except people that order a particular kind of coffee, it&#8217;s called a dirty espresso or something. It&#8217;s bit of chocolate in it, it&#8217;s horrible. But it&#8217;s hard work to make. You just think, oh, and you got to clean everything down. It&#8217;s just like, really? Just have a coffee.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you think that working in the technology sector is a young person&#8217;s game? And by that, I&#8217;m looking back on my life and I&#8217;m thinking that it all seemed a lot easier when I was younger. I am in my fifties, and definitely my capacity to learn new things is, it&#8217;s not what it once was.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>My drive and obviously available time, you know, in my case I have a family and that really does consume free time. And a lot of the learning that I did around web dev and technology was done in the evenings when I had free time and all of that. But you said no to that initially, you don&#8217;t think it is. You think that any age is available, and you can be effective, and innovative, and all of that despite your age.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:48] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> I really do think, well, with age comes experience, you know, bracket, mistakes. What I try and do, because I&#8217;ve got a little bit of coaching thing on the side. My aim actually is in February I start a counseling course, a proper counseling course for people with bereavement, or partnership issues, or business issues, or the whole personal sort of stuff. But you have to be, in the UK, you have to have some qualifications for that. So I need to go out and get the qualifications.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve been coaching for a while actually, and every single one of my coaching clients without exception said, you should really just get into counseling because you are not a business coach in the true sense of the word. Yes, you&#8217;ve helped my business, but you&#8217;ve also helped me emotionally and stuff like that. And walked me off ledges. And encouraged me. And told me my pros, and told me my cons. And without any, because I don&#8217;t hold anything, but actually, no, Nathan, you and I have a private conversations so you know I don&#8217;t hold anything back.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think honesty is part of coaching, honesty in business. And I think currently I&#8217;ve got some situations in web dev world where I don&#8217;t think particular people, and or companies, are being particularly honest about the way they, one, promote their products, treat their customers, pricing, price gouging and all this kind of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;m a bit sad that the web development world, certainly the WordPress world that I&#8217;m observing is not, or hasn&#8217;t got as much integrity as it did have a few years ago when there were less products out there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re overloaded by products. AI products. Forms, I mean, how many forms are out there? And they&#8217;re all trying to compete with each other, and do comparisons, and get involved in Twitter spats and all this kind of stuff. I&#8217;m just not interested in it anymore. I&#8217;m interested in being honest about what we&#8217;re able to give people for a price, and being honest about giving good support.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you think that the WordPress space during your time in it, you said 18, 20 years, I mean really it&#8217;s the full span of WordPress, more or less. Do you think that it has changed then for the worse? I have not been in it for anything like that length of time. I&#8217;m more like the 10 year mark, the 9, 10 year mark. And when I joined WordPress, commercial products were already, they were the norm. You could go out and buy this, that, and the other thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But my understanding, reading Milestones, the history of WordPress, tells me that it started just like most open source projects do, as a sort of fairly philanthropic endeavor. And then people realised that it was popular and they were able to build their products on top of it, and sell those products and what have you. There always seems to be this tension between the commercial side of WordPress and the contributor side of WordPress, let&#8217;s call it that. So my question very simply is, do you think it&#8217;s got, air quotes, worse?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:31] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Yes. Oh, definitely. And also, from the contributor perspective as well, there&#8217;s been some awesome contributors to the system, and one particular plugin developer that I know very well was giving away all of his plugins. And of course I come along and say, why are you giving them away? And it took me 18 months to get him onto the Elegant Marketplace that I had, and within six months he&#8217;d earn $150,000 from a $10 plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s easy to get slightly over enthusiastic about it, you know, and it was a lifetime license for $10 and stuff. And then support just got a bit overwhelming, and then the idea of subscriptions came in, because if you want support, you&#8217;ve got to pay for a subscription.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But certainly on the WordPress repository, there&#8217;s some gamification going on, there&#8217;s SEO shenanigans and lots of products are cross marketing each other. And I don&#8217;t think that was the idea for the repository, really. It was just literally a repository for free plugins. Here&#8217;s a free plugin, this will help make WordPress operate better. You&#8217;ve got a nice form plugin like, for instance, Contact Form 7 has never, you&#8217;ve never had to pay for it. And it&#8217;s got millions upon millions of downloads. But other people have made money out of Contact Form 7 by doing add-ons to them to make it easier to use.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We know form people very well, Gravity Forms, WS Form. Mark does a great job with WS Form. You&#8217;ve got WP Ninja guys doing forms. There&#8217;s a new form came out last week, so there&#8217;s competition there, which is always good. That&#8217;s the whole point of the world really is, competition should drive prices down. But unfortunately I think it&#8217;s driving quality down, or quality of service, because there&#8217;s a price point that people are willing to pay in WordPress and that&#8217;s being tested, let&#8217;s say.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot of people out there saying, okay, you can have a lifetime deal. I&#8217;ve got a lifetime deal on Bertha, you know. But some people take it up, some people don&#8217;t. If you&#8217;re selling a plugin for more than $10 a month it&#8217;s kind of, that&#8217;s a lot of money.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, the competition and the way that people are marketing things these days within WordPress, and other places, we&#8217;ve got people with the Aldi, Marks and Spencer&#8217;s argument over a cake. You copied my cake, and all that kind of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So competition begets resentment as well, and also increases toxicity because, let&#8217;s give an example of say, page builders. If you&#8217;re a Divi user, you love Divi. If you&#8217;re not a Divi user, and you look at another Divi user, you think they&#8217;re an idiot. If you&#8217;re a Bricks user, why would anybody else not want to use Bricks? You&#8217;re an idiot if you don&#8217;t use it. Or if you are a particular plugin user, and another plugin does very similar things, you&#8217;re an idiot if you don&#8217;t use this one. You know, all this kind of stuff. There&#8217;s just a level of toxicity that I can live without.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:10] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So has this toxicity as you describe it, has that promoted you to leave in advance of when you might have chosen to? In other words, have you become fed up with what&#8217;s going on inside WordPress plugins, themes, community, whatever you want to call it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Has it pushed you to make a decision ahead of how you might have done, I don&#8217;t know if, let&#8217;s say for example, five years ago you were thinking you&#8217;d probably go on into your seventies or something, but now you are thinking of retiring, in inverted commas, a little bit earlier?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:39] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> I don&#8217;t think so. I think, you know, I&#8217;d always kind of aimed for 65 to retire from the web development work, because it&#8217;s actually not easy developing websites. Especially these days with all the AI solutions, and I&#8217;m guilty of that. You know, we brought out Bertha three years ago. Doesn&#8217;t build websites, but you&#8217;ve got lovely things like ZipWP, you&#8217;ve got Kadence WP, building AI, you&#8217;ve got GoDaddy with their own AI solutions now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>ZipWP have just announced that there&#8217;s a hosting opportunity, white label. So all hosts, literally all web hosts for WordPress, will have an AI build opportunity built in, and very competitive. If you look at the pricing of ZipWP for host, it&#8217;s crazy competitive.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So even if you are a reseller, or you are using WHM or whatever to be a host on the back of another host, you can install ZipWP and for 90 bucks a month, you can offer an opportunity for people to build a thousand websites on ZipWP. I think that&#8217;s an incredible opportunity. And it&#8217;s not complete websites. You still have to finish them off and put your own design situations in. But really, for mom and pop shops it&#8217;s a perfect solution. It&#8217;s an unbelievably good solution, just like Kadence WP.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it&#8217;s harder to get good web development jobs, or web design jobs, which I&#8217;ve never been a web designer. You know, if you look at some of the web designs that I&#8217;ve done, how&#8217;s he survived? But I&#8217;m more backend really. I&#8217;ve got a team of developers that are unbelievably good at coding, so there&#8217;s never been a situation that they can&#8217;t address really, which is really cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> When you look back at your career then, what have been some of the highlights over that time? And I really am interested in going back the full 18, 20 years because there may very well be bits that weren&#8217;t necessarily all that significant at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, you think, oh gosh, that really did steer me in a different direction, and change things for me. So let&#8217;s go back and spend a few minutes just thinking of the bits that you&#8217;ve enjoyed the most.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:34] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Oh, it&#8217;s going to sound kind of weird, but helping people. I mean, I&#8217;ve helped a lot of people make a lot of money in WordPress. I&#8217;ve had one guy introduced him to another guy, and he sold his plugin for a hundred grand, and then got 15 grand a month for two years to develop it further.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve helped developers earn a lot of money, and grow, and develop lots of plugins. I mean, one guy, probably over the span of four years of being on Elegant Marketplace, probably earned a million bucks in a four year period. I helped WP Feedback massively. Within 31 days, they had a year&#8217;s worth of money to work with.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s all persuasion. I mean, you know, to get WP Feedback into Elegant Marketplace, I was literally driving a mini helping this guy move offices, and stealing a couple of screens off him when he was moving offices. I&#8217;m in my little mini convertible and I&#8217;m saying, okay, you want to sell your plugin on your own website, nobody knows where you are. You&#8217;ve got a thousand people in an email address, I&#8217;ve got 63,000 email addresses.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You either want to sell it on the corner shop or you want to go to the supermarket. And with a supermarket, you are going to lose some of your margin. So what? But at least you&#8217;re going to get out there. And I think we sold 200 grands worth or so in a month. Not bad. So that&#8217;s a proud moment.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I mean, helping grow Termageddon, we did a marketing campaign with Termageddon, I think we got them a thousand customers in just over two weeks. So that&#8217;s nice to know that, and we got rewarded for it as well. We got paid for that as well, commissions and all kinds of stuff and great friendships were built over that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an individual, I&#8217;ve met a lot of lovely people, you included, amazing, and kept them as friends. People message me all the time saying, how are you doing, and what&#8217;s going on?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And through Bertha, I just did a thing today, which is what I love doing. You know, there&#8217;s a particular user that&#8217;s really loved Bertha, and used Bertha from day one and carried on with it, and she&#8217;s paid loads of money into it. She paid the first high premium prices, and then she&#8217;s reduced down to the monthly, and then got an annual for whatever, and then she said, oh, do you know what? I&#8217;ve been paying for Bertha for about six months twice, I&#8217;ve been paying for it twice. I said, oh dear, well we&#8217;re beyond our free refund period because it&#8217;s going to cost me money to refund you, but I&#8217;ll tell you what, I&#8217;ll just cancel all payments for the future, and I&#8217;ve gifted you a lifetime of Bertha.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The email I got back was amazing. It&#8217;s nice to be able to do those kind of things for people that have supported you as well. Speaking at WP London, speaking at Bristol Meetup, my first meetup that I ever spoke at, that was amazing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Building websites for businesses, you know, I built a website for a business, he was in Magento, he was turning over 20 grand a month. I persuaded him to move to Shopify of all things, on the golf course, just saying, why don&#8217;t you just move to Shopify? Here&#8217;s the price. He didn&#8217;t like it, but there you go, that&#8217;s him. You know, within a year, he&#8217;d turned over two and a half million quid. So that&#8217;s nice.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it sounds as though it&#8217;s all about money, but it means he&#8217;s improved his life, and built up the business and it&#8217;s still continuing to grow. So it&#8217;s basically helping people grow businesses, you know, coaching clients. One person came to me, she was recurring income of about 700 a month and knew exactly what to do, but just couldn&#8217;t get the incentive to do that. Now she&#8217;s on like 10, 15 grand a month recurring income.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So guiding people through their journeys. Writing references for people so that they, true references as well, saying, yeah, this person&#8217;s good at that, she may not be good at that, or he may not be good at that. Them ending up getting a 200,000 a year job out of it. Hopefully that my reference helped as well. Because it&#8217;s a genuine reference. You know, after coaching people, you kind of know people pretty well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the greatest things that I did was I had a CD printing company and I learned about SEO. We were number one under CD printing in the UK. One guy got in touch with us and the job was for £365. It was a thousand CDs, and we printed them in our little inkjet printer and everything. His next order was for £365,000. That was quite an achievement. I mean it&#8217;s just, everybody talks about 10 x-ing, not hundred x-ing, or whatever it is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it does sound as though it&#8217;s all about money, but also the nice side about being involved in WordPress is the Meetups, the WordCamps, the traveling, the getting to play golf with Victor Drover for nine holes when I had a bad back, and it was too hot, and I was a bit sweary. All those kind of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, meeting Victor Drover from, he&#8217;s got this lovely thing called watchful.net, which is similar to Blog Vault, but hasn&#8217;t got the backups and all that kind of stuff, or ManageWP. And he&#8217;s just a great guy. And he was partners with a guy, Steve Burge, who&#8217;s got PublishPress now, and they&#8217;re just cool guys.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And they were in the Joomla community first of all, and they&#8217;ve transitioned across to WordPress because it&#8217;s just bigger now. Mike Demo, he was at InMotion, we made friends because he approached me for a coffee in Berlin WordCamp, said, do you want to sell Elegant Marketplace? And it was about three years previously, we&#8217;d been going two years and I said, no, no, no. And then in Berlin, I just thought, you know what, we are near our five year thing, in a year&#8217;s time we&#8217;ll be five years old. These things normally take about a year. And we sold it on the 31st of December that year from a coffee meeting with him and a guy called Tim, who&#8217;s a lovely guy as well. On the 31st of December 2019, so how was that for timing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It sounds like the bit that&#8217;s underlying is the interface of business and community in a way. And although you took pains there to point out that it sounds like it&#8217;s all about the money, in the community, that is a legitimate part of it, right? And I know that for some people, the whole topic of the finance and money and all of that is, it&#8217;s not something they want to engage with. They want to contribute their spare time and the business side of it is of less interest to them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whereas other people like you, it&#8217;s different, right? You have a business, you want to be profitable. Ultimately, that is what the business is for, is to generate revenue, and pay the staff, and increase the product roadmap, and the share of the market that you&#8217;ve got and all of that. And I think that&#8217;s really interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s nice that you&#8217;ve also got the community angle thrown around it as well. In that all of the bits and pieces that you&#8217;ve mentioned are not just your own, but other people&#8217;s successes. And I&#8217;ve definitely seen you in person lots and lots of times, and you show up to all those different kind of events as well. So that&#8217;s nice.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:42] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Yeah, I think one of the things that really does annoy me about WordPress is that contributors have to go cap in hand. And I&#8217;m talking about contributors from speakers at WordCamps, to Meetups, to various events that people organise in WordPress. Really talented developers who are contributors for whatever reason to WordPress. It&#8217;s good for them because they get a little badge, they can sell themselves to other people and say, look, I&#8217;m actually a Core contributor to WordPress, so I know more about WordPress and this other person, you should employ me, and also I contribute to WordPress. So kudos to me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s great but then there&#8217;s always a donate button, and there&#8217;s always a, I can&#8217;t make it to WordCamp because I can&#8217;t afford it. Because you can afford the ticket price, because that&#8217;s always been Matt&#8217;s aim to keep it under a hundred bucks or something. I think WordCamp New York was the most expensive, wasn&#8217;t it? A hundred dollars or something? It was the first time it reached a hundred dollars. Mostly it&#8217;s sort of been, I remember when it was 20 bucks. It&#8217;s great. It&#8217;s just a cursory kind of commitment to pay 20 bucks because I want to make sure you come. But it&#8217;s the travel, the hotels, specifically in America, they&#8217;re so expensive, hotels in America.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So a WordCamp, to make it worth going to a WordCamp, you need to get there two days before to acclimatise to where you are. And there&#8217;s various Meetups, you know, all these hosting companies put on their big events and stuff to try and attract you to them. So you&#8217;re talking a few grand, maybe two or three grand to raise to go to a big WordCamp. One of the four bigs the Asia, I mean, Asia from UK is like 15 hours.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would love to get rid of the cap in hand mentality of WordPress. I&#8217;m doing this for free, can you donate? Can you help me contribute more to Core? That shouldn&#8217;t be a thing as far as I&#8217;m concerned. If you are contributing to something that has a commercial end game, which is WordPress, and or Joomla, and or Drupal, because people are using it for commercial purposes, then you shouldn&#8217;t need to go cap in hand.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You should be paid for your contribution. And you should be paid for your attendance at any kind of Meetups if you are a speaker, because you&#8217;re contributing. That&#8217;s my view, and I know how to do it, and I&#8217;ve told the relevant authorities how to do it. And I think that things have to change to be more appropriate to what the product of WordPress is, because it is a product rather than a project, because loads of people are making loads of money out of it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there&#8217;s also the freelancers out there that are using WordPress to earn a living, and they&#8217;re literally scratching a living. You know, I saw a Tweet the other day from Matt Medeiros saying, anybody willing to tell me how hard it is being a freelancer in WordPress at the moment. You know, are you suffering from not getting paid on time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was in a little group the other day, moaning about the fact that I haven&#8217;t got paid. One guy said, and I&#8217;ll name him because he&#8217;s great, James Bullis said, well, that&#8217;s your fault because you haven&#8217;t set the rules.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there&#8217;s no guidance for new freelancers. And he&#8217;s absolutely right. It is my fault. I didn&#8217;t set the rules to my clients, so they take their time in paying me. And so he&#8217;s moved on to GoHighLevel because, doesn&#8217;t want to do WordPress anymore, that type of thing. But he&#8217;s also moved on to being more of a consultant, rather than a web designer, developer. And I think that&#8217;s the way it&#8217;s going.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because of AI, people can build their websites in a heartbeat. The way WordPress is going, there&#8217;s more onboarding now. You can actually build something from, especially 6.7 with the new theme there, 6.7 theme, whatever it&#8217;s called, 2025 theme. That&#8217;s much better. And the fact that you can turn off the patterns when you go to every page is just like a complete bonus.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But WordPress needs to have onboarding and it doesn&#8217;t, and that&#8217;s why it loses out, in inverted commas. I don&#8217;t think WordPress loses out to the Wix&#8217;s of this world, or the Sqarespaces of this world. I think if you&#8217;re going to use WordPress, then it&#8217;s a good decision. Just as it is a good decision to use any other web building software. But you have to be aware that it&#8217;s more long-term work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s such a strange dichotomy, WordPress, because I&#8217;ve got quite a few hobby projects that have got nothing to do with revenue generating. They&#8217;re just personal websites that I&#8217;ve put up to, I don&#8217;t know, house my thoughts for want of a better word. And so that&#8217;s completely free.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But obviously also inside the WordPress space, there&#8217;s this juggernaut of commercial products, hosting companies, plugin companies, SEO companies, you name it. It&#8217;s all been taken care of. And there&#8217;s millions, billions of dollars sloshing around inside the WordPress space.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I genuinely find it a really big puzzle trying to work out what the free portion means. And so, you know, when you say that it would be great to pay everybody, I guess that would be a fantastic aspiration, wouldn&#8217;t it? That everybody that attends a WordPress event, and does something there, let&#8217;s say, contributes their time or is a speaker or what you, not an attendee necessarily. But they would be paid for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is interesting how you square that circle, though. You know, where does that money come from? How does that money get corralled? How do you, for want of a better word, compel people to donate money that seems like a fairly decent moral obligation, but isn&#8217;t an actual legal obligation and so on?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I find that part of the puzzle really difficult. And obviously in more recent times, the last couple of months that is playing itself out, is going to be playing itself out in the courts fairly soon to the time of recording it. And I don&#8217;t know how to solve that problem. I just know that that problem exists.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In an ideal world where unicorns run free, and there are rainbows everywhere, everybody reaches into their pockets and donates plus 5% of everything that they&#8217;ve got in terms of time and revenue. But we don&#8217;t really live in that world, do we? And some plugin developers are hard up and it&#8217;s difficult enough just to make ends meet. So them donating time might be really difficult, on it goes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:23] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> You are right, it is difficult. But I think the big guys do contribute a little cash wise, but I don&#8217;t think it is all about the cash. It&#8217;s about the time. How do you keep the project going? Especially as so many people have left, you know, the guy that did the Rest API, forgive me, I can&#8217;t remember his name, maybe that&#8217;s because I&#8217;m 64 and it&#8217;s time ago. But he developed something that changed the way WordPress worked. And he is not in the community anymore for various reasons.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that&#8217;s not something that can continue, people leaving Core contributions. And to have it all on one company, even though that company is making money, is irresponsible. We&#8217;ve got to find a way for people to contribute, and contribute either financially or with time. With the current situation, that&#8217;s a difficult bridge to cross, and I&#8217;m hoping that the bridge isn&#8217;t burnt. And I don&#8217;t think it is, I think it&#8217;s just severely charred. Might need some repair, you know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s things going on in WordPress community that go in on other communities as well. And the difference with WordPress I think, or with web development per se, it&#8217;s not just WordPress. There is no association. Lawyers have the, in the UK they have the Law Society, which they have to adhere to certain rules. With WordPress, it&#8217;s just a free for all. With web, it&#8217;s a free for all. It&#8217;s not just WordPress, it&#8217;s all the web building technologies that you&#8217;ve got. It&#8217;s a complete free for all, and you don&#8217;t know that people are actually qualified to give you the advice that they&#8217;re saying they are self qualified to give.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s I think part of the issue with all web development, and it&#8217;s a trust issue. How can I trust you? You hear so many stories, oh, my developers left me. Well okay, yeah, but why? Were you a difficult client? Or did you pay your bills on time? Why did your developer leave you? Because mostly developers will stick around with you. So let&#8217;s figure out why they left you, and if they did leave you for their own reasons and they weren&#8217;t very good at what they did, then that&#8217;s fine. But let&#8217;s make sure that we are at least transparent in what our capabilities are.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And by being a member of a society like the Law Society or something, we sign up to be good, and honest, and have some integrity, and we charge the right prices, and we don&#8217;t overcharge. Maybe things could get better by that way, who knows?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s interesting, isn&#8217;t it? There are initiatives, and off the top of my head, I&#8217;ve forgotten what their names are, but I will try to put in the show notes links to the endeavors to provide some kind of accreditation basically. And you&#8217;re right, certainly in the UK, if a plumber shows up at my house, or an electrician shows up at my house, firstly, I&#8217;m going to assume that they have the necessary qualifications, and if not, I&#8217;m going to ask to see it. And once I&#8217;ve seen that, I am totally happy that they can do the work that&#8217;s required, and that if things are not done to the correct standard, I&#8217;ll be able to go back to some kind of industry body and say, look what happened.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in a sense, web development is real wild west, isn&#8217;t it? And you only have to listen to the origin story of more or less everybody that I&#8217;ve interviewed and they say the same thing. And the story kind of goes like this, well, I had a job, I wasn&#8217;t really enjoying it, so I started playing with website building in my spare time. I had a friend or a family member who wanted a website so I did that, and then realised that, oh, actually there&#8217;s something in this. And then pursued it, got better and better. The point being, there is no industry body.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I know that this is a real divisive subject actually, because as soon as you introduce this, there are those people who think, yeah, this is a great idea, let&#8217;s get everybody accredited and we&#8217;re off to the races. We can all at least know that if you&#8217;ve got this badge, you can do this set of things, and if you&#8217;ve got this one, you can do this set of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there are other people who think that that&#8217;s just a terrible idea. You know, I want to be able to learn and not have to go and sit exams and prove what I can do. My history of work will be the judge of what I can do and so on. And I don&#8217;t really know what the answer is, but having that accreditation in other walks of life definitely works. Whether or not it would work in the WordPress space, I&#8217;m not entirely sure, but it&#8217;s an interesting subject.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:16] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> We do have it in WordPress in a way with the contributor badges. I&#8217;m a contributor, so I obviously know what I&#8217;m doing because I&#8217;ve got a badge that says I know what I&#8217;m doing. And you can see my profile, and you can see the plugins that I&#8217;ve developed, and all the websites that I&#8217;ve done or my Core contributions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But we have it for, as I say, lawyers and accountants, you&#8217;ve got to be a registered chartered accountant. We have it for nurses, to be a member of an accredited association, and to pass exams, and do all the exams. But there&#8217;s things that prove that you can do what you do. And web development is one of those industries that just doesn&#8217;t have that. It&#8217;s literally, take my word for it. Here&#8217;s some stuff that I&#8217;ve done, and here&#8217;s some clients that have been happy. ie testimonials, so bite the bullet and pay the money.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It is really difficult, isn&#8217;t it? For example, if you had a WordPress qualification, let&#8217;s say that you were wanting to classify yourself as a WordPress theme builder, developer, plugin developer, whatever. Can you imagine the amount of different accreditations that you&#8217;d have had to have gone through in the last five years? Five years ago you probably could have had one set of qualifications for the previous 15 years. And then it feels like more or less every six months you&#8217;d have to have a new one because it&#8217;s changing so much. And I&#8217;m fairly sure that in the next six months it&#8217;ll have changed beyond all recognition. In fact, I know what&#8217;s coming, as does everybody who follows the project.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s going to be really difficult to keep track of, can you build blocks in the correct way now, or in the WordPress way now? Do you have the capacity to do things with full site editing in mind? And so on and so forth? Have you taken account of the new APIs that are coming at the rate of about one a week, it feels at the moment, and so on? So it would be really hard to pin that down.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And also, it&#8217;s not like we&#8217;ve got a CEO of WordPress, a commercial entity who is, if you like, just telling everybody what to do. It is, to a great extent, a community driven project. And so the direction that it goes can morph a little bit, and so that would make it difficult as well I feel.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:11] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Yeah, because it&#8217;s not, WordPress the project isn&#8217;t a commercial situation. So therefore, I love the phrase of it&#8217;s a Wild West because it is. It is the Wild West. There&#8217;s no doubt about it, is that literally you go on Fiverr, you can get a website developed for $30, 50 bucks, whatever. All the layouts that are out there are the, they&#8217;re bloated and horrible and not accessible and all this kind of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of the reason I&#8217;m getting out as well from web dev is accessibility. I don&#8217;t want to be held responsible for my client&#8217;s bad decisions, because I have no control. If I say to a client, well, actually to get as accessible as we possibly can, it&#8217;s going to cost you another three or five grand. They go, oh, I don&#8217;t want to do that. I say, well, it could cost you a hundred grand if you don&#8217;t spend that money in advance.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Web design is becoming more of a commodity as well. Because they&#8217;re saying, okay, well, I can have a website, but there&#8217;s other things. And what I mean, there&#8217;s a commodity, it&#8217;s a product.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With WordPress, you have an unlimited amount of other products that help it work better to your desire. LMS, forms, API connectors, all this kind of stuff, SaaS systems, whatever. Which all need updating and paying for every single year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With a proprietary system, you get what you get. Yes, there are extensions, but there extensions really have to, people are complaining about, oh, got my plugin on wordpress.org kicked out the other day because it hasn&#8217;t got this, this, and this. Try doing a Shopify app and getting it passed. That is really hard. And keeping it there, and also knowing that, once you get to a million dollars a year on Shopify, that you&#8217;ll be having 15% of that revenue taken away from you straight away. Which is fine, I&#8217;ve got no problem with that at all. It&#8217;s just, think outside of WordPress for the moment, and think the difficulties that you&#8217;re going to have in the proprietary systems.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They&#8217;re going to be similar, not the same, because the proprietary system do the updates. I&#8217;ve had people complaining about 6.7, it&#8217;s broken layouts and things like that. And then you&#8217;ve got another guy who&#8217;s saying, well, it&#8217;s nothing wrong with that, it&#8217;s got to be a plugin conflict. And there&#8217;s no real solution. It&#8217;s just a, yeah, oh, sorry you got a problem, you know, maybe I can help you. Rather than, it can&#8217;t be anything we&#8217;ve done, and all that kind of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you need to have a certain amount of patience to be a web developer in any platform that you are using, because there are going to. I got a quote from a client the other day, finished a massive Shopify site. There&#8217;s just one thing that broke it yesterday, which the client broke it by adding something, and he said, this is why we can&#8217;t have nice things. It just breaks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because it&#8217;s not a Shopify thing that he wanted to add into it, it&#8217;s a mailing system with HTML and the HTML broke. And then now we&#8217;ve got to program it round to fix it, and there&#8217;s another few hours of charges. So, you know, another couple of grand or whatever it may be. So there are problems dealing with proprietary systems as well, let me tell you. It&#8217;s not all roses out there, there&#8217;s some thorns as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:06] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it doesn&#8217;t matter which point of WordPress&#8217; history you were to plonk yourself down on if you had a time machine. If you look in one direction, it&#8217;ll be the worst time in WordPress&#8217; history. And you look in another direction, it&#8217;ll be the best time in WordPress&#8217; history. And you could probably say that at any point in time. We&#8217;re just where we are, and we have to figure the way through.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you&#8217;ve definitely been there. You&#8217;ve had an extremely long journey. I know that you&#8217;ve had your ups and your downs. And I&#8217;d just like to say, from me, it&#8217;s been a real pleasure getting to know you. Do you think we&#8217;ll see you turning up to events in the near future, or are you literally drawing a line and saying, all media closed, business shut down, nothing to do with the internet anymore. What&#8217;s going to happen?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:47] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> The straight answer is no. You&#8217;re not going to see me again ever. You lucky, lucky boy. Your cup runneth over, I&#8217;m sure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>No, I mean, you know, I&#8217;ll pop in occasionally I would imagine, but I&#8217;m just going to have a rest from this arena. I think Paul, he now does Beaver Builder, Paul Lacey, he left the WordPress community for a while because it was just overwhelming, and he had an agency and he closed it down and did all sorts of stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;m on a similar path, really. I&#8217;m just going to close my agency down. So web dev is gone. That actually happened on the first of November. I just said, no more web dev. But I&#8217;ve got maintenance clients, I mean, I&#8217;ve got recurring income from that, and that&#8217;s what&#8217;s keeping me. I&#8217;m closing my limited company because the revenue isn&#8217;t enough really to have a limited company with all the associated costs with that, it just costs more for accountancy and costs more for everything. It&#8217;s just horrible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So sole trader from first of December, closing the limited company down at the end of December. Not owing any personal person any money, which is great, or any business any money.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then from the first of December, trading as Andrew Palmer and doing whatever I do. But the maintenance side, so if somebody wants me to develop a website, I&#8217;ll say no, but these people will develop a website for you. And if someone wants me to build an API, I go, nope, but these people will develop that API, off you go, see you later. The maintenance side I&#8217;ll keep going because it&#8217;s cost effective for me to run and I can do it part-time. It&#8217;s not a big deal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve got one client that&#8217;s very worried that I&#8217;m going to leave her. I look after, I don&#8217;t know, 78 websites for them, so I&#8217;m not going to, yeah. But it&#8217;s not hard to look after them. And occasionally one goes down and I just go in and fix it, and five minutes later it&#8217;s right. So that&#8217;s not going. And the other clients that I&#8217;ve had for 20 years, you know, literally 20 years hosting their websites and they&#8217;re going, well, what are we going to do? I said, well, don&#8217;t worry about it, I&#8217;m keeping that side on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will also get it ready, you know, I nearly sold it last month, and the guy just came back to me at the last minute and said, we&#8217;re not ready and the company&#8217;s not ready. Because when you run your own business, you let a few things go. Not badly but just because you just know. You know what to do on that. So there&#8217;s no notes on it or anything like that. So, you know, I need to be able to make saleable. So within six months, I think I&#8217;ll have completely got out of the business by selling my business and doing what I want to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It sounds like you&#8217;re going to have a portion of a toe in the water still. Just one toe, but only a little bit of that toe.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:09] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Exactly, yeah. So long as it&#8217;s nice and warm.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That sounds nice. Well hopefully, we&#8217;ll get to catch up at some point in the near future, but Andrew Palmer, thank you very much for joining us today and being a part of the community for the length of time that you have. I really appreciate it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:22] <strong>Andrew Palmer:</strong> Thanks very much. It&#8217;s been good fun.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://x.com/arniepalmer\">Andrew Palmer</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew&#8217;s journey with WordPress started almost two decades ago after transitioning from Joomla. He went on to make significant strides in the community, co-founding Elegant Marketplace and investing in ventures like Atarim and Bertha AI.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode, we talk about the intricacies of working within the WordPress ecosystem, comparing the free and commercial sides. Andrew shares his thoughts on the challenges of financially compensating event contributors and the importance of non-financial contributions, such as time. He discusses the absence of a structured regulatory body in the web development industry, and how he thinks this can impact trust and credibility.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss the lack of industry-wide accreditation in web development and the controversial nature of establishing such systems within the ever-evolving WordPress environment.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We hear about his personal and business achievements, such as guiding clients to grow their recurring income, sharing successes in SEO, and the positive experiences of community events like Meetups and WordCamps.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we explore his thoughts on contribution expectations and financial struggles of freelancers, Andrew also touches on the changing nature of the industry with the rise of AI solutions and the long-term utility of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew&#8217;s reflections on his long career, his plans to pivot towards personal interests, and his intention to remain partially involved in the community, lead to a fun conversation which all seems to boil down to perseverance in a rapidly changing industry.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;ve ever thought about the complexities and commercial dynamics of the WordPress ecosystem, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://elegantmarketplace.com/\">Elegant Marketplace</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://bertha.ai/\">Bertha AI</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/book/milestones/\">Milestones &#8211; The story of WordPress</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://contactform7.com/\">Contact Form 7</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.gravityforms.com/\">Gravity Forms</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://wsform.com/\">WS Form</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://ninjaforms.com/\">Ninja Forms</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/divi/\">Divi</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://bricksbuilder.io/\">Bricks</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://zipwp.com/\">ZipWP</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.kadencewp.com/\">Kadence WP</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.godaddy.com/en-uk/airo\">GoDaddy Airo</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://termageddon.com/\">Termageddon</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.wpldn.uk/\">WPLDN</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://watchful.net/\">Watchful</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://publishpress.com/\">PublishPress</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.inmotionhosting.com/\">InMotion hosting</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p>GoHighLevel</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WP Certify</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beaver Builder</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 Dec 2024 15:00:00 +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:4;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:85:\"Do The Woo Community: LinkedIn for Agencies and Personal Branding with Nicole Osborne\";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=87681\";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:84:\"https://dothewoo.io/linkedin-for-agencies-and-personal-branding-with-nicole-osborne/\";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:197:\"In this episode, Emma and Adam discuss LinkedIn\'s potential for personal branding and agency growth with trainer Nicole. They share strategies for effective engagement and avoiding common mistakes.\";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 Dec 2024 11:50:00 +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: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:5;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:102:\"Do The Woo Community: Advanced WooCommerce Development, Lessons &amp; Challenges with Chase Gruszewski\";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=87697\";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:94:\"https://dothewoo.io/advanced-woocommerce-development-lessons-challenges-with-chase-gruszewski/\";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:204:\"In their final episode of the year, hosts Marcel and Mike discuss personal reflections, client management, and WooCommerce insights with developer Chase, focusing on advanced education and AI integration.\";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 Dec 2024 09:32:41 +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:6;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:106:\"Do The Woo Community: Behind the Scenes on the Do the Woo Site Rebuild with Derek Hanson and Katie McCanna\";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=87662\";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:105:\"https://dothewoo.io/behind-the-scenes-on-the-do-the-woo-site-rebuild-with-derek-hanson-and-katie-mccanna/\";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:193:\"In this episode of Do the Woo, hosts Robbie and Bob discuss the website revamp led by Automattic\'s Special Projects team, focusing on improvements, user engagement, and innovative integrations.\";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:\"Tue, 17 Dec 2024 10:23:54 +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:7;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:47:\"WPTavern: Recap of the State of the Word 2024 \";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=182598\";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:56:\"https://wptavern.com/recap-of-the-state-of-the-word-2024\";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:10549:\"<p>WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg delivered his annual State of the Word (SOTW) address today from Tokyo Node Hall in Tokyo, Japan. This marks the second time the event was held outside North America, following last year’s address in Madrid, Spain.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year’s event spanned three hours, with a special emphasis on Japanese culture. Matt <a href=\"https://x.com/photomatt/status/1868564167487066543\">explained</a>, “We&#8217;ve gotten so much inspiration over the years from Japanese culture, we wanted to make this event really &#8220;of the space,&#8221; so we&#8217;re doing a few extra things this year. My presentation will include Mary Hubbard and Matías Ventura, but also part of it will be in Japanese and presented by Junko Fukui Nukaga. We&#8217;ll have a piano performance by Aiko Takei. After the presentation and Q&amp;A we&#8217;ll do a panel in Japanese with Mieko Kawakami, Craig Mod, Hajime Ogushi, and Genki Taniguchi.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matt enumerated the WordPress contributions of the Japanese community, mainly <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/community-translation-and-wapuu-how-japan-is-shaping-wordpress-history\">Translation, and Wapuu</a>. Japan was the country that made him realize that WordPress was more than a blogging tool, and Kansei engineering fascinates him.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Japanese WordPress site was set up in December 2003, just six months after WordPress was launched.&nbsp; The version originally called “WordPress ME” (WordPress Multilingual Edition) was maintained by a user called Otsukare. <a href=\"https://ja.wordpress.org/about-wp-ja/wapuu/\">Wapuu</a>, the official mascot character of WordPress, was designed by Kazuko Kaneuchi in 2011 and is GPL licensed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matt then shared some statistics:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>WordPress now powers 43.6% of the internet and, according to W3Techs, has a 62.3% CMS market share.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>WordPress powers 58.5% of all the websites in Japan and has an 83% market share, which is 31x Shopify, which is only at 2.7%.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>WordPress has surpassed 500M core downloads.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>English is the most used language (50.8%), followed by Spanish (6.87), German (5.99) and Japanese (5.82%)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>1,700 new themes were uploaded in the last 12 months, an increase over the 1,400 new themes last year. Of those new themes, over 1,000 of them are block themes.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>WordPress is expected to hit 2.35 billion downloads of plugins this year, which is a 20% year-over-year growth.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Plugin ecosystem is thriving, with the review queue reduced to zero. After launching the Plugin Check tool, 41% fewer issues were reported per approved plugin and enabled the team to approve 138% more plugins each week.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gutenberg&nbsp;</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The event also highlighted the progression of Gutenberg, which is entering its third phase focused on collaboration. &nbsp;<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/matveb/\">Matias Ventura</a>, Gutenberg’s lead architect, discussed upcoming features that will enable users to collaborate directly within the editor, including leaving comments and receiving notifications, similar to Google Docs.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>WordPress is for everyone. So we need to really put our minds together into working out how can it be the best writing tool, the best design tool, the best developer experience. It takes time, it takes effort from the whole community but I think it&#8217;s very rewarding.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; Matias Ventura</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The team is also working on a ‘Zoom out’ feature. He then talked about Styles, the theme JSON structure, block bindings, query block, the ongoing efforts to address the lack of responsive tools in the editor, and the new Registered Blog Template API, which has simplified the process of registering and managing custom templates.</p>\n\n\n\n<img src=\"https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcn0kY5hsPRDD6hvnH8QiDQDzLtPziycb0YqdEAMD64qK-z2aHAgSlRW_ZcYQftgbjUSPXe92DLVG0hdUIsjQY6AcX6SI4NzaQp0Ry2PBaHx7_75lTq2xBtWnQhj2HCLllTdHe2?key=XGjteIksmw0i5v-3f2w6QcY9\" alt=\"\" />\n\n\n\n<p>“We have a lot to go through,” Ventura said, “and we want to approach this one through sort of four lenses, and that is Write, Design, Build, and Develop.”</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress Playground</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress Playground was another exciting feature discussed. This tool allows WordPress to run instantly on any device without hosting, enabling users to experiment without installations. New updates include support for multiple instances within a single window, the integration of Blueprints (JSON files for setting up your WordPress Playground instance), and a Playground block that embeds WordPress instances within WordPress itself. Mullenweg emphasized that these innovations aim to make WordPress more accessible and powerful while preserving its open-source ethos.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>We don’t want to just make things that work. We want to make them beautiful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; Matt Mullenweg</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress &amp; WP Engine</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard said she hopes to resolve the WP Engine issue equitably. She said, “So like Matt, I believe that when you choose WordPress, you should get WordPress. And that should never be anything that somebody is confused about. And that&#8217;s something that I personally believe is worth fighting for and driving my driving force and motivation of taking on this role because we&#8217;ve come too far as an open source platform and we should not stand by as it&#8217;s being exploited or watered down for the short-term gains of a few at the expense of the long-term needs of the many because WordPress belongs to all of us, us and to our community and that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m most passionate about.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>She also talked about <a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/\">Learn WordPress</a> which now features structured learning pathways, and <a href=\"https://openverse.org/\">Openverse</a> which has expanded to include 884 million images and 4.2 million audio files, nearly 4 million page views this month alone and over 21 million API requests.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>WordPress does belong to us all and what we&#8217;re doing is taking care of it for the next generation and the next generation is critical to WordPress&#8217;s ongoing growth as a platform and making it accessible and frictionless as possible has never been more important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; Mary Hubbard</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Grassroots programs are flourishing and she mentioned two programmes &#8211; <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/ajmer-in-india-to-host-its-first-wordpress-event-wp-campus-connect\">WP Campus Connect</a> from India and <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/148-stephen-dumba-on-empowering-uganda-with-wordpress-education-and-community-initiatives\">National ICT Innovation Hub</a> from Uganda.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Local Japanese Community</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress Community Program Supporter and Team Rep <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nukaga/\">Junko Fukui Nukaga</a> shared the updates on Japan and WordPress. Japanese is now the fourth most used language in the world by WordPress. In October 2024, the Japanese WordPress community celebrated DigitalCube’s IPO on the Tokyo PRO Market. Other notable Japanese businesses include Contact Form 7, HAMWORKS, SAKURA Internter, KOMOJU and Xserver.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Japan is also home to 26 active meetup groups and 11265 community members who hosted 189 local meetups this year. Japan’s contribution to the Core are growing.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matt then mentioned the contributions of <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/wildworks/\">Aki Hamano</a>, a Core Committer (made 774 contributions to WordPress core with 338 props for 6.7),and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/atachibana/\">Akira Tachibana</a>, an active Docs Team member. 13 Japanese contributors supported 5.4% of WordPress 6.6 development.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Data Liberation</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Matt had announced <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/data-liberation-meet-wordpress-orgs-ambitious-plan-for-2024\">Data Liberation</a> at last year&#8217;s State of the Word to be the gold standard of liberation and interoperability. The idea is not just to make WordPress more powerful but to ensure that it’s truly free. It&#8217;s the freedom to move content anywhere, to collaborate without barriers or constraints. WordPress Playground plays a critical role in this vision.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>“Some people might see 2024 as a year of distractions or attacks from bad actors in the community. But it was really a year of growth and focus where we were able to accelerate so many things that we&#8217;re doing. It was also an amazing year of growth in a lot of areas.”, he said. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Q&amp;A Session</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The event also had a short Q&amp;A session where Mullenweg fielded questions about the future of blogging, whether the performance plugin of WordPress will be integrated into core, AI-generated content, digital identity, and democratising publishing.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matt also congratulated developer <a href=\"https://x.com/tetsuaki_hamano/status/1858914117987529004\">Aki Hamano</a>. He then talked about Automattic’s missions &#8211; to democratize publishing, democratize commerce (with WooCommerce), and democratize messaging (through <a href=\"https://www.beeper.com/\">Beeper</a>). These three things will keep him busy for life, and he revealed that he’ll work on WordPress for the rest of his life, which he considers to be an honour and privilege.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Panel Discussions</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The event had two panel discussions moderated by Mary Hubbard. The first panel featuring Mieko Kawakami, Craig Mod and Matt explored ‘Publishing in the Open’ while the second panel of <a href=\"https://x.com/megane9988\">Hajime Ogushi</a>, <a href=\"https://x.com/genkitngch\">Genki Taniguchi</a>, and Matt discussed ‘The Future of WordPress in Japan and Beyond’.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The event was live-streamed and is available on <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySolP8YjODU\">WordPress YouTube channel</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:\"Tue, 17 Dec 2024 04:06:18 +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:8;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:77:\"WordPress.org blog: State of the Word 2024: Legacy, Innovation, and 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:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=18205\";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:90:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/12/state-of-the-word-2024-legacy-innovation-and-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:27076:\"<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>On a memorable evening in Tokyo, State of the Word 2024 brought together WordPress enthusiasts from around the world—hundreds in person and millions more online. This event marked the first time State of the Word was hosted in Asia, reflecting the platform&#8217;s growing global reach. The setting couldn’t have been more fitting: a city where tradition and technology coexist in seamless harmony. Tokyo, much like WordPress itself, reflects a powerful blend of legacy and innovation, craftsmanship and technology, and moments of vast scale balanced by serene stillness.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-1 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<blockquote><p>Tokyo is a city you feel.</p><cite>Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder</cite></blockquote>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>During the event, the concept of <em>kansei</em> engineering emerged as a central theme. This Japanese design philosophy seeks to create experiences that go beyond function and aesthetics, focusing on how something feels. As highlighted during the keynote, this principle has quietly influenced WordPress’s development, shaping its design and user experience in ways that resonate on an instinctive level.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The evening also celebrated Japan’s deep-rooted connection to WordPress. Nearly 21 years ago, Japan became the first country to localize WordPress, long before a formal translation framework existed. It all started with<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/topic/localization-help-needed/\"> a single forum post from a user named Otsukare</a>, launching a translation project that helped WordPress become a truly global platform. Seeing how far the Japanese WordPress community has come—both in market share and cultural influence—was a powerful reminder of what shared purpose can achieve.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-182521-8400-_web2k.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1\" alt=\"Photo of Matt exhibiting some of the community\'s wapuu creations\" class=\"wp-image-18208\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Wapuu, WordPress’s beloved mascot, was also born in Japan. What began as a simple idea for a fun and friendly representation of WordPress evolved into a global phenomenon. Thanks to Kazuko Kaneuchi’s generous open-source contribution, Wapuu has been reimagined by WordPress communities worldwide, each version infused with local character. This uniquely Japanese creation has helped make WordPress more welcoming, approachable, and fun wherever it appears.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress Growth in 2024</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg highlighted significant achievements that underscored WordPress’s growth, resilience, and expanding global presence in 2024. He shared that WordPress now powers 43.6% of all websites globally, with a CMS market share of 62.3%. In Japan, WordPress’s influence is even more pronounced, powering 58.5% of websites and commanding an 83% CMS market share. This remarkable statistic reinforces the platform’s enduring role as a cornerstone of the open web and accentuates Japan’s deep-rooted commitment to the WordPress ecosystem and its developers’ significant contributions.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-1 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/sotw-2024_keynote_vFINALFINAL-english.012.jpeg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18209\" />\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/sotw-2024_keynote_vFINALFINAL-english.013.jpeg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18210\" />\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress sites using languages other than English are expected to surpass English-language sites by 2025. German recently overtook Japanese as the third-most-used language, though Japanese remained close behind. Meanwhile, emerging languages like Farsi experienced rapid adoption, reflecting the platform’s expanding multilingual ecosystem. In Southeast Asia, languages such as Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Thai saw substantial year-over-year growth, signaling broader adoption across diverse regions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Core downloads surged to nearly half a billion annually, with the notable releases of WordPress <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/download/releases/6-5/\">6.5</a>, <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/download/releases/6-6/\">6.6</a>, and <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/download/releases/6-7/\">6.7</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress’s design and development ecosystem flourished as well. Over 1,700 new themes were uploaded in 2024, bringing more than 1,000 block themes to the official repository and reflecting increased interest in modern, flexible site design.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plugin ecosystem also saw record-breaking activity this year. Plugin downloads surged toward 2.35 billion, representing a 20% year-over-year increase. Plugin updates exceeded 3 billion and are on track to surpass 3.5 billion by year’s end. Notably, the Plugin Review Team made transformative improvements, drastically reducing the average review wait time. Their efficiency gains were complemented by the launch of the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/plugin-check/\">Plugin Check</a> tool, which reduced submission issues by 41% while enabling the team to approve 138% more plugins each week.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These accomplishments showcase WordPress’s resilience, adaptability, and ever-expanding influence. As the platform continues to evolve, its global community remains at the heart of its success, driving innovation and ensuring that WordPress thrives as the leading tool for building the open web.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-off-white-2-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Help shape the future of WordPress: Join a contributor team today!</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-1 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Make WordPress</a></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Advancing the Platform</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress lead architect,&nbsp; Matías Ventura, highlighted WordPress’s evolution through the lenses of writing, design, building, and development, demoing various pieces of new and forthcoming enhancements.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/sotw-2024_keynote_vFINALFINAL-english.059.jpeg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\" alt=\"Write, Build, Design, Develop\" class=\"wp-image-18219\" />\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Writing</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The writing experience in WordPress saw notable advancements this year, with an improved distraction-free mode that helps users to focus on content creation without interface distractions. Now you can directly select the image itself to drag and drop it where you want, even enabling on-the-fly gallery creation when you drop images next to each other.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, the introduction of block-level comments in the editor, currently an experimental feature, promises to reshape collaborative workflows by enabling teams to leave notes directly on blocks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These enhancements all work together to make writing, composing, and editing in WordPress feel more fluid, personal, and pleasant than ever.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Design</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Along with new default theme Twenty Twenty-Five, more than 1,000 block themes offer tailored starting points for different site types, including portfolios, blogs, and business sites. Designers can also utilize the improved Style Book for a comprehensive view of their site’s appearance, ensuring a smooth design process.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Design work isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s also about creating the right environment and guardrails. It’s important that users can interact with their site, add content, replace media, and choose sections without needing to know the layout details. We’re implementing better default experiences to help you focus exclusively on the content or on the design, depending on your needs at the moment.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This all works seamlessly with the zoom-out view, where users can compose content using patterns without having to set up every individual block. Having a bird’s-eye view of your site can really help you gain a different perspective.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These design capabilities scale with you as your WordPress projects grow. WordPress&#8217;s approach to design is systematic: blocks combine to form patterns, patterns form templates, and templates help separate content from presentation.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/sotw-2024_keynote_vFINALFINAL-english.037.jpeg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18302\" />\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Building</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress’s content management capabilities allow working at scale and across teams. Central to this is the introduction of Block Bindings, which merge the flexibility of blocks with the structured power of meta fields. This feature allows block attributes to be directly linked to data sources like post meta, reducing the need for custom blocks while creating deeper, more dynamic content relationships. The familiar block interface remains intact, making complex data management feel seamless. This connects naturally with our broader work on Data Views for post types and meta fields.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These updates reinforce WordPress’s role as a powerful content management system by connecting its core primitives—blocks, post types, taxonomies, and meta fields—more intuitively.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Development</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly, Matías showcased a range of groundbreaking tools that empower WordPress developers and streamline their workflows. One of the highlights was the new Templates API, which has simplified the process of registering and managing custom templates. Future updates to the API will allow users to register and activate templates seamlessly, enabling dynamic site customizations such as scheduling different homepage templates for special events or swapping category archives during campaigns. This flexible approach offers developers greater creative control in a standardized way.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The session also explored the Interactivity API, designed to deliver fast, seamless website experiences by enabling server-rendered interactivity within WordPress. Unlike JavaScript-heavy frameworks, this technology keeps everything within WordPress’s existing ecosystem, bridging the gap between developers and content creators. Attendees saw live demos showcasing instant search, pagination, and commenting—all without page reloads—while maintaining a perfect performance score of 100 on Lighthouse. In addition, it was announced that responsive controls will receive significant attention, with new features being explored, like block visibility by breakpoint and adding min/max controls to the columns block.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The WordPress Playground also emerged as a game-changer, allowing users to spin up WordPress sites directly in their browsers, experiment with Blueprints, and manage projects offline. With improved GitHub integration and expanded documentation, WordPress developers now have a more accessible and powerful toolkit than ever before.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An AI Future</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Returning to the stage, Matt noted that Gutenberg’s evolution is paving the way for AI-powered site building while keeping creative control in users’ hands. A recent speed building challenge on WordPress’s YouTube channel showcased this potential, with <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ndiego/\">Nick Diego</a> using AI-assisted tools and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/welcher/\">Ryan Welcher</a> building manually. While the AI-assisted approach won, the key takeaway was that AI isn’t here to replace developers but to enhance creativity and efficiency.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Community Impact and Global Reach</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard took the stage, she emphasized WordPress’s commitment to its open-source mission and the power of its global community. Mary shared her passion for defending WordPress’s principles, reaffirming that when users choose WordPress, they should receive the authentic, community-driven experience that the platform stands for. This commitment to clarity, trust, and open-source integrity is central to ensuring WordPress’s long-term sustainability and success.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-193636-0177_web2k.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1\" alt=\"Photo of Mary Hubbard, WordPress Executive Director\" class=\"wp-image-18227\" />Mary Hubbard, WordPress Executive Director\n\n\n\n<p>In 2024, WordPress’s global influence surged through expanded educational programs, developer contributions, and grassroots initiatives. The platform’s social media following grew to 2.3 million, while major events like WordCamps and live-streamed gatherings attracted millions of attendees and viewers, connecting people worldwide.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://learn.wordpress.org/\">Learn WordPress</a> introduced Structured Learning Pathways, offering tailored tracks for beginners and developers, fostering a growing network of creators eager to learn and contribute. Grassroots programs flourished, with WP Campus Connect bringing WordPress education to Indian colleges and innovation competitions in Uganda empowering young creators. In Latin America, the Community Reactivation Project reignited meetups across nine cities, fostering a network of over 150 active members and setting the stage for three new WordCamps in 2025.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress’s efforts also advanced through <a href=\"https://openverse.org/\">Openverse</a>, which expanded its free content library to 884 million images and 4.2 million audio files, serving millions of creators worldwide and supporting WordPress’s broader mission of democratizing publishing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether through educational platforms, developer-driven innovation, or community-led projects, WordPress’s ecosystem continues to nurture shared learning, creativity, and collaboration, ensuring its growth and relevance for future generations.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Japanese Community Highlights</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nukaga/\">Junko Fukui Nukaga</a>—Community Team rep, program manager, and WordCamp organizer—noted that WordPress&#8217;s prominence in Japan contributes to an economy now estimated to exceed 100 billion yen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In October of 2024, the Japanese WordPress community celebrated DigitalCube’s IPO on the Tokyo PRO Market, marking a milestone for the local WordPress ecosystem. Major contributors like Takayuki Miyoshi’s <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/\">Contact Form 7</a> plugin surpassed 10 million active users, while companies like Sakura Internet and XServer built specialized WordPress infrastructure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Community events in Japan have also flourished, with 189 local meetups held throughout the year, fueled by dedicated volunteers and organizers. Translation Night gatherings have ensured WordPress remains accessible to Japanese users, reflecting a thriving collaborative spirit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matt gave special recognition to Japan’s standout contributor, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/wildworks/\">Aki Hamano</a>, a Core Committer whose exceptional efforts elevated WordPress development over the past year. Hamano-san made an impressive 774 contributions to WordPress core, earning 162 props for WordPress 6.5, rising to 274 props for 6.6 as the second-highest contributor, and securing the top spot with 338 props for 6.7.Other notable Japanese contributors included <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/atachibana/\">Akira Tachibana</a>, an active Docs Team member, and Nukaga, recognized for her exceptional community organizing efforts. Additionally, 13 Japanese contributors supported 5.4% of WordPress 6.6 development, showcasing the country’s growing influence in the WordPress ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Data Liberation</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Reflecting on the progress since the initiative&#8217;s launch last year, the focus remained on ensuring that WordPress not only becomes more powerful but also embodies freedom in its deepest sense—the freedom to move content anywhere, collaborate without limits, and create without constraints. This vision extends beyond individual sites to a broader web where content flows seamlessly across platforms, enabling unrestricted creativity and innovation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One compelling example demonstrated how easily ePub files could be imported into a WordPress site, integrating seamlessly with existing designs. This represents the initiative’s broader goal: making content migration and integration effortless. WordPress Playground plays a critical role in this vision by enabling easy site migration through a simple browser extension. With Playground as a staging area, migrating and adapting sites becomes intuitive and accessible.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Q&amp;A</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The floor was opened to questions in both Japanese and English.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Questions from the audience, including <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Vice\"><em>Tokyo Vice</em></a> author Jake Adelstein, covered the future of blogging, WordPress performance, the impact of AI search, and what democratizing publishing means today. Matt shared his excitement for more open platforms such as Mastodon and Bluesky, as well as his recommendations for optimizing your site for both humans and AI. A common thread throughout was that a personal website is an important part of your digital identity, and WordPress allows you to<a href=\"https://playground.wordpress.net/?plugin=piano-block&blueprint-url=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fplugins%2Fwp-json%2Fplugins%2Fv1%2Fplugin%2Fpiano-block%2Fblueprint.json%3Frev%3D3166994%26lang%3D\"> express yourself in fun and unique ways</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Panels</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>After attendees enjoyed a special performance by the pianist, Takai-san, industry leaders, creators, and innovators took the stage for panel discussions about the present and future of WordPress, moderated by Mary Hubbard.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Publishing in the Open</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Featuring:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Mieko Kawakami, Japanese Author and Poet&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Craig Mod, Author of Things Become Other Things&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder and Automattic CEO</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This first panel explored the transformative power of open-source publishing. Panelists shared insights into how open publishing has influenced their creative journeys, expanded audience engagement, and shaped storytelling across cultural boundaries.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Publishing in the open has defined what I’ve done. All the best connections I’ve made in live have been the result of publishing in the open. &#8211; Craig Mod</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Publishing in the open, like WordPress, is about building community, mutual connections, and putting power back into the hands of creators.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Future of WordPress in Japan and Beyond</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Featuring:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hajime Ogushi, mgn CEO</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Genki Taniguchi, SAKURA internet Inc. Senior Director</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder and Automattic CEO</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The second discussion highlighted WordPress&#8217;s remarkable growth in Japan and its broader global impact. The discussion covered the drivers behind Japan&#8217;s adoption of WordPress, its thriving ecosystem of WordPress-based businesses, and emerging trends in web development.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Compared to other CMSs the WordPress Japanese is much easier to use. &#8211; Hajime Ogushi</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The group discussed plugins such as <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/\">Contact Form 7</a>, the affordability of hosting WordPress, and local meetups and events</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Closing</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you to all the guests who joined us on stage, those who ventured to Tokyo, and everyone who tuned in from around the world. Today’s event showcased how a free and infinitely flexible platform, an active global community, open innovation, and a commitment to a fully democratized web make us better at being who we are.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>From Tokyo, Arigatou Gozaimashita!</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-jetpack-tiled-gallery is-style-rectangular\"><div class=\"\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__gallery\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__row\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-202835-8841-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-164917-7983-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-163201-7815-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__row\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-140851-0095-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-135950-0093-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-142237-0135-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__row\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-181648-7911-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-203524-8925-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-193131-0170_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-190404-0124_web2k-683x1024.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__row\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-194151-8562-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-194444-0195_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-200909-0238_web2k-683x1024.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-200404-0226_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-210737-9358-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__row\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-211905-9455-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-204404-9012-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-204317-8995-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__row\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-210835-9366-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-212042-9462-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-210855-9369-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__row\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-204253-8984-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-213938-9563-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-213231-9494-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__row\"><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-213105-9483-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-213722-60568-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div><div class=\"tiled-gallery__col\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/20241216-Automattic-213349-60543-_web2k-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1\" /></div></div></div></div></div>\n\n\n\n<p>For those interested in exploring past State of the Word keynotes, WordPress has curated a comprehensive YouTube playlist featuring keynotes from previous years. Watch them all here:<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1pJFUVKQ7ES1piZxljCvMTJCYpVBnwYU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> State of the Word YouTube Playlist</a>. Be sure to mark your calendars for major WordPress events in 2025: <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WordCamp Asia</a> (Manila, Philippines), <a href=\"https://europe.wordcamp.org/2025/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WordCamp Europe</a> (Basel, Switzerland), and <a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WordCamp US</a> (Portland, Oregon, USA).</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:\"Mon, 16 Dec 2024 21:28:22 +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:17:\"Nicholas Garofalo\";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:9;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:75:\"WPTavern: WordPress.org Login Introduces Mandatory Pineapple Pizza Checkbox\";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=182542\";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:86:\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-login-introduces-mandatory-pineapple-pizza-checkbox\";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:4362:\"<p>Does pineapple belong on pizza?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer may vary from person to person. But WordPress users were in for a surprise when they tried to login to the WordPress.org website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A new mandatory checkbox require users to confirm that “Pineapple is delicious on pizza” before accessing their accounts. </p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1186\" height=\"1830\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/WP.org-login.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182548\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Following the dispute with WP Engine, WordPress.org had introduced a <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-login-gets-mandatory-affiliation-checkbox-following-wp-engine-dispute\">mandatory check box</a> in October that allowed users to access their accounts only after confirming “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” It was later removed following the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/automattic-complies-with-court-ruling-wp-org-login-checkbox-and-wp-engine-tracker-csv-file-removed\">court instructions</a>.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reactions From the Community</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Francesca Marano of Patchstack <a href=\"https://x.com/FrancescaMarano/status/1868636332572180761\">tweeted</a>, “Seeing the level of immaturity and unprofessional behaviour in the WP industry is disheartening. Pizza checkbox? Not fun. A website calling Matt the worst person in tech, also not fun.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gergely Orosz of The Pragmatic Engineer has opened a <a href=\"https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1868583246080225672\">poll</a> on X and more than 1500 people have voted.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1868583246080225672\"><img src=\"https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd6AeMaSXa6obVl8ePq8gSI9BuvFx09-vGONhsQdZVjqHQZUwKkcpNzt5B8VAeTt2XFJHAJW-BO-Qp-b0CLxDRrITeiA8iD85iQkJi8-JZUGNkIcxI-F6l631EewGQ1Gm0kf-hXTw?key=dGtlaTRp7JtOAVktXwlVhu2x\" alt=\"\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<p>He also <a href=\"https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1868593104674042243\">tweeted</a>, “This checkbox is a good example how the public feud of two billion-dollar companies (Automattic that raised $985M in VC funding and WP Engine that raised $250M in private equity funding) keep impacting WordPress developers &#8211; even if its in cryptic forms like this.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Web and eCommerce specialist Nick Weisser <a href=\"https://x.com/nickweisser/status/1868637845008834717\">joked</a>. “Pineapple is delicious on #pizza? So now you have to break Italian law to access @WordPress.org.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maarten Belmans, founder of Studio Wombat, shared his <a href=\"https://x.com/PoeHaH/status/1868560451422044579\">concerns</a>, “My only worry is WP has already caused trust issues with enterprise (hijacking a plugin is no small issue, so&nbsp; I heard). Adding another checkbox, even as a light joke, might show enterprise WP just isn&#8217;t the serious platform they need it to be? Idk!”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bozz Media was critical, and <a href=\"https://x.com/bozzmedia/status/1868600076949766317\">tweeted</a>, “Gross. It’s sad that the unprofessional and unbecoming behavior from WP leadership continues, tarnishing the entire reputation of the platform.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brett Atkin, Founder and Digital Strategist at Pixel Jocks, <a href=\"https://x.com/brettatkin/status/1868629331179921709\">tweeted</a>, &#8220;Thought it was a joke until I started seeing multiple posts about it. Sad, embarrassing and unprofessional, especially given the circumstances and recent court rulings. Feels like he is mocking the court, the judge and the entire community.&#8221; He is not alone as several users initially thought it to be a joke or a meme. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>WPTavern founder Jeff Chandler also shared his <a href=\"https://x.com/jeffr0/status/1868557854636192247\">thoughts</a>, “That checkbox didn’t exist during WCUS so technically, it’s not restored back to the status quo. It’s stupid.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Simon Harper of SRH Design <a href=\"https://x.com/SRHDesign/status/1868565101978251331\">tweeted</a>, “This should not have been added and I&#8217;m not sure what&#8217;s worse, the checkbox and text alignment or the attempt at humour.” The alignment issue was later fixed.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pineapple debate has sparked conversations on <a href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1hf98pj/this_is_getting_out_hand/\">Reddit</a> too.</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:\"Mon, 16 Dec 2024 16:58:57 +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:10;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:83:\"Do The Woo Community: Gutenberg, Contributing and Community with 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:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"https://dothewoo.io/?p=87646\";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:81:\"https://dothewoo.io/gutenberg-contributing-and-community-with-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:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:191:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack discusses her journey in WordPress, emphasizing the evolution of the block editor and strategies for engaging younger contributors in the community and future developments.\";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:\"Mon, 16 Dec 2024 10:09:00 +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: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:11;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:53:\"WordPress.org blog: Write Books With the Block Editor\";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://wordpress.org/news/?p=18176\";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:69:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/12/write-books-with-the-block-editor/\";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:3861:\"<p>If you need a little push to start writing this winter, in the comfort of your familiar editor, here it is! You can now use the Block Editor to create electronic books and other documents—all completely offline. What a full circle moment for Gutenberg!</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"711\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-10-at-09.35.01.png?resize=1024%2C711&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18179\" />\n\n\n\n<p>The Block Editor contains so many features I miss when writing in other editors. It produces clean, semantic markup. You can paste in content from anywhere and the editor will clean it up for you, or paste a link onto selected text to auto-link. The List View and Outline panels allow you to easily navigate and inspect the content. And we’re constantly iterating on the Block Editor: more features and improvements are on the way, such as refined drag and drop interactions coming in early 2025.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>All this inspired me to wrap our editor in an app that can read and write local files—just as other document editors do. It turns out that EPUB is the best file format to store the content, because EPUB is an open standard for e-books that is essentially a ZIP file containing HTML and media—HTML like your WordPress posts!</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"560\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-03-at-23.34.36.png?resize=1024%2C560&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18180\" />\n\n\n\n<p>And just like that, the WordPress Block Editor can also be used to write books! The cool thing about EPUB files is that any e-book app, such as Kindle and Apple Books, can open it. So even if someone doesn’t have this editor, they can still easily read the content, which makes the files it produces portable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The editor allows you to create a cover, so you can easily distinguish between the books or documents you write. It will also treat each heading as a chapter so you can easily navigate content when opened in an e-book reader.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns alignfull is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-2 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"793\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-03-at-23.27.56.png?resize=1024%2C793&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18181\" />\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<img width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/screenshot_2024_12_11T12_00_190100.png?resize=768%2C1024&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18178\" />\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>The term “book” should be taken broadly. While the file that the Block Editor produces is primarily used for e-books, you can create any document with it. It’s possible to export your document to a DOCX file in case you need it, though the more complex blocks are not supported yet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is still very much a nascent project. There’s many features left to be added, such as revisions and the ability to open any externally created EPUB files, or even DOCX files, so keep an eye out for these in the coming weeks and months! If you’re interested in this editor, it’s all <a href=\"https://github.com/block-editors/blockdocs\">open source</a>, and I welcome any kind of help.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For now, the <a href=\"https://block-editors.github.io/blockdocs/\">demo editor</a> is installable as a Progressive Web App (PWA) in Chrome. While it’s totally usable without installation, it does give you some nice benefits such as allowing you to open the EPUB files directly from your OS. In the future we might wrap it in proper native apps. Your feedback is welcome on <a href=\"https://github.com/block-editors/blockdocs\">GitHub</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:\"Mon, 16 Dec 2024 08:36:57 +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:\"Ella\";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:12;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:29:\"Matt: State of the Word Tokyo\";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=132238\";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:46:\"https://ma.tt/2024/12/state-of-the-word-tokyo/\";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:2444:\"<p>It&#8217;s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/state-of-the-word/\">State of the Word 2024</a>. We&#8217;re going to be in an amazing venue that looks over the city. Most of WordPress and Automattic&#8217;s senior leadership is here, and we&#8217;ll also have several hundred folks from the local community and press. </p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"604\" height=\"340\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/12/sotw-tokyo-2024-1024x576.jpg?resize=604%2C340&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-132251\" />\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve gotten so much inspiration over the years from Japanese culture, we wanted to make this event really &#8220;of the space&#8221; so we&#8217;re doing a few extra things this year. My presentation will include <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/4thhubbard/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mary Hubbard</a> and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/matveb/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Matías Ventura</a>, but also part of it will be in Japanese and presented by <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nukaga/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Junko Fukui Nukaga</a>. We&#8217;ll have piano performances by <a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/aichina02/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Aiko Takei</a>. After the presentation and Q&amp;A we&#8217;ll do a panel in Japanese with <a href=\"https://www.mieko.jp/mieko-kawakami\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mieko Kawakami</a> (one of the top novelists in Japan, on par with <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami\">Haruki Murakami</a>), <a href=\"https://craigmod.com/about/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Craig Mod</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/megane9988/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hajime Ogushi</a>, and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/gtaniguchi/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Genki Taniguchi</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For those who can attend in person, we&#8217;ll have a reception afterward with some unique gifts including posters from a local Kanji artist and nice sweater to keep everyone warm this winter.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"604\" height=\"453\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/12/sotw-tokyo-2024-posters-1024x768.jpeg?resize=604%2C453&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-132255\" />\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to livestream at home, you can do so on Youtube here:</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\";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:\"Mon, 16 Dec 2024 07:46:37 +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:13;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:43:\"Matt: UH Magazine, Revisiting My Alma Mater\";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=131738\";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:31:\"https://ma.tt/2024/12/uh-cover/\";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:1202:\"<p>My father attended University of Houston, and it&#8217;s where I went to college to study political science, I started WordPress when there, and then dropped out after two years to move to San Franisco. It was fun seeing&nbsp;<a href=\"https://stories.uh.edu/magazine/magazine/fall-2024/the-mind-of-matt-mullenweg/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">UH Magazine feature an article</a>&nbsp;about my journey from a University of Houston student to co-founding WordPress and leading Automattic. I was surprised they put me on the cover of the physical edition! I wish my Dad were still around to see it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The piece explores my commitment to open-source, my vision for democratizing online publishing, and the values of creativity and adaptability that have shaped my path. It’s an honor to reflect on these experiences with my alma mater.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://stories.uh.edu/magazine/magazine/fall-2024/the-mind-of-matt-mullenweg/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img width=\"604\" height=\"678\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/12/24-uh-02-online-cover-02-3529x3961-1-912x1024.webp?resize=604%2C678&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-131739\" /></a>\";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:\"Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:40:04 +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:14;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:47:\"WPTavern: 25% Off Annual Plans at WordPress.com\";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=182389\";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:57:\"https://wptavern.com/25-off-annual-plans-at-wordpress-com\";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:593:\"<p>WordPress.com is now offering new annual plans at 25% off as part of their <a href=\"https://wordpress.com/blog/2024/12/12/end-of-the-year-sale-2025/\">year-end promotion</a>. The offer includes a free domain for the first year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This exclusive deal ends on <strong>December 31st</strong>, 2024.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To claim the <a href=\"https://wordpress.com/end-of-year-savings/\">offer</a>, use the coupon code <strong>DREAM25</strong> at checkout.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please note this offer is only for new annual plan purchases and does not apply to renewals or upgrades for existing paid plans.</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, 14 Dec 2024 18:14:04 +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:15;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:94:\"WPTavern: WP Engine Regains WordPress.org Access and ACF Plugin Control Following Court Ruling\";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=182376\";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:105:\"https://wptavern.com/wp-engine-regains-wordpress-org-access-and-acf-plugin-control-following-court-ruling\";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:4483:\"<p>After removing the mandatory WordPress.org login checkbox and the WP Engine Tracker CSV file, Automattic has reinstated WP Engine&#8217;s WordPress.org repository access and control over the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/\">Advanced Custom Fields</a> (ACF) plugin repository. This follows a <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/court-grants-wp-engine-preliminary-injunction-against-automattic\">court ruling</a> that required Automattic to restore these rights within 72 hours.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In October, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg announced the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/acf-plugin-forked-to-secure-custom-fields-plugin\">forking of the Advanced Custom Fields </a>(ACF) plugin into the new plugin Secure Custom Fields. He took over the plugin citing security issues and invoked <a href=\"https://github.com/wordpress/wporg-plugin-guidelines/blob/trunk/guideline-18.md\">point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a <a href=\"https://x.com/wp_acf/status/1867761686389604368\">tweet</a>, Advanced Custom Fields confirmed: “53 minutes ago, we initiated publishing the genuine ACF on .org and are now awaiting .org to complete the review process to make it available.”</p>\n\n\n\n<img src=\"https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfelrooYD9odmbysi_LIPFRvB5wW5St33bCZEpFRP1QW_cXHwwJV2379QFUVO3VDpsrqCt6xfPPAZoUq0d4Yb4vzuJaj9858GgU7oDCIPaM7mcuGjMBPeiOiegISNfAWbDBPI97_Q?key=NOtArAI7AMvE2QyfskVfI3jW\" alt=\"\" />\n\n\n\n<p>They later <a href=\"https://x.com/wp_acf/status/1867764818272244109\">added</a>: “We&#8217;re pleased to share that our team has had account access restored on WordPress dot org along with control of the ACF plugin repo. This means all ACF users can rest assured that the ACF team you trust is once again maintaining the plugin. There’s no action required if you have installed ACF directly from the ACF website or you are an ACF PRO user.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Repository now lists WP Engine as the author of the plugin instead of WordPress.org.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"2946\" height=\"1364\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-8.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182381\" />\n\n\n\n<p>While many in the community are relieved to see ACF restored, some have expressed concerns about the negative reviews ACF received following the controversial takeover and the future of the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-releases-new-secure-custom-fields-plugin-with-acf-pro-features\">SCF Pro version</a>.  Secure Custom Fields plugin still has WordPress.org as the author in the Repository.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"2944\" height=\"1302\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-7.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182379\" />\n\n\n\n<p>WP Engine’s Brian Gardner <a href=\"https://x.com/bgardner/status/1867762185080066373\">tweeted</a>, “Welcome home, ACF.” while entrepreneur Duane Storey <a href=\"https://x.com/DuaneStorey/status/1867835621752156284\">commented</a>: “This should never have been done in the first place. Let’s not forget, this was returned due to a court order, not a change of heart. I still consider the dot org repositories to no longer be trustworthy. I seriously think people with plugins there should be migrating away.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matt Mullenweg <a href=\"https://x.com/photomatt/status/1867759730992586756\">responded</a> on this with, “I’m disgusted and sickened by being legally forced to provide free labor and services to @wpengine, a dangerous precedent that should chill every open source maintainer. While I disagree with the court’s decision, I&#8217;ve fully complied with its order. You can see most changes on the site. They have access to ACF slug but haven’t changed it… must not have been the emergency they claimed.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As usual, the community remains divided with some supporting his stance while others opposed it.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://x.com/Perpetualmaniac/status/1867822838054629596\"><img src=\"https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfzh-cTMQSewPWV8vlnMN0cdaaxhwgsbcg0Kfr8nuj4owxLvPRlZRFdQDi2Qs69IIRLwbXDhVpaapRbRs8VccPfK1f5wfSq2QjYf3DSsFPMGzoJpeDFggt0_RbTCaKJfHApMCsORg?key=NOtArAI7AMvE2QyfskVfI3jW\" alt=\"\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://x.com/hackteck/status/1867872602393633206\"><img src=\"https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcoxIrrLWnokIkXfdkK6RYvFaNNqLR1u4orcYPNr6IFJcac7YA9_YC95DX1b89Uic7nORJ0T08_vswH3b_rx8xKmH7piOHyKLzaM5XkIB7A6Td4-D9Ahc1ddegRpe_APkxVTePn?key=NOtArAI7AMvE2QyfskVfI3jW\" alt=\"\" /></a>\";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, 14 Dec 2024 16:34:52 +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:16;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:136:\"Gutenberg Times: Playground for agencies, Block theme for millions, What’s next for Gutenberg and WooCommerce — Weekend Edition #314\";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=31217\";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:137:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/playground-for-agencies-block-theme-for-millions-whats-next-for-gutenberg-and-woocommerce-weekend-edition-314/\";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:20074:\"<p>Hi,&nbsp;🎄🎁🎆</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wish you a contemplative, peaceful and restful Holiday Season and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! 2025! </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This newsletter and I will take a break, and we will be back on January 11, 2025. Be well, </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>PS: <a href=\"https://thewpweekly.com/awards/\"><strong>Voting in The WP Awards</strong> </a>has been extended to December 20. If you haven&#8217;t yet, please consider voting for <strong>Gutenberg Times</strong> in the Blog category. Also, vote for the <strong>Gutenberg Changelog</strong> in the Podcast category. And for your favorite WordPress products at the same time</em>. </p>\n\n\n\n<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\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/playground-for-agencies-block-theme-for-millions-whats-next-for-gutenberg-and-woocommerce-weekend-edition-314/#0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/playground-for-agencies-block-theme-for-millions-whats-next-for-gutenberg-and-woocommerce-weekend-edition-314/#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/playground-for-agencies-block-theme-for-millions-whats-next-for-gutenberg-and-woocommerce-weekend-edition-314/#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/playground-for-agencies-block-theme-for-millions-whats-next-for-gutenberg-and-woocommerce-weekend-edition-314/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/playground-for-agencies-block-theme-for-millions-whats-next-for-gutenberg-and-woocommerce-weekend-edition-314/#this-week-in-playground\">This week in Playground</a></li></ol>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Catch up on what’s coming next for Core, Gutenberg, and WordPress Playground in the last edition of <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/12/10/whats-new-for-developers-december-2024/\"><strong>What’s New for Developers?</strong></a> for 2024. <strong>Ryan Welcher </strong>summarized developer-related changes in WordPress for December 2024. Key updates include style book improvements in the Site Editor, new filters for block editor rendering mode, and enhancements to WordPress Playground. The post highlights updates to core blocks, bug fixes, and new features like setting featured images directly from Image blocks. It also mentions the release of WordPress 6.7, planning for version 6.8, and resources like Developer Hours sessions, YouTube content, and new tutorials on the Developer Blog. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>The WordPress Meta and Design teams have been incredibly busy. They updated the Make WordPress Sites with all the team&#8217;s sites, the Rosetta sites, and the Photo Directory. This visual refresh is part of the continued effort to build a consistent design language across WordPress.org.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about the effort and the before and after views in <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2024/12/10/the-photos-directory-gets-a-refresh-and-is-now-powered-by-blocks/\"></a><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2024/12/12/make-wordpress-gets-a-refresh/\"><strong>Make WordPress gets a refresh</strong></a> by <strong>Nick Diego</strong>. &#8220;The Make section of WordPress.org is vast, covering 32 contributor teams and 114 local teams, each with its own blog, handbooks, and component pages.&#8221; he wrote. After many years, the sites are now converted to a block first layout. It&#8217;s a newfound pleasure to publish on the Make Blogs again!  The handbooks follow the developer documentation sites and it&#8217;s reading pleasure. </p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2024/12/12/make-wordpress-gets-a-refresh/\"><img width=\"652\" height=\"350\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/new-core.webp?resize=652%2C350&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31274\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2024/12/10/the-photos-directory-gets-a-refresh-and-is-now-powered-by-blocks/\">The Photos Directory gets a refresh and is now powered by blocks</a>, <strong>Nick Diego</strong> also shares details on the revamp for the popular picture site. Besides the reorganized homepage that now shows many more photos at first glance, I am quite intrigued by the new search filter by format: landscape, portrait or square. </p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2024/12/10/the-photos-directory-gets-a-refresh-and-is-now-powered-by-blocks/\"><img width=\"652\" height=\"372\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/search-results-detail.webp?resize=652%2C372&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31275\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>📣 Don&#8217;t miss it! <strong><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/state-of-the-word/\">The annual State of the Word</a></strong> is Matt Mullenweg&#8217;s keynote presentation of the year. It will take place on <strong>December 16, 2024</strong>, in Tokyo, Japan. The&nbsp;<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/@WordPress/streams\">livestream</a>&nbsp;will start at<strong>&nbsp;9 am UTC</strong>&nbsp;on WordPress YouTube channel.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p> WordPress developer <strong>Riad Benguella</strong> recently <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/riad.blog/post/3lcfs43ucms2u\">sparked a lively community discussion </a>on improving the Gutenberg block editor, on Bluesky. Developers provided several suggestions, many linked to existing GitHub issues. They focused on practical enhancements like border radius presets, link CSS classes, and table block improvements. The conversation highlighted the community&#8217;s wish for more granular design controls and better pattern organization. Some suggestions led to immediate action with pull requests in progress. Others need further exploration due to technical complexities or the need to balance functionality with user-friendliness. <a href=\"https://x.com/Martinko\"><strong>Martin Dubovic</strong></a> posted a recap of the conversation with links and opinions.  <a href=\"https://wpshout.com/wordpress-community-improvement-suggestions/\"><strong>What’s Next for Gutenberg? A Community Chat With WordPress Developer Riad Benguella</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v19.9.0-rc.1\"><strong>Gutenberg 19.9 RC1</strong></a> is ready for testing. It includes a style book for classic themes. There are improvements to the experimental feature of inline commenting.  Additionally, there is a new block for post counts and other updates to existing blocks. The changelog should be your guide until the final release on December 18, 2024. It will be the last release of 2024. The next Gutenberg Changelog episode will be recorded on January 10th, and we will cover not only 19.9 but also Gutenberg 20.0 &#8211; the 200th release of the project. </p>\n\n\n\n<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\">\n<p>🎙️ Latest episode: <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-112-gutenberg-19-8-create-block-theme-plugin/\">Gutenberg Changelog #112 Gutenberg 19.8, Create Block Theme Plugin</a> with Sarah Norris</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"652\" height=\"183\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-07-at-12.04.50.png?resize=652%2C183&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31178\" />\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Explore the insights of <a href=\"https://developer.woocommerce.com/2024/12/12/woocommerce-in-2025/\"><strong>WooCommerce in 2025</strong></a>. It&#8217;s about building a platform for the future. This is presented by <strong>Beau Lebens</strong>, the Head of Engineering at WooCommerce. In 2025, the organization will concentrate on three significant objectives. They will enhance performance. They will improve the online shopping experience. They will deploy essential tools that meet the actual needs of merchants. The strategy streamlines operations for merchants. It integrates an increased number of features directly into the core platform. This integration reduces complications linked with extensions. The overarching goal is to develop a robust, flexible platform that effectively addresses the requirements of contemporary online merchants.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In Remkus de Vries newsletter, <a href=\"https://remkusdevries.com/newsletter/woo-test-orders-5-thought-pieces-jonos-predictions/\">Within WordPress</a>,  I learned about <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/dynamic-template-parts/\">​Dynamic Template Parts​</a>  by <strong>Matt Watson</strong>. It allows you to replace headers, footers, and other template parts dynamically based on the content you’re editing. </p>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Brian Coords</strong> new Webmaster podcast latest episode is: <a href=\"https://webmasters.fm/building-a-block-theme-for-1-million-users-ft-jessica-lyschik/\"><strong>Building a Block Theme for 1 Million Users</strong></a>. In this conversation, <strong>Jessica Lyschik</strong> shares her journey as a WordPress developer and core contributor. She discusses her experiences in the WordPress community. She also talks about the evolution of WordPress themes and the unique features of the Greyd Suite. She emphasizes the importance of full site editing, the challenges of the block editor, and the future of Gutenberg. The discussion also touches on the impact of social media on blogging and concludes with where to find Jessica online.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://webmasters.fm/building-a-block-theme-for-1-million-users-ft-jessica-lyschik/\"><img width=\"652\" height=\"366\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-13-at-18.28.28.png?resize=652%2C366&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31286\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest video, <strong>Elliot Richmond</strong> walks you through how he <strong><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLhmEIL0RqA\">created  a sticky nav bar with Block Variations</a>,</strong> CSS, and JavaScript. &#8220;This WordPress block theme technique will enhance your visitors’ browsing experience by adding a creative sliding navigation bar that appears as they scroll down the page.&#8221; Richmond wrote. </p>\n\n\n<div width=\"100%\" class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"toolbelt-video-wrapper\"></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest newsletter, <strong>Remkus de Vries</strong> alert me to a little script by <strong>Luc Princen</strong> that turns Block patterns into loadable template files, so they can then easily be added to Git. This could save you from having to go through a lot of database hassle. <a href=\"https://gist.github.com/lucprincen/02ff162a582ffd649992cfdc8785d9a8\">The script is available in a Gist</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In his blog post, <strong><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/snippets/how-to-lock-wordpress-blocks-and-prevent-unlocking/\">Snippet: How to lock WordPress blocks and prevent unlocking</a>,</strong> <strong>Nick Diego</strong> explains the Block Locking API. He also discusses how to use it. It also details how to prevent unlocking blocks as well as disabling the Code Editor. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Did you miss the Man vs Machine Speed Build Challenge? The recording is available on YouTube: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjw6KWahFlk\"><strong>AI Takes On HUMAN in WordPress Speed Build Showdown</strong></a>.  &#8220;In this thrilling face-off, two WordPress powerhouses go head-to-head in an epic coding battle with a twist. <strong>Nick Diego</strong> and <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong>, both seasoned WordPress developers, are pitted against each other in a race against time. But there&#8217;s a catch – one developer has the advantage of AI assistance, while the other relies solely on traditional coding methods.&#8221; Jamie Marsland wrote.  After watching the show, I wasn&#8217;t the only one wh  checked out the <a href=\"https://www.cursor.com/\">Cursor AI</a> and played around with it. </p>\n\n\n<div width=\"100%\" class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"toolbelt-video-wrapper\"></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"this-week-in-playground\">This week in Playground</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you missed last week&#8217;s Hallway Hangout, <strong><a href=\"https://x.com/adamzielin\">Adam Zieliński</a></strong> has the recording. He also has a summary and the transcript for you: <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/playground/2024/12/13/recap-of-hallway-hangout-playground-for-agencies-and-product-demos/\"><strong>Recap of Hallway Hangout: Playground for Agencies and Product Demos</strong></a>. As an agency, you can use WordPress Playground to streamline your workflows. You can test your products and share interactive demos. You can show and do so much more. In this recent Hallway Hangout sparked by <a href=\"https://x.com/karmatosed\"><strong>Tammie Lister</strong></a>, attendees from various agencies and product teams shared their experiences. They also expressed curiosity about applying WordPress Playground in their work.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Uros Tasic</strong>, co-lead organizer of WordCamp Europe, talked about <strong><a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2024/12/13/code-test-repeat-accelerating-development-with-wordpress-playground/\">Code, Test, Repeat: Accelerating Development with WordPress Playground</a></strong> at WordCamp Larissa last month. The recording is now available on WordPress TV. Tasic discussed how Playground can enhance your development cycle, enabling quicker iterations without the need for complex setups.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>📣 Upcoming <a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/304881623/\"><strong>Developer Hours: Everything you need to know about WordPress Playground</strong></a> will take place on <strong>December 17th at 16:00 UTC. </strong> &#8220;Beyond spinning up WordPress sites, Playground offers powerful capabilities, from testing plugins and themes to running demos and even supporting app development. No matter how you engage with WordPress, Playground has something valuable to offer.&#8221; reads the description. </p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/devhours-Playground.avif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31277\" />\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Featured Image: Abstract architecture by Chris Clarke found on the WordPress Photo directory wordPress.org/photos</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n<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, 14 Dec 2024 01:00:00 +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: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:17;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:\"WPTavern: Automattic Complies with Court Ruling: WP.org Login Checkbox and WP Engine Tracker CSV File Removed\";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=182310\";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:119:\"https://wptavern.com/automattic-complies-with-court-ruling-wp-org-login-checkbox-and-wp-engine-tracker-csv-file-removed\";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:3264:\"<p>After the court issued a <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/court-grants-wp-engine-preliminary-injunction-against-automattic\">preliminary injunction</a> in favor of WP Engine, Automattic has begun complying with the orders. The mandatory login checkbox in WordPress.org website has been removed, and the WP Engine Tracker website has been updated, including removing the controversial domains.csv files.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-login-gets-mandatory-affiliation-checkbox-following-wp-engine-dispute\">mandatory login check box</a> in WordPress.org, introduced in October this year after WP Engine filed a lawsuit against Automattic and Matt Mullenweg, required users to confirm: “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise,” before accessing their accounts.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"681\" height=\"1038\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Checkbox.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182312\" />\n\n\n\n<p>This checkbox has now been removed.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"805\" height=\"1145\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182313\" />Current WordPress.org Login Page\n\n\n\n<p>Last month, Automattic launched the &#8220;<a href=\"https://wptavern.com/automattic-launches-wp-engine-tracker-to-monitor-sites-leaving-wp-engine-sparking-controversy\">WP Engine Tracker</a>&#8221; to monitor websites leaving WP Engine. The site provided a downloadable CSV file listing sites hosted on WP Engine, labeled as “sites ready for a new home.” Following the court’s decision, the link to the CSV file returned a 404 error and was later removed entirely. </p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://github.com/wordpressenginetracker/wordpressenginetracker.github.io/pull/29\"><img width=\"3354\" height=\"1766\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182327\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"3366\" height=\"1840\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-4.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182325\" />Present WP Engine Tracker Website\n\n\n\n<p>The links <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wp-engine-promotions/\">promoting migration offers</a> from other hosting providers have also been taken down from the site.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"3336\" height=\"1720\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-6.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182329\" />WP Engine Tracker Website Before Court Ruling\n\n\n\n<p>Secure Custom Fields plugin (<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/\">https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/</a>), which is the fork of the ACF plugin, however, is still available in the Repository.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, Nick Gernert, WordPress VIP CEO, <a href=\"https://lobby.vip.wordpress.com/2024/12/12/statement-from-nick-gernert-wordpress-vip-ceo/\">shared</a> this: “As ever, Automattic continues to do what’s best for WordPress, the open source community, and everyone who depends on it… We stand committed to preserving open source and the collaborative spirit that it embodies—it’s what drives innovation and helps businesses like yours thrive. What’s most important to know is that Automattic’s focus is on keeping WordPress strong and forward-thinking.&#8221; </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, 13 Dec 2024 19:57:24 +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:18;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:57:\"Do The Woo Community: Friday Shares: Last One For 2024 v8\";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:43:\"https://dothewoo.io/?post_type=blog&p=87615\";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:60:\"https://dothewoo.io/blog/friday-shares-last-one-for-2024-v8/\";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:216:\"The post showcases a curated weekly list of community-driven content, including podcasts, videos, articles, and event updates related to WordPress and WooCommerce, emphasizing accessibility and development resources.\";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, 13 Dec 2024 10:22:00 +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: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:19;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:75:\"WPTavern: Barn2Plugins, Patchstack, and WP Deals Diversify Beyond WordPress\";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=182235\";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:84:\"https://wptavern.com/barn2plugins-patchstack-and-wp-deals-diversify-beyond-wordpress\";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:3378:\"<p>The CEOs of Barn2Plugins, Patchstack, and LayerWP have announced plans to expand their businesses beyond WordPress. While none of them are leaving the WordPress ecosystem, they are branching out into new territories to diversify their offerings and drive growth.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barn2Plugins: Entering the Shopify Ecosystem</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Katie Keith, CEO of <a href=\"https://barn2.com/\">Barn2Plugins</a>, revealed on <a href=\"https://x.com/KatieKeithBarn2/status/1864653448601563440\">Twitter</a> that the company will begin selling Shopify apps in 2025.  &#8220;In 2025, @Barn2Plugins will diversify into selling Shopify apps as well as continuing to focus on our WordPress and WooCommerce plugins. Shopify is an excellent fit for Barn2, and feels like the right move to secure our future.”, Katie tweeted.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Katie believes expanding into Shopify will accelerate growth beyond what relying solely on WordPress could achieve. However, she admitted that understanding the Shopify ecosystem and identifying the factors behind a successful app presents a significant challenge.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company plans to develop its Shopify apps from scratch. Katie noted that her experience with WooCommerce has been invaluable in identifying gaps in the Shopify market that might otherwise be overlooked.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>She regularly shares her Shopify journey in <a href=\"https://x.com/KatieKeithBarn2\">Twitter</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Patchstack: Expanding to Laravel</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Oliver Sild, CEO of <a href=\"https://patchstack.com/\">Patchstack</a>, shared on <a href=\"https://x.com/OliverSild/status/1862475817483116647\">Twitter</a> that his company has extended its vulnerability intelligence services to Drupal and Joomla and is next  exploring the Laravel framework.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oliver shared with WP Tavern, “Even though we are expanding to other CMSs and even to frameworks such as Laravel, WordPress continues to get most of our attention. It’s simply so because WordPress is so much bigger than all the others combined.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Patchstack, already the largest vulnerability intelligence provider in the WordPress ecosystem, always had plans to expand into the broader open-source community. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oliver added, “Even though we’ve just expanded to Drupal and Joomla &#8211; we still have a lot to do and many exciting things to publish next year. Those who have followed what we do at Patchstack know that we’ve been also working with Google for the past year &#8211; so stay tuned because there’s something cool we can show you very soon.”</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">LayerWP: WP Deals Evolves</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://x.com/benswrite\">Ben Townsend</a> of <a href=\"https://layerwp.com/\">LayerWP</a> is also venturing out with his WP Deals project. He announced, “<a href=\"https://deals.wpdeals.email/p/big-news-wp-deals-is-evolving\">WP Deals is evolving.</a>”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>“<a href=\"https://deals.wpdeals.email/\">WP Deals</a> is now about more than just WordPress. I’m opening the doors to SaaS tools, hosting, digital resources, and other must-have web products. The mission stays the same: curate the best deals, deliver them straight to your inbox, and save you money.” Ben shared.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Subscribers will continue to get curated deals while businesses can feature their deals on WP Deals. </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, 12 Dec 2024 20:00:29 +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:20;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:59:\"WPTavern: WPExperts Acquires Advanced File Manager Plugin \";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=182225\";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:68:\"https://wptavern.com/wpexperts-acquires-advanced-file-manager-plugin\";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:1650:\"<p>WPExperts has acquired the <a href=\"https://advancedfilemanager.com/\">Advanced File Manager</a> plugin from <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/modalweb/\">Modal Web</a>. <a href=\"https://wpexperts.io/\">WPExperts </a>(formerly WooExperts) is a leading WordPress development company with an extensive portfolio of WordPress and WooCommerce <a href=\"https://wpexperts.io/other-products/\">plugins</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Advanced File Manager plugin has over 100,000 active installations on the WordPress <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/file-manager-advanced/\">Plugin Repository</a> with a 4.8-star rating.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>CEO of WPExperts, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/saadiqbal/\">Saad Iqbal</a>, emphasized the strategic nature of the acquisition, stating: &#8220;Unlike other acquisitions, this one is different. Advanced File Manager is more of a developer-oriented tool that we have used extensively in multiple scenarios, and we absolutely love it. I saw an opportunity to enhance the user interface and user experience, as well as improve its documentation.&#8221; </p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also shared his vision for the future of Advanced File Manager: &#8220;We plan to implement several enhancements in both the free and pro versions. These include features such as an activity log, a secure code editor to prevent critical errors, user role-based access, and group-based access. All these improvements will make the plugin more powerful and user-friendly. I am genuinely excited about the future of Advanced File Manager now that it is part of our WPExperts family.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.</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, 12 Dec 2024 16:10:31 +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:21;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:94:\"Do The Woo Community: Looking Back at Rome Core Days 2024 with Miriam Schwab and Tammie Lister\";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=87537\";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:93:\"https://dothewoo.io/looking-back-at-rome-core-days-2024-with-miriam-schwab-and-tammie-lister/\";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:206:\"Miriam and Tammie reflect on their experiences at the Rome Core Days event, highlighting the focus on core contributors, inspiring discussions, and the value of hands-on workshops in a welcoming atmosphere.\";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, 12 Dec 2024 10:37:12 +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:22;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:66:\"Gravatar: How to Create a High-Engagement Forum for Your 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:32:\"http://blog.gravatar.com/?p=2580\";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:52:\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/12/12/create-a-forum/\";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:25026:\"<p>Building your own forum gives you something the usual social media channels can&#8217;t match: A dedicated space where your community can gather, share knowledge, and help each other grow. Forums build lasting connections between members who share similar interests, challenges, and goals.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Running your own forum offers distinct advantages over relying on social networks or existing community platforms:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Members generate valuable content that helps with market research and product development.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Premium spaces can be monetized through exclusive access.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Direct feedback loops between your team and power users improve products faster.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Searchable discussion archives reduce support costs.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Community-driven innovation creates competitive advantages.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Experienced members naturally help newcomers, building stronger bonds.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>You maintain complete control over your platform.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And here&#8217;s a fascinating detail many people miss: Forums drive significant search traffic. <a href=\"https://detailed.com/forum-serps/\">Research from Detailed.com</a> shows that discussion threads frequently appear in top search results, as people actively seek authentic opinions and recommendations from real users.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This guide provides practical steps for building a forum that encourages meaningful discussions and keeps members coming back. A huge part of success lies in choosing the right platform. While there are many options available, <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/\">WordPress</a> offers particularly strong benefits for creating an integrated forum website. Let&#8217;s explore why WordPress makes sense as a foundation, and how to build an engaging community space that serves your specific goals.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Choosing the right platform for your forum</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Forums work best when they&#8217;re integrated with your broader business strategy rather than existing in isolation. This integration matters more than many realize – forums can complement and enhance core business functions in powerful ways:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Supporting online course students with collaborative learning spaces.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Creating fan communities that drive product innovation.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Providing enhanced customer support through peer assistance.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Building brand advocacy programs that amplify marketing.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hosting member discussions that generate valuable insights.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>While launching &#8220;just a forum&#8221; might work for passion projects or interest-based communities, most organizations need deeper integration with their existing services and goals. Building a forum should connect directly with your broader business objectives, whether that&#8217;s reducing support costs, gathering product feedback, or strengthening customer relationships.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, many people are tempted by free platforms like <a href=\"https://flarum.org/\">Flarum</a> or <a href=\"https://www.reddit.com/\">Reddit</a> because they let you set up standalone forums quickly. However, the issue here is that they create disconnects between your community and your main business presence. This separation causes real problems:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Members must switch between different websites to access your products, contact information, or support resources.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>User experiences become inconsistent as third-party platforms control the interface.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Adding custom features or integrations gets complicated or impossible.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Your valuable community discussions live on someone else&#8217;s domain.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A better approach? Think beyond just &#8220;building a forum&#8221; and focus on creating an integrated website with forum functionality. This makes it easier to:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Keep members engaged with your core business offerings.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Maintain consistent branding across all touchpoints.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Add new features as your community grows.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Retain full control over the member experience.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Scale smoothly as opportunities emerge.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress excels at this integrated approach. As a flexible content management system, WordPress lets you build any type of website while adding powerful forum capabilities through plugins. This prevents &#8220;platform sprawl&#8221; – the headache of managing multiple disconnected systems for different purposes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://saucal.com/case-study/open-studio/\">Open Studio</a> is a great example of that. They previously ran their communities, course hosting, and payments on separate platforms. Working with WooCommerce agency <a href=\"https://saucal.com/\">Saucal</a>, they consolidated everything into a single WordPress-based system. While that&#8217;s a large-scale example, the same principles apply to smaller communities – start with an integrated foundation that can grow with your needs.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How to create an online forum with WordPress</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Building a WordPress-based forum involves several key components. Let&#8217;s break down each essential piece of the setup process.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Set up reliable WordPress hosting</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Forums need hosting that can handle multiple users interacting simultaneously without slowdowns. Look for WordPress-specific hosts like <a href=\"https://pressable.com/\">Pressable</a> that optimize their systems for fast loading times even with many concurrent visitors, including handling sudden traffic spikes, without upgrading your plan. You can also benefit from built-in caching to reduce server load, the option to automate regular backups of forum content, and strong security protections.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We recommend evaluating your choices based on the following criteria:&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Server response times in your target regions.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Maximum concurrent user limits.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Database performance specifications.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Backup frequency and retention.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Support response times for technical issues.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bandwidth allowances for file attachments.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>SSL certificate inclusion for secure connections.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Server-side caching capabilities.&nbsp;</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Select a forum-friendly WordPress theme</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Your theme forms the visual foundation of your forum and is one of the more important aspects of great user experience. Thankfully, there are a lot of themes to choose from, such as <a href=\"https://themeforest.net/item/disputo-wordpress-bbpress-forum-theme/21584099\">Disputo</a> or <a href=\"https://themeforest.net/item/pocco-bbpress-forum-blog-wordpress-theme/34353237\">Pocco</a>.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"319\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/disputo-theme.png?w=660\" alt=\"Live preview of the Disputo theme\" class=\"wp-image-2583\" />\n\n\n\n<p>While your choice will depend on your specific needs, there are some universal qualities that every good forum theme must have. These include:&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Clean typography for easy reading of long discussions.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Responsive designs that work well on phones and tablets.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fast loading speeds to keep members engaged.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Simple navigation between forum sections.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Compatibility with forum plugins.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re adding a forum to an existing site, ensure the theme matches your current branding while supporting forum functionality.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Installing bbPress as your forum engine</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://bbpress.org/\">bbPress</a> provides the core forum features for WordPress. This free plugin adds discussion capabilities with minimal overhead:</p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Install bbPress from the WordPress plugin directory.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"228\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/install-bb-press-plugin.png?w=660\" alt=\"Install bb press plugin\" class=\"wp-image-2584\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"2\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Create your initial forum categories.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img src=\"https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfJyBLUEYdQcv-Sgs26Es4xpqGdb5sRuZGAavnsnuBsuj0Ix8zd8NB-6rSlO9ZuH5rbEhcly_omga97Ey26w5K2adB37EiZoodE3QsCuXi2nxxFNFDfOto3MHrKSE0EfGVVoJWGPw?key=gXVxirggf_20jq3chRoz8A\" alt=\"Creating a new forum category\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"3\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>And create your first forum!&nbsp;</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"366\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/create-new-forum-1.png?w=660\" alt=\"Create a new forum\" class=\"wp-image-2598\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"4\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Set up the forum user settings, which come with some anti-spam features, as well.&nbsp;</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"296\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/forum-user-settings.png?w=660\" alt=\"bbPress forum user settings\" class=\"wp-image-2586\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"5\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Customize the main forum features like auto-embedding links, reply thread levels, subscriptions, and more.&nbsp;</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"475\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/forum-features-settings.png?w=660\" alt=\"bbPress forum features\" class=\"wp-image-2587\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"6\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Configure user roles. You can do this when you create a new user or from the dashboard.&nbsp;</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"277\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/new-user-forum-role.png?w=660\" alt=\"Adding a forum role to a new user\" class=\"wp-image-2588\" />\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"167\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/change-forum-role-of-existing-user.png?w=660\" alt=\"Changing the forum role of an existing user\" class=\"wp-image-2590\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"7\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Add any extension plugins for extra features.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"424\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/bbpress-extensions-.png?w=660\" alt=\"bbPress extensions\" class=\"wp-image-2591\" />\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Managing user profiles and identity</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Strong user profiles build trust and encourage participation, but they can be tricky to manage. In order for your forum to be successful, the users participating in it need to have trustworthy profiles that can be showcased in important places, especially if it’s going to be a discussion area for a specialized topic.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thankfully, the easy integration with <a href=\"https://gravatar.com/\">Gravatar</a> makes the process a lot easier. Our <a href=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/06/03/profiles-as-a-service/\">REST API</a> gives you more control and the option for custom profile data retrieval and display, advanced privacy setting management, personalized user experiences based on profile data, and flexible presentation options for member information.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This lets you:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Speed up registration processes and <a href=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/09/06/onboarding-user-experience/\">customer onboarding</a>.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enable consistent identities across platforms.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Provide verified email-based profiles.&nbsp;</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>More about that a bit later!&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Secure your forum community</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Forums naturally attract spam and unwanted content, which can both get in the way of building a strong and reliable community. To prevent these, you need a good WordPress security plugin, and <a href=\"https://jetpack.com/features/security/secure-authentication/\">Jetpack</a> is one of the more solid options.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"297\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/jetpack-secure-authentication.png?w=660\" alt=\"Jetpack secure authentication\" class=\"wp-image-2592\" />\n\n\n\n<p>It will help you set up a reliable login system with two-factor authentication for the users and forum owners, making sure only the verified registered users are logging in and keeping the conversations free of spam.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Besides that, its useful features help you block suspicious login attempts, prevent spam account creation, monitor for malicious activity, and protect member privacy – all essential security measures.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Setting up content access controls</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Different forums need different levels of privacy, and you need to figure out what type of forum you and your audience will benefit from the most. Common options include public forums, private member-only sections, support forums, and hidden areas for moderators and admins.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, you don’t have to choose one or the other. You might have a public forum that helps every user or lets them discuss relevant topics and maintain a premium area for paying subscribers.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Membership plugins like <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/paid-member-subscriptions/\">Paid Membership Subscriptions</a> can help monetize exclusive content while maintaining easy access to public discussions. It integrates well with <a href=\"https://woocommerce.com/\">WooCommerce</a> and bbPress, which allows you to create special members-only products and sales.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Your forum checklist: Core elements of a forum</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Every successful forum needs essential components properly configured and optimized. Here&#8217;s a comprehensive breakdown of what your forum needs to function effectively.</p>\n\n\n\n<table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Component</strong></td><td><strong>Required Elements</strong></td><td><strong>Implementation Tips</strong></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Topics &amp; categories</strong></td><td>• Hierarchical structure.<br />• Auto-tagging system.<br />• Content organization rules.</td><td>• Limit category depth to 2-3 levels.<br />• Use clear, descriptive names.<br />• Set up moderation workflows.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Navigation</strong></td><td>• Breadcrumb trails.• Category filters.<br />• Quick-jump functionality.</td><td>• Keep paths shallow.<br />• Add search filters.<br />• Enable topic shortcuts.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>User authentication</strong></td><td>• Login button placement.<br />• Registration flow.<br />• Social login options.</td><td>• Integration with Gravatar.<br />• Clear registration steps.<br />• Multiple login methods.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Search functionality</strong></td><td>• Advanced filters.<br />• Auto-complete.<br />• Results weighting.</td><td>• Include topic titles and content.<br />• Add search analytics.<br />• Enable filter combinations.</td></tr></tbody></table>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond these basic elements, we recommend adding some extra features such as:&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Community pages:</strong> Show automated welcome messages for new members, dynamic FAQ sections pulled from common questions, member directories highlighting active contributors, and an achievement system recognizing participation. You can then use that system to award members with a moderation function if you want to.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Forum threads: </strong>Threads are the bread and butter of forums, so they have to be fully functional and engaging. To help people stay in the loop, give them the option to receive email notifications when someone replies and add solved/featured status options. However, ideally, users should be able to subscribe to every thread even if they haven’t participated. Finally, include different formatting tools for improved readability and test your forum with screen readers for better accessibility.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Activity widgets: </strong>These aren’t necessary, but they really help maintain engagement by showing trending discussions, recent member achievements, upcoming community events, and popular topic statistics.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Focus on customizing these elements to match your specific community needs while keeping functionality intuitive. Members should find the interface familiar enough to participate comfortably while discovering features that make their experience better than on other platforms.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Streamlining user profiles with Gravatar integration</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"392\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/gravatar-developer-homepage-with-features.png?w=660\" alt=\"The Gravatar Developer Documentation homepage\" class=\"wp-image-2593\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Adding Gravatar to your forum removes common friction points in the registration process. Members can start participating right away using their existing Gravatar profiles, which sync automatically between different platforms they use. This universal profile system is particularly powerful – with over 200 million users already on Gravatar, many of your potential members might already have profiles ready to use.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Profile management becomes straightforward since Gravatar handles the following:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Avatar images that update everywhere at once.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Basic profile information like names and bios.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Privacy settings that follow user preferences.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cross-platform profile synchronization.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Verified email-based identities.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Professional profile photos and metadata.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For developers, implementation is straightforward through the <a href=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/08/26/gravatar-api-tutorial-for-app-developers/\">Gravatar API</a>. This lets you:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pull user profile data securely.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Respect privacy settings automatically.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Update information in real-time.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Customize the display of profile details.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Create personalized user experiences.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Add custom profile fields.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Generate user analytics.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enable social features.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These features create a smoother experience for both forum administrators and members, encouraging more active participation. New members appreciate skipping lengthy profile setup processes, while administrators benefit from pre-verified user identities and reduced fake account creation.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The system also scales automatically – as your community grows, Gravatar&#8217;s infrastructure handles the increased profile management load without requiring additional setup or maintenance from your team.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if you want to present this data in an attractive way, we recommend complementing the API with the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/gravatar-enhanced/\">Gravatar Enhanced plugin</a>, which allows you to create and display profile blocks. This gives you a simple way to create a list of all your users on one page (though you&#8217;d need to do this manually) or use profile blocks to sign off on community posts.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep in mind that it doesn&#8217;t replace the Gravatar REST API in scope but can be used to complement it and give additional UX functionality to your forum.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"660\" height=\"316\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/profile-block-example-1.png?w=660\" alt=\"Profile blocks with the Gravatar Enhanced plugin\" class=\"wp-image-2601\" />\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How Gravatar simplifies user verification and community growth</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar&#8217;s email-based system provides built-in verification that helps maintain forum quality. New members can jump into discussions faster since their profiles are already set up, removing barriers to participation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The platform enhances engagement through several mechanisms:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Members maintain consistent identities across all forum sections.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>One-click profile setup reduces registration abandonment.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Verified email addresses build trust between members.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Simple profile management encourages long-term participation.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These tools help create richer member profiles that spark more meaningful interactions. Members can focus on participating in discussions rather than managing multiple profiles or dealing with complicated setup processes.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Best practices for managing and moderating your forum</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Automate routine tasks to save time</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Running a forum means dealing with spam, trolls, and occasional disruptions. Setting up automated tools early saves countless hours of manual work. Start with spam filters that catch unwanted promotional content through keyword detection and behavior patterns. Then, you can add trust-level systems that automatically grant privileges to members who consistently participate positively.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For new members, implement a post-approval queue until they demonstrate genuine engagement. This extra step prevents drive-by spam while allowing moderators to welcome newcomers properly. Rate-limiting features prevent rapid-fire posting and help maintain discussion quality.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Build a structure for your moderation team</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Effective moderation needs clear systems and processes. Here’s what we recommend:&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Give moderators specific roles</strong> with carefully defined permissions, and keep detailed logs of all moderation actions.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Set up private channels</strong> where moderators can discuss issues and get help with difficult situations.&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Document common scenarios</strong> and expected responses to help moderators stay consistent.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Create positive engagement incentives</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Members who feel recognized contribute more often. Design systems that reward helpful participation through reputation scores and achievement badges. Quality scoring helps highlight valuable content, while member levels show experience and trust. Simple &#8220;thank you&#8221; mechanisms encourage members to help others.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Plan for challenging situations</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Even well-run forums face occasional problems. Prepare by setting up content filtering for sensitive topics and IP restrictions for repeat rule breakers. Create clear procedures for emergency situations and establish fair appeal processes for moderation decisions. Document major incidents to help prevent similar issues.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remember that automated systems work best alongside human judgment. Good moderators explain rules patiently, provide context for decisions, and help new members understand community norms. This balanced approach creates a welcoming environment where members feel safe contributing while keeping the moderation workload manageable.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Start building your professional forum community today</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Building your own forum puts you in control of your community&#8217;s future. Third-party platforms might offer quick setup, but they limit your ability to grow and adapt as your community evolves. With WordPress, you can create a fully integrated platform that connects your forum with your existing website and services.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The process is straightforward: Start with reliable WordPress hosting, add bbPress for core forum functionality, and integrate Gravatar to streamline user profiles. This combination gives you everything needed to launch a professional forum:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Complete control over your platform.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Flexibility to add custom features.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Simple user registration and profiles.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Strong security and spam protection.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Options for premium content areas.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar integration proves particularly valuable for accelerating community growth. Members can join discussions immediately using existing profiles while you benefit from verified user identities and simplified onboarding.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ready to get started? <a href=\"https://docs.gravatar.com/\">Check out the Gravatar documentation</a> for detailed integration guides. Your future community members are waiting – give them a great place to connect.</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, 12 Dec 2024 10:30:04 +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:\"Ronnie Burt\";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:23;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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: Court Grants WP Engine Preliminary Injunction Against Automattic\";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=182125\";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:85:\"https://wptavern.com/court-grants-wp-engine-preliminary-injunction-against-automattic\";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:6304:\"<p>Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern California District Court has granted WP Engine’s motion for a <a href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.64.0.pdf\">preliminary injunction</a> against Automattic and Matt Mullenweg. The ruling follows a November 26, 2024, hearing where the judge <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-engine-v-automattic-judge-inclined-to-grant-injunction-orders-status-quo\">expressed an inclination</a> to approve WP Engine&#8217;s request for injunction. Both parties were directed to collaborate on a stipulated order, but having failed to reach an agreement, they submitted competing proposals on December 2, 2024.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Court directed Automattic and Matt Mullenweg to immediately stop:</p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Blocking or interfering with WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Disrupting WP Engine’s control over its plugins hosted on WordPress.org.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Interfering with WP Engine-related WordPress installations via unauthorized auto-migration or updates.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Also within 72 hours, Automattic and Matt must:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Remove WP Engine customer data from the “domains.csv” file on the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/automattic-launches-wp-engine-tracker-to-monitor-sites-leaving-wp-engine-sparking-controversy\">WP Engine Tracker website</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Restore WP Engine’s <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-engine-banned-from-using-wordpress-org-resources\">WordPress.org access</a>, including employee login credentials, to the state of September 20, 2024.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Remove the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-login-gets-mandatory-affiliation-checkbox-following-wp-engine-dispute\">mandatory checkbox</a> on the WordPress.org login page.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reinstate WP Engine’s access to the<a href=\"https://wptavern.com/acf-plugin-forked-to-secure-custom-fields-plugin\"> Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)</a> plugin.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In granting the injunction, the Court evaluated the four Winter elements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Success on the Merits</strong>: The Court found that WPEngine is likely to succeed on the merits of its intentional interference with contractual relations claim and Automattic’s arguments do not compel a different conclusion.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Irreparable Harm</strong>: The court determined that WP Engine’s evidence of harm, including the loss of a $40,000 client contract, was persuasive. Defendants countered with four arguments but “None is persuasive.” The court accepted that WPEngine will suffer irreparable harm without preliminary injunctive relief.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Balance of Equities</strong>: Banning WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org, taking over ACF plugin, and the additional burdens imposed on WPEngine’s customers demonstrates that WPEngine has a significant interest in obtaining preliminary injunctive relief and Automattic’s arguments in opposition do not establish that they will suffer any damage that overrides WPEngine’s interest in obtaining relief. Thus the balance of hardships tips in favor of WP Engine.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Public Interest</strong>: The court said the public consequences of withholding injunctive relief are significant as Mullenweg himself acknowledges that more than 40% of all websites run on WordPress. Those who depend on WordPress&#8217;s stability should not be forced to endure the uncertainty, financial losses, and increased operational costs arising from the ongoing dispute between the parties. Thus, “the final Winter element – the public interest – weighs in favor of granting preliminary injunctive relief.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Court accepted WP Engine’s claims of irreparable harm, citing losses of existing and potential customers, damage to customer relationships, market share erosion, harm to goodwill and reputation, and broader negative impacts on the WordPress community.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WP Engine told the court that the company experienced a 14% increase in the average number of daily cancellation requests between September 26 and 30, and an increase of 17% in cancellation requests between October 1 and October 14, as compared to September 1 through September 25. The Court concluded that WP Engine would suffer irreparable harm without injunctive relief.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Court also declined to require WPEngine to post a bond as “the Court finds that any harm to Defendants resulting from the issuance of preliminary injunctive relief is unlikely, as it merely requires them to revert to business as usual as of September 20, 2024.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Automattic responded to the ruling on <a href=\"https://x.com/automattic/status/1866644684057248090\">Twitter</a>, “Today’s ruling is a preliminary order designed to maintain the status quo. It was made without the benefit of discovery, our motion to dismiss, or the counterclaims we will be filing against WP Engine shortly. We look forward to prevailing at trial as we continue to protect the open source ecosystem during full-fact discovery and a full review of the merits.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WP Engine also <a href=\"https://x.com/wpengine/status/1866691174599131634\">tweeted</a>, “We are grateful that the court has granted our motion for a preliminary injunction that restores access to and functionality of wordpressdotorg for WP Engine, its customers and its users. This ruling provides much-needed stability for the WordPress ecosystem. We deeply appreciate our customers for their continued trust and support. We remain committed to serving them and their sites with the performance, availability and integrity they deserve while collaborating to ensure a vigorous, thriving and stable WordPress community.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ruling does not mention anything about the “Secure Custom Fields” (<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/\">https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/</a>) plugin that WordPress.org released with <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-releases-new-secure-custom-fields-plugin-with-acf-pro-features\">ACF Pro features</a>.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The preliminary injunction is effective immediately and will remain in place until a final judgment is issued after the trial.</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, 11 Dec 2024 17:50:38 +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:24;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:56:\"WordPress.org blog: Openverse.org: A Sight for Sore Eyes\";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://wordpress.org/news/?p=18168\";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:71:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/12/openverse-org-a-sight-for-sore-eyes/\";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:3810:\"<img width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/Dark-home-with-yellow-background.png?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18196\" />\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://openverse.org/\">Openverse.org</a>, the vibrant platform for openly licensed media, has introduced a sleek and modern Dark Mode feature. This new site theme is designed to enhance users&#8217; comfort and style as they explore the extensive library of creative resources. Whether for late-night browsing or simply a preference for darker aesthetics, Dark Mode makes engaging with Openverse easier on the eyes and more personalized than ever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>By reducing screen brightness in low-light settings, Dark Mode offers a more relaxed viewing experience, helping to minimize eye strain. It also caters to users with light sensitivity, creating a more inclusive browsing environment. This thoughtful addition underscores Openverse’s commitment to delivering tools that are as functional as they are visually appealing.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow\"><div class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_container swiper-container\"><ul class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_swiper-wrapper swiper-wrapper\"><li class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_slide swiper-slide\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"573\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_image wp-image-18188\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/Audio-results-and-player-2.png?resize=1024%2C573&ssl=1\" /></li><li class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_slide swiper-slide\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"545\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_image wp-image-18189\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/Search-results-switcher-2.png?resize=1024%2C545&ssl=1\" /></li><li class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_slide swiper-slide\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"553\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_image wp-image-18195\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/Audio-single-page.png?resize=1024%2C553&ssl=1\" /></li></ul><a class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_button-prev swiper-button-prev swiper-button-white\"></a><a class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_button-next swiper-button-next swiper-button-white\"></a><a class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_button-pause\"></a><div class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_pagination swiper-pagination swiper-pagination-white\"></div></div></div>\n\n\n\n<p>The release of Dark Mode is part of Openverse’s broader effort to innovate and adapt to the needs of its growing community. From the thoughtful interface design to the careful attention to accessibility, every detail was crafted to reflect Openverse’s mission of empowering creativity. By embracing modern frontend implementations like Dark Mode without compromising usability or accessibility, Openverse continues to grow while honoring the brand’s essence. In addition, this update lays the groundwork for future developments aimed at providing even more customization options and improved user experiences.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>“Dark Mode marks an exciting step forward for Openverse. We designed and implemented a new user interface that keeps the brand&#8217;s essence while providing the same search experience. We’re thrilled to see how this feature fits within users&#8217; preferences and enhances the creative journey.”&nbsp; – Francisco Vera. Designer</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2024/12/Theme-switcher-flow.gif?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18174\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Ready to explore Openverse in a whole new light? Head to <a href=\"https://openverse.org/\">Openverse.org</a> today and look for the Dark Mode toggle in the site footer.</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, 11 Dec 2024 17:45:50 +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:\"Brett McSherry\";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:25;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:61:\"WPTavern: #149 – Corey Maass on Optimising WordPress Images\";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=182072\";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:75:\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/149-corey-maass-on-optimising-wordpress-images\";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:55532:\"Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<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, optimizing images in your WordPress projects.</p>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today, we have Corey Maass. Corey has been building for the web since 1996, with a focus on WordPress since 2011. He started his first SaaS app in 2004, and is launched dozens since. For over 10 years, he&#8217;s combined his love for entrepreneurship and WordPress by building, launching, and selling numerous WordPress plugins and SaaS apps built on WordPress. Currently he&#8217;s focused on the OMGIMG WordPress plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode, Corey talks about the role of social media, and your websites, presence on social platforms. He talks about how optimized web sharing images are important in today&#8217;s digital landscape. He explains how shareable webpages on platforms like X, and Facebook, drive online traffic more than direct visits, and emphasizes the power of third party endorsements in adding credibility and authenticity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He discusses the need for efficient, user-friendly, solutions built for this task, right inside of WordPress. A time-saver for anyone tasked with updating content in multiple places.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Corey also talks about the latest technological advancements, including WebAssembly, and how modern image formats like WebP and AVIF can offer higher quality images with smaller file sizes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We get into the challenges and future improvements due to come in the WordPress Media Library. The significance of dedicated tools for image creation, and how Corey&#8217;s OMGIMG plugin leverages is in-browser capabilities to simplify image handling without relying on server side processes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Towards the end, Corey shares his insights on how custom social images can enhance engagement and conversions, and the importance of optimized images in improving online content presentation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re a WordPress user looking to streamline your workflow, and boost your social media game, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding 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</p>\n\n\n\n<p>as well. And so, without further delay, I bring you Corey Maass.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Corey Maass. Hello Corey.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:35] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Hello.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Very nice to have you with us. Corey&#8217;s joining us today and we&#8217;re going to talk about images, which we haven&#8217;t done for the longest amount of time. It may seem like images are, well, a pretty obvious subject, but there&#8217;s a load more to it, especially in the recent past. Things have been changing within browsers and within WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Corey, just before we begin that, I wonder, would you mind just telling us a little bit about your background, especially with WordPress, and some of the things that you&#8217;ve created in the WordPress space. I know you&#8217;ve been on the podcast before, but people might like to hear it again, or if they&#8217;ve never heard your voice, they&#8217;d hear it for the first time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:06] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> I honestly have to describe what I look like. There&#8217;s no end of irony that we&#8217;re going to talk about imagery on an audio only podcast. I also got all dressed up. I&#8217;m here in a bird suit, with a mohawk, and disco ball glasses, but nobody can see it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there is something to be said, I mean, maybe we&#8217;ve actually made a higher level point here of just how powerful imagery can be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, hello, hello. I&#8217;m Cory Maass. I currently live in New Hampshire in the northeast of the United States. I&#8217;ve been building websites since the late nineties. Yes, I am that old. Experienced, wizened.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I caught the SaaS entrepreneurial bug in the early two thousands, and so I&#8217;ve got a long history of building websites, building web apps, trying to build businesses online.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Along the way WordPress started taking off, and I think I got started around 2010 with WordPress. For a long, long time was building WordPress websites for clients during the day as a freelancer, and then working on SaaS apps and other products at night. And then at some point went to, I was living in Nashville at the time, and I went to WordCamp Atlanta and met a bunch of people who were building successful businesses within WordPress, off of plugins in particular. And I went, what am I doing? Why am I separating, keeping these things separated?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ever since then, my focus has been, I still freelance during the day, but also building products and services around WordPress, because WordPress just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and people seem to like it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you want to just tell us some of the products that you&#8217;ve had? I mean, some of them may have come and gone. I&#8217;m not sure if they&#8217;ve all stood the test of time, but it&#8217;d be interesting to hear the range of things that you&#8217;ve built.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:51] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah, the first big product that I built was Kanban Board, so kind of a Trello built into WordPress. Because at the time I was CTO at a music startup. It was Nashville after all. And running a small tech team, we didn&#8217;t need any of the big, big Jira style project management suites. And being a typical developer, I can&#8217;t bring myself to use somebody else&#8217;s product. I have to build it myself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I actually saw value, since we&#8217;re dipping into, at least my original vision was we were dipping into WordPress all day, every day. And if I&#8217;m working with clients who are signing into WordPress, why make them sign into something else?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then also GDPR was starting to take hold. There were a lot more concerns about privacy and where is your data stored, and especially for project management, a lot of this stuff can be proprietary.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I ran that for a handful of years. Grew it to some success, but never enough to become my day job. It was a lot of fun. Some interesting use cases. It wound up being used more by small HVAC companies, you don&#8217;t know what that is. Heating and air conditioning type companies, because most of them had some sort of basic WordPress brochure site. And then they had, somebody&#8217;s nephew worked in house as the, quote unquote, IT guy. And so here&#8217;s just an easy way to get everybody to use a simple project management, or in this case more like sales tracking going sideways, or account tracking.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Somebody had called and made an appointment, the truck is out, the repairs are done, we&#8217;ve ordered the parts, blah, blah, blah. You know, as you move across columns.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sold that, probably five years ago now, and then started, very typical developer. So I&#8217;m also a musician, DJ and music producer, and was doing more marketing for myself as a musician for a while there. Again, typical developer, everybody around me was using Linktree as a, that one pager. About.me is another one. Or Carrd, with two Rs is another one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Typical me, I was like, I will not pay $8 a month. I will dedicate hundreds of hours of my life to build my own. But I actually, again, I saw a good use case inside WordPress, and it was an interesting experience because I did submit a free version to the plugin repo, and the plugin team initially pushed back hard because they&#8217;re like, you basically built WordPress inside WordPress. Why would you do this?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I&#8217;m like, there&#8217;s a difference between all of the pages on your website and the one page, mobile friendly, landing page that you&#8217;re going to link to from all of your socials. Very different use case.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They did eventually approve it. Ran that for a few years, but it was never, again, I built it because I could, not because I was really so impassioned with it. I used it, I still actually use it. But then I sold that two years ago at WordCamp US. I stood up in the cafeteria and held up a placard, that&#8217;s not true, but did meet with the buyer at WordCamp US, which was great because we got to actually go over all the documentation and everything in person. And he took that and ran with it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was offloading that. Again, I built it because I could, not because I really was in love with that concept. And then also I had started working with Cory Miller on what was to become OMGIMG, which is my current plugin that I&#8217;m building, promoting, pushing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fast forward to now where, again, freelancing during the day, but also working hard to flush out the product that I&#8217;m currently working on called OMGIMG, which builds featured images, generates featured images edits, featured images, but also open graph images, the images that you see when you share a URL on Twitter, now X, or Facebook, or LinkedIn, or any of those. That little preview that you see, that image, that&#8217;s called an open graph image. A lot of people just call it the social image. But it&#8217;s kind of a hole in a lot of people&#8217;s WordPress websites, and so that&#8217;s the problem I&#8217;m trying to solve.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:50] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We&#8217;ll get into that I think a little bit later, because it&#8217;d be really interesting to think about whether a featured image has certain success criteria attached to it, if you know what I mean. Especially if you want to deploy it in certain places, like maybe a YouTube thumbnail image, or something like that, or a blog post image. I wonder if there&#8217;s certain criteria which tick boxes for success and otherwise.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But before we get to that, I think it&#8217;s really interesting, if you rewound the clock 25 years, the internet was text, basically it was just text. It was a bunch of texts with hyperlinks and that was it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fast forward, images come along. And now really it&#8217;s more or less everything. It&#8217;s audio, it&#8217;s video, and increasingly I think audio and video are kind of, especially video, are really taking over. It&#8217;s dramatic what can be done on the internet more broadly, including apps and things like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But images, a seriously important part of it. And if you were to strip out images from just about any website that you visit on a daily basis, and take a look at it. It would probably feel, kind of a poor version of the original. So images are really important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the longest time, we&#8217;ve been familiar with the image formats of JPEG and PNG, that&#8217;s how I pronounce it. I&#8217;m sorry, I know people pronounce it in different ways, like ping and so on. But more recently there&#8217;s been some images, new formats coming along out of some different companies. So for example, Google, I think were behind the WebP image format. And I don&#8217;t know who&#8217;s behind the AVIF image format, but I know that&#8217;s gaining in popularity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The browser support, depending on which month you&#8217;re listening to this in will be different. But it&#8217;s climbing and climbing, to the point where I think most of those image formats can be fairly used.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a whole environmental debate about pushing pixels around, and whether or not that&#8217;s good for the environment. You know, a large image that doesn&#8217;t need to be large is pointless and wasteful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then you&#8217;ve got things like SVGs, scalable vector graphics. The point is it&#8217;s complicated, and it&#8217;s getting more complicated.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where are we right now in terms of the state of images? Should we now no longer be using things like JPEGs and PNGs? Should we be using these more modern WebPs and AVIF formats?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:53] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> 50, 50. There&#8217;s no right answer, or there&#8217;s no clear answer. It&#8217;s Google, right? So they were hyping their new format, which in many instances is better. In that you can push higher quality images, bigger images, essentially by having a file size be smaller, they will be delivered faster.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I&#8217;ve found that it&#8217;s not a hundred percent better. It was supposed to be the silver bullet. But I mean, there&#8217;s a reason why these other image standards came along and have stuck around for so long, they have solved a problem, right? And at the end of the day, there are still zeros and ones behind all of this. And so you can only push things so far. You can only encode so much data at such a small size or whatever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there&#8217;s no harm in using these things. Personally I struggle with, this is a very edge case scenario, but I struggle with these other formats because they don&#8217;t download easily and, or you can&#8217;t necessarily download them and then view them in other apps, or you can&#8217;t drag them from window to window. And most people don&#8217;t use the internet like I use the internet, I&#8217;m a developer, and site maintainer, and whatnot. So I&#8217;m constantly interacting with things. But that&#8217;s another little thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for me, what I advise most of my clients to do is stick with PNG if it&#8217;s graphics, big blocks of color. JPEG if it&#8217;s photo, lots of detail, gradients. And then we use a plugin. And there are a number of plugins for WordPress that will convert to these other formats. And so then you kind of don&#8217;t have to worry about the delivery.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the other thing that we&#8217;re running into now is people taking pictures with their phones, which again ends up being HEIC, another format, which is not easily, previewable in some apps, depending on what platform you use and yada, yada, yada.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So these days it&#8217;s complicated. Pictures should be a picture, should be a picture in theory. But from a tech standpoint, there&#8217;s all these different formats, and there&#8217;s these different aspects to it. I generally have my clients, I try to get them to compress images before they upload. But there are also services that will run in the background and compress images. But if it&#8217;s done automatically, there&#8217;s nobody there to see it. If an image is compressed on a server, but there&#8217;s nobody there to see it, did it really happen?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But realistically, you know, you&#8217;d rather have somebody compress it locally, verify that it looks good before uploading it, and then WordPress might resize it anyway, which might undo some of the compression and on, and on, and on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think WordPress has taken quite a few interesting steps in terms of images in the more recent past. I couldn&#8217;t point to the exact version number, not off the top of my head, or the date and month when it happened, but in the more recent past, WordPress has taken the initiative in cropping, for want of a better word, the file size of an image.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you upload some gigantic image and you haven&#8217;t in some way fiddled with your WordPress website, it&#8217;s now going to scale that back to, I think it&#8217;s something like two and half thousand pixels wide by whatever the dimensions would be for its height.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:50] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Which is sensible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:50] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I mean most people looking at that, even on a large monitor, it would still be pretty acceptable. But the idea would be cut out waste. Delete the original one which has no purpose sort of living anywhere, because it&#8217;s never going to be displayed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But also, WordPress in this version that just got released, so 6.7 just the other day, is starting to convert HEIC images, which you mentioned, which I believe is an Apple format.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:15] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> High efficiency image file format.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:18] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The idea being that an iPhone creates these, and if you are in the Apple ecosystem, and you view everything on Apple products, you would never know that that was a quirky image format that not everything can view.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:29] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Until you try to upload it to various platforms.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:31] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right, and until 6.7 in WordPress, if you tried to upload it to WordPress, it would do nothing. Now, because it&#8217;s non-viewable in most browsers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:40] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Safari only.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I was going to say, I expect that Safari would be the one that it would be available on, given that it&#8217;s Apple&#8217;s own browser. WordPress will now do a conversion on the fly and turn it into an equivalent JPEG, without you having to think.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I was to talk to a non-technical user, so just walk down the street, find some random user of the internet, but has no history with web development and just ask them, what&#8217;s a PNG? What&#8217;s a jpeg? What&#8217;s an HEIC? I don&#8217;t know. No idea, and I don&#8217;t care. Do you like looking at pictures online? Yes. Do you know what image format it is? No. And they don&#8217;t want to know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it is the kind of technology which you hope would go away. You know, you don&#8217;t really want to, in a WordPress website, care about any of this. You just want it all to work. But I suppose the stumbling block is the browser support. If, for example, WebP is non-visible, I don&#8217;t know, I&#8217;m guessing here, in Firefox, then that&#8217;s a problem and you have to fall back to previous defaults that will work like JPEG. So it&#8217;s an interesting time that we live in.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:34] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> We&#8217;ve gone through this before. I remember when PNG came out and you had to have a fallback from JPEG to PNG. The oscillations will lessen. There&#8217;s a less nerdy way to say that. It&#8217;ll smooth itself out in the end.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But yeah, you&#8217;re absolutely right. To me it&#8217;s analogous to people who are growing up with the internet now, often don&#8217;t know what a file is, because they&#8217;re just used to working in the cloud, right? So open a document, ie, click on a link so that you&#8217;re viewing it. But there&#8217;s no sense of putting it somewhere on your hard drive, and then having an index that points to it kind of thing, right? It&#8217;s just a list of files, and you click on them, and everything in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And frankly, that&#8217;s how it should be. There&#8217;s reasons to download files for backup purposes and to not have Google own everything that you do. Not that they don&#8217;t already have a copy. But aside from that, we&#8217;d like it to be, and most of the internet works just fine in that you can take a picture, upload it to Instagram, regardless of what kind of device you&#8217;re on, and show it to the world. And that&#8217;s kind of how we want the internet to work. But yeah, from a technical standpoint, in the background there are all these little levers and gears that need to run.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:44] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s interesting. If you look on an iPhone, typically, if you take a picture it just goes into, let&#8217;s call it the camera roll. And the camera roll just feels like a bucket. It&#8217;s not a file system, is it? It&#8217;s just, you open the photos app, look there, they all are, and they&#8217;re organised by date. But there&#8217;s no notion that that is a file. Look, it&#8217;s the picture, there&#8217;s the picture.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think to some extent we&#8217;ve got the same thing in WordPress, haven&#8217;t you? With the Media Library. It&#8217;s just, well, where are your pictures? Well, they&#8217;re in that thing there. It&#8217;s called the Media Library, and you click on it with no conception that there&#8217;s a whole stack of different things going on in the background to upload them into files on a server somewhere, which are organized possibly by date or what have you. And it&#8217;s all going on in background, but nobody wants to know for a good reason.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:24] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> WordPress natively puts your images in a year, and then month directory, but that&#8217;s not represented in the Media Library, which is just confounding. You never stop seeing requests on Reddit, or Twitter, or wherever, and even a client came to me recently and was like, can we have folders in the Media Library?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;m like, there are a couple of plugins, and I&#8217;ve tried them over the years with degrees of success, I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;ve ironed out the wrinkles at this point. When I tried them five years ago when I was like, I really want directories, I found that they bogged the site down because they were constantly running in the background. I&#8217;m sure, again, most tech has been updated, but bugs have been fixed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s a dump, right? And so you hope that, in this day and age, yet another compelling reason like, please, anybody who ever uploads an image, give it a good alt tag for all the right reasons. But if you&#8217;re selfish, if nothing else, the fringe benefit is that the words and the alt tag are what are going to let you search for your images. Also give it a caption, also give it a title.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But all of these things are how you&#8217;re going to find images. Otherwise, like one of my primary client websites is a magazine that&#8217;s been online for 12 years. There&#8217;s 12, literally 12,000 posts, and tens of thousands of images. And so trying to find something from last year, you just can&#8217;t. You&#8217;re just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Skimming, skimming, skimming, and dumb luck if your eye happens to fall on the right image at the right time. Like, there&#8217;s just no coming back from that basically. Like you said, it&#8217;s just one big camera roll.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:58] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It would be kind of nice, and I think that there&#8217;s initiatives to really wrangle the Media Library into something a little bit more akin to something usable for the edge cases that you described. But it&#8217;s the 80 20 rule in WordPress, isn&#8217;t it? You know, if 80% of the people need it, then it will be put into Core.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:17] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> And there are, again, a couple of great plugins for adding essentially virtual, but it feels real, directories. The problem is, right, you have to, essentially it&#8217;s the same as tagging posts. And so you really want to have started that at the beginning. I pulled this site over from, it was a Drupal. I wound up migrating this site over from Drupal with, again, 12,000 posts, and tens of thousands of images, damage done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We could start putting images in directories now, not actually a bad thing, but we&#8217;re relying largely on tags, on descriptions on recent, the fact that they float to the top essentially. Because it ends up adding more complexity. Like there&#8217;s definitely a lot of use cases for having media directories. I would really love a directory, or a folder, a virtual folder that has logos and other assets like that in it, so that you always know where to go grab the right logo, formatted correctly. Maybe it&#8217;s got a transparent background or not. Black on white, white on black, these kinds of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But all of the images that go with posts, given that we publish half a dozen every day, those images are going to end up going down, down, down anyway. How would you categorise them other than month and day, which hopefully we could pick up from the actual directories that they&#8217;re in on the server kind of thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;d be kind of interesting in the future to see if AI could do a job of backfilling. As an example, here are all the images of cats in your WordPress website. Here&#8217;s every image that&#8217;s got some background transparency in it. Here are things which we suspect might be logos, here&#8217;s everything with blue in it, and you get the idea. And in that way, the AI could probably backfill it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you&#8217;re right, I would basically want something a bit like the options that you have in the Finder or Windows Explorer inside the Media Library. So the option to, I don&#8217;t know, zoom in so that the icons become really large. If I pull some kind of slider left and right I can increase the size, decrease the size. I can put them in a list view. I can see by folder structure, that would be really great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But obviously for historical reasons, that&#8217;s not what WordPress did. And we&#8217;ve got stuck with the legacy of it. But like I say, the work is being done to modify that, and we&#8217;ll have to see as 2025 rolls along, not the theme, the year. We&#8217;ll see if any of that has an impact, I think it will.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other thing to say is that there&#8217;s some interesting work going on with technologies like WebAssembly to do a lot of interesting things within the browser. So I will link in the show notes to some videos that I saw probably six months ago, maybe more now, by a Googler who&#8217;s in the WordPress space called Pascal Birchler. And he has been working on blocks which consume, for example, let&#8217;s say a JPEG. You drag a JPEG in from your computer. Drag it onto the block editor. The block editor will then recognise that that&#8217;s an image. But you would tell that block, okay, every time a JPEG is put up, please convert it into a PNG, for example, or whatever you like, and make it this dimension. So crop it in this way, in that way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And all of that is happening kind of interestingly, not by sending it off to some server somewhere, which is what typically happens now, but it&#8217;s happening inside the browser. The browser and your local computer are doing all the necessary grunt work to make that happen. And it happens right in front of your eyes in a heartbeat. So by the time you&#8217;ve dragged it in and it&#8217;s taken, you know, a few milliseconds really to display it on the screen, it&#8217;s all happened. And you are now looking at the result of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And he&#8217;s also been working on video in the same way, you know, cropping video, and minimising the footprint of video, and what have you. It&#8217;s really interesting work. An easier time of it in the future with images, and videos, and things like that, and the browser handling a lot of the heavy lifting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:03] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> This is the modern web. There&#8217;s so much that JavaScript can now do, and it&#8217;s been moved a little bit to the server side, or it can be moved to the server side, which I think in part is what has empowered it to become more powerful in the front end browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So as you and I are sitting here chatting, we are looking at each other and recording this, and a lot of this is just going to be in browser functionality. It&#8217;s not necessarily relying on some connection to some server. You hope it does, so that if my computer shuts down, I don&#8217;t lose everything.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this is what allows a lot of the web apps that we&#8217;re now seeing to function, including my own OMGIMG plugin is image rendering in the browser. It&#8217;s incredibly powerful, it&#8217;s not totally foolproof, but it gives you most of the options for most of the things that you need. And I&#8217;m seeing, recently I was looking at a library that was using React, which is essentially a framework for JavaScript, that would let you build or design, and then render out videos.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I was specifically looking at it for a new webpage that I&#8217;m building, I want to have an explainer, so-called explainer video at the top. Click on this to see a demo of the product kind of thing. And rather than trying to capture footage of a screencast of me clicking around, and then dragging that into iMovie or something, and editing it all together. Actually using JavaScript to programmatically say, grab these frames, or grab this screenshot. Put them together in such and such a way, click a button, and then it&#8217;ll download an MP4 that I can do whatever with.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And all of it in the browser. That&#8217;s the backend, and then there&#8217;s front end products. Like I know that Canva, incredibly powerful browser editor. Also like you said, WebAssembly. And so it&#8217;s JavaScript and good product development combined with these very, very powerful in browser capabilities that we have now, libraries. There&#8217;s so much we can do, and again, so much less of it relies on external services or the server.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was actually one of the things that, when Corey and I first came up with the idea for OMG, I had already built an external service for taking screenshots. And then when I went back and looked at it, I was like, wait, I can just do this in the browser. Like I don&#8217;t actually have to talk to a third party. And it was one of the initial differentiators and still maybe, I think it is still. So compared to the few other products that do similar things, most of them rely on talking to a third party product, or talking to the backend, and OMG is entirely in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there&#8217;s fewer concerns about tech requirements. There&#8217;s fewer concerns about privacy. There&#8217;s fewer concerns about bandwidth or whatever. Like WordPress wants to be self-contained. That&#8217;s one of the things that&#8217;s always been great about it, and why I&#8217;ve long advocated for, if you have a WordPress install, turn it into whatever you want it to be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, use it to run your business, let it do product management, or let it be your to-do list, or all these things, because it&#8217;s essentially an operating system and you can run software within that operating system and you control it all.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so with that ethos in mind, here&#8217;s a way that you can generate images, manipulate images, or as the example you brought up, also video. But imagine doing all of that built right into a thing that you own safely on the internet, you&#8217;re not reliant on third party products or whatnot. You just have to have a modern enough computer, and probably a browser like Chrome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I do remember when Google first launched their Chromebook initiative, and I remember thinking, what&#8217;s the point of that? You know, it&#8217;s got no memory, as in storage, why would anybody want that? And as time has crept on, we&#8217;re probably a decade or more into that project, I kind of see the utility of it more and more. I mean, in my case, I&#8217;d still want some of the power that the operating system that I prefer has. So for example, doing audio editing, you&#8217;ll know about that, and video editing. There&#8217;s just so much that needs a bit of horsepower.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But for a typical user, I think we are reaching the point where the browser can do the vast majority of what you want it to do. And WordPress can be the fulcrum of that. I mean, it won&#8217;t do everything unless somebody builds a credible plugin for it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But your example is perfect. So we are recording on an online platform at the moment. We&#8217;re both in a browser. We&#8217;re watching the video. It&#8217;s recording the audio. It&#8217;s sending that data synchronously to some server somewhere so that there&#8217;s a backup if we get cut off. It can have up to 10 people doing the same thing at the same time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve got a similar piece of software, which will then allow me to edit the video in real time, again, all in the browser. And really, if you weren&#8217;t technical, and you were to look at it, you would imagine that it was some app that I downloaded from the Mac App Store or what have you. But it&#8217;s not, it&#8217;s just sitting inside the browser, and it is pretty remarkable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think the future in terms of what blocks will bring, and the fact that blocks can be sometimes like a little atomised app if you like. You know, it can handle app-like functionality within it, I think it&#8217;s going to be curious what people do in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So let&#8217;s just turn our attention to your plugin then. First of all, the URL omgimg.co, so .co, go and find that. Is this an endeavor to get people to go the last mile? You know that final thing that you&#8217;ve got to do every time you write a blog post, which is the featured image. And it&#8217;s the last thing that you want to do at that moment because you&#8217;ve already spent hours creating and crafting the text.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you&#8217;re finally hit with that, oh really? And then you&#8217;ve got to go and open up Canva or Photoshop and spend time doing something that you probably don&#8217;t have the skillset to do. Have I kind of got the idea there? It&#8217;s just a dead easy drop in for, here&#8217;s a templated way of doing it, click some buttons, you&#8217;re off to the races.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:57] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah. That was the problem that we originally were looking at solving. You&#8217;re, generating content, you&#8217;re writing long blog posts, or short blog posts, up to you. Or even uploading products into WooCommerce, or whatever it is that you are using WordPress for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if it&#8217;s a thing that&#8217;s going to be shared, there is this social image. And there&#8217;s this misconception that a lot of people have, which is that the featured image is also the social image. And it&#8217;s true because it can be true, but it doesn&#8217;t have to be true. And you&#8217;re honestly doing yourself a disservice by not differentiating these two things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of SEO plugins very correctly will try their best, they will go and grab the featured image, or the first image that they find inside the content of whatever post you&#8217;ve published, and serve that up, and if not, they will default to a, probably a site-wide image that you&#8217;ve uploaded.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the idea here is yeah, the hard work, and what we&#8217;ve experienced, and I think a lot of people experience is not necessarily, I mean, it&#8217;s hard enough writing words. If you&#8217;re writing blog posts, it&#8217;s hard enough writing words, or if you&#8217;ve recorded a podcast episode and you&#8217;ve uploaded it, you&#8217;ve spent hours, and hours, and hours editing it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then you groan because you pull up your reusable to-do list and go, okay, now what are all the things I&#8217;ve got to do? Now I&#8217;ve got to categorise it. Now I&#8217;ve got to tag it. Now I&#8217;ve got to grab a transcript. Now I&#8217;ve got to find a featured image. Now I&#8217;ve got to upload the featured image.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You&#8217;ve just described my life, Corey.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:28] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> And I want to give you a hug. And that&#8217;s the good and bad of what we do, right? We want to be the rockstar millionaire or whatever, who is like, I&#8217;ve appeared on camera, and now I walk away, and all the talent, you know, all my underlings can go and do all the other work. But most of us are independent on some level, and subsequently are trapped to a desk doing most of the hard work ourselves. The boring work, the grinding, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And one of those things, as we found, was finding a stock photo is sort of a different thing because it kind of depends on what it is you&#8217;re doing. Most people kind of have a source for that. But there&#8217;s a really strong argument for a featured image that is edited. Meaning it&#8217;s got words on it. It&#8217;s got a logo on it. It&#8217;s color edited so that it matches your branding, your site. Because just uploading the first picture that you find on Unsplash, just like everybody else, is not going to do your content any good.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like a lot of people correctly believe that adding a photo does lead to more conversions, but just adding some stock photo isn&#8217;t the right answer. So taking that a step further, making that image good, cropping it to the right size, enhancing it essentially. And then the next thing would be the image for social, which is often based off of that featured image.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But we found last year that Twitter actually got rid of the title. If you share a website, it used to have the social image, and then it used to have the title of the website, and a description, and the URL, like Facebook still has this, LinkedIn still has this, Slack and other services that&#8217;ll pull in this preview still have it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Twitter got rid of it because they were like, most people, they&#8217;re just lying, or they&#8217;re just adding crappy content, and or some wanting to be more like Instagram. They&#8217;re like, we are photo only. And so you need something more than just an image because just an image, it&#8217;s a picture of Nathan&#8217;s smiling face, it&#8217;s like, I might click on it, I might not click on it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For those of you listening, because we are not on video, he just smiled ear to ear. Hamming it up as usual in the background. People go, oh, it&#8217;s Nathan, but why? I don&#8217;t know what he&#8217;s promoting. I don&#8217;t know what he&#8217;s talking about. I don&#8217;t know why he&#8217;s, maybe he&#8217;s just happy today. You need a title that says, Nathan Interviews genius developer named Corey. You know, words on an image so that people go, oh, this is why I should click on this. It&#8217;s a small thing, but it&#8217;s a very powerful thing. And this is largely the problem I&#8217;m solving.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I remember speaking recently with Jamie Marsland, he&#8217;s an Automattician, so he&#8217;s employed by Automattic, and his job title is the head of WordPress YouTube, and so he&#8217;s in charge of that channel. And I know that I could have found this information out elsewhere, but he really was the first person who&#8217;d kind of described it to me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He spent a long time researching images that would be the thumbnail image on YouTube because the attention span on YouTube, I think is prodigious low. You really are competing in a marketplace of milliseconds. And if for a fleeting moment you manage to get your featured image in front of somebody, you&#8217;ve got to convert it almost immediately.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so there&#8217;s kind of a playbook if you like, and I haven&#8217;t yet talked to Jamie about what that playbook is, but he does say that he spends a lot of time playing with the featured image, just because he knows now what works, and what converts, and what doesn&#8217;t. And it may not be that he&#8217;s got it perfected, and I imagine that algorithm over time will change or what have you. But there is some kind of psychology behind what&#8217;s going to work, and the kind of text to put on there, and whether it&#8217;s a, I don&#8217;t know, a question, or what the kind of font is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we see patterns, don&#8217;t we? We see popular ways of doing it. So for the longest time, we&#8217;ve seen, on YouTube videos, featured images, we&#8217;ve seen shocked looking people with a background, and they&#8217;ve got like a little white border around their cut out picture of themselves and so on. And everybody&#8217;s doing it. And if everybody&#8217;s doing it, there&#8217;s probably something effective about that. You know, not everybody can be doing it if it doesn&#8217;t work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:35:20] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Look at movie posters. That was how it was explained to me first. All these movie posters for most movies these days look the same. It&#8217;s a montage of all the characters in kind of a pyramid, in a triangle with the title at the bottom, right? Like, there&#8217;s a reason why it sells. And at some point, I mean, just like any advertising or any trends in advertising, we eventually become immune to it, and so it probably has to change.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But yeah, the YouTube thumbnails, another perfect example, and actually something that I&#8217;m starting to look at for OMG as well, which is essentially generating a media kit. So it&#8217;s like, if you create a post, also create a square image for Instagram, and also create a thumbnail for YouTube.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But yeah, there&#8217;s an immense amount of psychology that goes into this stuff. And a lot of it is just, also as you said, what people have gotten used to. But it also, there&#8217;s at least some element of AB testing, or experimenting for your own audience, because kids on YouTube are going to react differently, or click on different things than developers, or techy people, or WordPress people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then, yeah, do you look shocked? What word do you put over your head? Do you put question marks? Is it a question that people want answered? Is it you looking satisfied because you&#8217;ve figured something out? You have to figure out how to take the content that is in that video and then convey that in one compelling image.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;ve heard from a lot of the YouTube folks that they record their content and then spend the next five minutes striking various poses. It looks like they&#8217;re voguing. They&#8217;ve got to look shocked, and they&#8217;ve got to look angry, and they&#8217;ve got to look frustrated. And then later they go back through and go, well, maybe this one, this one I&#8217;m squinting. Okay, not that one. But yeah, this is the one, you know? And a lot, a lot of time gets spent on those thumbnails because it&#8217;s the poster for your movie.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> What&#8217;s the workflow for OMGIMG then? If I&#8217;m in a WordPress, let&#8217;s say a blog post, let&#8217;s use that example, and I&#8217;ve written it out, I&#8217;m very happy with it, in every way I&#8217;m ready to go. I&#8217;ve got my SEO settings all done, and the text is ready and optimised and what have you. But the only thing that&#8217;s missing is some kind of imagery. How does it work? Do I click a button and then I&#8217;m interacting with some kind of editor that you provide? What&#8217;s going on?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:29] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> The big update that I made earlier this year was shifting from essentially a Canva style editor in WordPress, which still exists, but you now use that predominantly to create a template. So you&#8217;re like, I want the featured image in the background. I want the title of my post in the lower left, and I want my logo in the top right, and a border or something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you save that as a template, and so now as part of your workflow, you finish writing, you fill out all the SEO fields, and then there&#8217;s a little button, an OMG meta box off to the side, and you click generate, and it opens a little window and you choose the preset, the template that you want to use. It creates the image in three seconds or less, and you hit save and you&#8217;re done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:38:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you at that point get to, I don&#8217;t know, overwrite the texts, or write the title, or does it just consume the title from the blog post?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:38:19] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> It just consumes the content right now. I am adding, it has been requested that, oh, well for this, maybe I want to tweak the featured image slightly, or I want to take a word out of the title because it&#8217;s too long for the template that I built, kind of thing. So that&#8217;s coming soon, to be able to tweak those things slightly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I&#8217;ve heard from most of my customers, users, is that what they care the most about is, again, abbreviating that workflow. And so there&#8217;s a little bit of tweaking or making it perfect, but for the most part, people are like, just make it fast. Just take this line item off of my to-do list so that if I finish writing a blog post, and then I&#8217;ve finished adding all of the SEO things, and then I&#8217;ve finished finding the perfect featured image, and then I&#8217;ve finished categorising it. Don&#8217;t make me open Canva, find the document, copy a page, copy the post title over, blah, blah, blah. You get the point.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so they&#8217;re willing to have essentially that mini version. And obviously, again, I want people to be able to make it perfect, but what I&#8217;ve been hearing more than make it perfect is make it fast. And so that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m focused on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, have you come across a SaaS app called RelayThat? RelayThat&#8217;s a really interesting example because its prime purpose is to, much like you&#8217;ve just described, you create a template, and then you decide where the text is going to go. And once you&#8217;ve got that template, you have basically a bunch of text fields, and you just go and copy and paste the text in.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in your case, you could handle that natively. But you copy and paste the title in. You copy and paste, you know, in my case there might be a space here for the guest name or something like that. You might upload a featured image. In this case it would be, I&#8217;d copy and paste your name, copy and paste an image of you that you&#8217;d sent to me, and do the title. And so I&#8217;ve had to amend three fields, and then I can download it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the interesting thing that it does as well is that it will create that exact image in just every size format. So it will do it for Instagram, for YouTube, all the different ones. And it&#8217;s optimised in that way. And obviously you can go in and set each one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s a real pain the first time you use it, you know, it really genuinely takes hours to get everything just how you want it and figure it all out. But then on the back end of that, it&#8217;s seconds to do, but you&#8217;ve got to open up an app, log in, dah, dah, dah, dah. Whereas I can see the utility, if you&#8217;re inside WordPress and it can do all of those kind of things. That was the closest comparison I could draw. It&#8217;s definitely worth looking at if you&#8217;ve not come across that before.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:52] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> In my research for OMG, I&#8217;ve seen different apps, and also other apps that work similarly for generating banners, or generating social images, or generating whatnot. And this is part of what gave me confidence that this was a problem worth solving, because almost everybody has bought into something because it&#8217;s necessary.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this day and age, most of us want our web pages shared, right? The day of people just coming to your website over, and over, and over again, hoping that there&#8217;s new content is largely over. Unless you&#8217;re the New York Times or something. Unless you&#8217;re a destination.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of the internet now is based around aggregation, which is Twitter or Facebook. And so people go to these single sources where they&#8217;re hoping that everybody has kind of dumped their stuff in, or other people have dumped other people&#8217;s stuff in. And that&#8217;s how we can consume it all in one feed. Very convenient.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this is why it&#8217;s more and more important that how you are represented on those platforms, often without knowing about it. And this is one of the things that I struggled early on to explain to, like I gave a talk about images, and open graph, and all this stuff to a meetup here in New Hampshire. And it was eye-opening because trying to explain the importance of this, and the scenario of, it&#8217;s not even about you sharing your website, it&#8217;s about Nathan sharing my website with Michelle without me knowing, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so it&#8217;s how I am represented without me being present. And so I need to set myself up for success for that scenario. And because it&#8217;s that third party validation is the biggest, still the most compelling sales technique, right? There&#8217;s a reason why all of us have testimonials on our landing pages. Somebody else telling somebody else about how great I am is way better than me telling them how great I am. And this is that same thing. Nathan sharing my website with somebody else is way more compelling to that other person.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They&#8217;re going, well, I trust Nathan, smart. He&#8217;s got that fancy accent, so he must know what he&#8217;s talking about. And it lends authenticity, it lends value to whatever he&#8217;s sharing. And so if he shares that link and then a little gray box pops up. I was talking to somebody this week, they were like, yeah, I always assume that that&#8217;s spam. And I was like, wow, that&#8217;s really, really powerful, that people go, I&#8217;m really hesitant to click on this thing because it&#8217;s a gray box.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s the same as 25 years ago, 30 years ago, now when I first started. It was the first wave of, you are not a legitimate business if you do not have a website. And this was a compelling way for when I started my career to get clients, because I could go in and go, look, people are not taking you seriously because you don&#8217;t have a website. But it&#8217;s all these little boxes that you have to tick to represent yourself the best you can on the internet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think that&#8217;s totally true. I mean, we&#8217;re all, whether we like it or not, we are all in some way shape or form involved in social media. If you&#8217;re a business and you&#8217;re not on social media, and you remain in business, well, you&#8217;re very lucky. Most of the rest of us have to do that job.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you are right, if you see something and there isn&#8217;t some kind of featured image attached, you do have that little spidey sense, well, that&#8217;s kind of curious and strange, that doesn&#8217;t quite look legitimate.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the ability to speed it up inside of WordPress natively is fascinating. And let&#8217;s not forget that the majority of people who are using WordPress are not the likes of you and I, who have been obsessed with computers ever since, you know, they came around. These are people who, they&#8217;re using WordPress in some kind of utilitarian way that, you know, they&#8217;ve been handed the job of creating blog posts, and the faster that they can get in and get out and do the other 3000 tasks that they&#8217;ve got on their plate this week, the better.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, yeah, it&#8217;s an exciting time with all the technologies that are happening inside of the browser, WebAssembly and so on, but also the technologies that people like you are building inside a WordPress. Yeah, it&#8217;s fascinating.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Corey, where can we find you? If people have listened to this and they&#8217;re curious to get in touch and talk to you about images, where do we find you best?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:44:50] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Sure. Corey Maass, M A A S S on Twitter is where I&#8217;m most active. My company is called Gel Form, gelform.com, and of course omgimg.co.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:45:04] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Cory Maass, thank you so much for chatting to me today. I really appreciate it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:45:07] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Thanks for having me.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://x.com/coreymaass\">Corey Maass</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Corey has been building for the web since 1996, with a focus on WordPress since 2011. He started his first SaaS app in 2004 and has launched dozens since. For over ten years, he’s combined his love for entrepreneurship and WordPress by building, launching, and selling numerous WordPress plugins and SaaS apps built on WordPress. Currently, he’s focused on the OMGIMG WordPress plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode, Corey talks about the role of social media and your website’s presence on social platforms. He talks about how optimised web sharing images are important in today&#8217;s digital landscape. He explains how shareable web pages on platforms like X and Facebook drive online traffic more than direct visits, and emphasises the power of third-party endorsements in adding credibility and authenticity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He discusses the need for efficient, user-friendly, solutions built for this task, right inside of WordPress. A timesaver for anyone tasked with updating content in multiple places.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Corey also talks about the latest technological advancements, including WebAssembly, and how modern image formats like WebP and AVIF can offer higher-quality images with smaller file sizes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We get into the challenges and future improvements due to come in the WordPress Media Library, the significance of dedicated tools for image creation, and how Corey&#8217;s OMGIMG plugin leverages in-browser capabilities to simplify image handling without relying on server-side processes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Towards the end, Corey shares his insights on how custom social images can enhance engagement and conversions, and the importance of optimised images in improving online content presentation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re a WordPress user looking to streamline your workflow and boost your social media game, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://kanbanwp.com/\">Kanban for WordPress</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://linktr.ee/\">Linktree</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://about.me/\">About.me</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://carrd.co/\">Carrd</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://omgimg.co/\">OMGIMG plugin</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://x.com/swissspidy/status/1733138082591912154\">Pascal Birchler&#8217;s X thread about image manipulation in the browser</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.canva.com/\">Canva</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/wordpress\">WordPress YouTube channel</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.relaythat.com/\">RelayThat</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://gelform.com/\">Gelform website</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://x.com/coreymaass\">Corey&#8217;s 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, 11 Dec 2024 15:00:00 +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:26;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:68:\"Akismet: Email Leads: 17 Proven Tactics to Generate Them Effectively\";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:\"http://akismet.com/?p=284252\";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:37:\"https://akismet.com/blog/email-leads/\";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:32916:\"<p>They say the money is in the list. And it is. Having an active email list gives you a reliable source of revenue you can tap into regularly. But that means you need to be consistently attracting new email leads. Once you have them, you can nurture them, convert them into customers, motivate repeat purchases, ask for reviews, and do all the other marketing activities email makes possible with existing&nbsp;customers.</p>\n\n\n<p>So how do you get more email leads?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<span id=\"more-284252\"></span>\n\n\n<h2 id=\"what-is-an-email lead\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is an email&nbsp;lead?</h2>\n\n\n<p>An email lead refers to anyone who has subscribed to your email list but hasn’t yet made a purchase. This is distinct from paying customers who have provided their email address and subscribed (given permission) to receive email marketing from your company.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>Email leads are on your email subscriber list and have also given permission to receive marketing from you, but haven’t yet made a&nbsp;purchase.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"why-are-email-leads-crucial-for-marketing-and sales\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why are email leads crucial for marketing and&nbsp;sales?</h2>\n\n\n<p>Email marketing remains one of the most profitable forms of marketing from an ROI perspective. That’s because it’s a direct line of communication to people who have asked you to send marketing to them.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, it’s relatively low-cost compared to almost every other marketing channel.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>When people click and make purchases in response to emails they’ve received, a larger portion of that revenue is&nbsp;profit.</p>\n\n\n<p>Email is also the easiest way to stay in touch with customers and prospects. You don’t have to hope they see your display ad, or are watching TV when your ad shows up, or happen to see your social media post while they’re busy scrolling by. Emails go straight to them.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For all these reasons, email also offers a great way to nurture and follow up with leads and customers. You can send a series of emails for one campaign. You can send thank you emails, follow-up emails, survey emails, review request emails, abandoned cart emails, welcome emails, and automated emails of many sorts.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>No other marketing channel allows for so much direct communication at so little cost — and with trackable&nbsp;data.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"17-ways-to-enhance-your-email-lead generation\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">17 ways to enhance your email lead&nbsp;generation</h2>\n\n\n<p>With such a valuable marketing channel, here’s a checklist you can use to level up your email lead generation.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"1-understand-your-audience-at-a-deep level\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Understand your audience at a deep&nbsp;level</h3>\n\n\n<p>Lead generation begins with knowing what your target audience wants. The idea is to offer them something that will make them say “Yes!” when asked to join your email list. They join because they want the thing you’re offering.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As long as the thing you’re offering appeals to your target audience, a portion of them will respond to this offer and fill out your opt-in form.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"2-create-a-sense-of-urgency-or scarcity\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Create a sense of urgency or&nbsp;scarcity</h3>\n\n\n<p>With lead generation, this could mean a deadline for when a particularly appealing offer gets taken away. Maybe you just wrote a book related to your industry, and are giving away the first 100 copies to whoever joins your list. Maybe you’re giving away extra large discounts for people who join your list in the next ten days.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deadlines and scarcity like that work well to grow your list fast, in surges.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>But you can also use urgency that doesn’t require constantly coming up with new offers. How might this look? Urgency can also result when people feel left out. For&nbsp;example:</p>\n\n<p>“Join the community and see the juicy secrets we share every week in our&nbsp;newsletter!”</p>\n\n<p>That is the language of urgency, but it’s not tied to a deadline or a finite amount of&nbsp;something.</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"3-make-your-lead-magnet irresistible\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Make your lead magnet&nbsp;irresistible</h3>\n\n\n<p>The above example also serves to demonstrate the idea of an irresistible lead magnet. The more the lead magnet aligns with things your audience cares about, the more irresistible it will be.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1600\" height=\"780\" src=\"https://akismet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/vip.png\" alt=\"form on the WordPress VIP site showing an example of a lead capture\" class=\"wp-image-284255\" />\n\n\n\n<p>This is why the tried and true methods like free guides, eBooks, white papers, and special reports still work wonders. As long as the content in those digital marketing documents relates to topics, desires, and needs your audience shares, they will want it badly enough to join your email list if that’s what it takes to get it.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>But the more perks you can throw in, the harder it will be for people to resist joining. You can also offer a combination. For example, a business could give a free report, a 20% off coupon for first&#8209;time buyers, and access to a private Facebook page for everyone who joins their email&nbsp;list.</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"4-build-a-form-that-minimizes friction\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Build a form that minimizes&nbsp;friction</h3>\n\n<p>Attracting and converting email leads requires more than just a great offer. It also requires an opt&#8209;in form that works. The less cumbersome your forms, the more people will do the work required to get through them. This means, among other&nbsp;things:</p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Keep your number of form fields to a&nbsp;minimum</li>\n\n<li>Use clearly&#8209;labeled&nbsp;fields</li>\n\n<li>Consider multistep forms if you need to collect more&nbsp;information</li>\n\n\n<li>Minimize clutter</li>\n\n\n<li>Don’t bury your forms on your website in places that are easy to&nbsp;overlook</li></ul>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"5-avoid-captcha-at-all costs\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Avoid CAPTCHA at all&nbsp;costs</h3>\n\n\n<p>Another common source of friction arises from a very common but extremely annoying feature of many website opt-in forms. Many website owners have been duped into thinking they need to use a CAPTCHA in order to prevent spammers and bots from clogging up their inboxes by filling out their forms over and over.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are bots and spammers a problem? Yes, very much so.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>But CAPTCHA is about the worst way to solve that problem. Why? Because website users hate them. Picture&nbsp;this:</p>\n\n\n<p>You have a great lead magnet. Your form is easy to use. Your offer has connected with a new lead. And they’ve gone through the work to fill out the form. And now, right before they can click the button to complete it… they have to count the motorcycles in a bunch of blurry pictures.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>Sounds like fun? It’s not. These little puzzles do nothing but annoy people. More importantly, they also <strong>reduce your conversion rate</strong>. People give up and abandon forms if they get tired of dealing with CAPTCHA&nbsp;puzzles.</p>\n\n\n<p>A far superior and seamless solution is to use Akismet. <a href=\"https://akismet.com/features/\">Akismet</a> has prevented hundreds of billions of spambots from filling out opt-in forms and other types of online forms. In the near future, we’ll surpass one trillion.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1600\" height=\"655\" src=\"https://akismet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-1.png\" alt=\"Akismet homepage with the text \" />\n\n\n\n<p>Akismet uses AI data and other software tools to identify and block spammers from filling out your forms, but the human users of your website are not impacted by it at all. They don’t even know it’s busy protecting your site in the background. They just fill out the form, unimpeded, and go on with their day.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you get another new email lead.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"6-build-credibility-with-social proof\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">6. Build credibility with social&nbsp;proof</h3>\n\n\n<p>Right below the CTA button, it’s a smart idea to insert a short testimonial lauding the benefits of subscribing to your emails or being a customer. You can even use a screenshot from a third-party review site to bolster the credibility.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"7-give-a-clear-preview-of-the-next steps\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">7. Give a clear preview of the next&nbsp;steps</h3>\n\n<p>A short piece of text somewhere in the form can tell new leads what will happen after they click the button. This takes away another mild objection that keeps some people from following through with their desires to obtain the benefits of being on your email list. Examples of this sort of text might read this&nbsp;way:</p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Once you join, your coupon will be there in&nbsp;seconds</li>\n\n<li>Join today and gain access to the private&nbsp;group</li>\n\n<li>After you sign up, the report will be waiting in your&nbsp;inbox</li></ul>\n\n\n<p>You can insert this sentence right above or below the CTA button, or at the very bottom of the form. And it doesn’t need to be a large font. But this sort of language will reassure some leads by clarifying exactly what happens&nbsp;next.</p>\n\n\n<img width=\"1600\" height=\"780\" src=\"https://akismet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-2.png\" alt=\"email capture with a receipe ebook exchange\" class=\"wp-image-284257\" />\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">8. Offer a one&#8209;time discount for new&nbsp;leads</h3>\n\n<p>You saw an example of this earlier. While you don’t want to be discounting all the time, offering a discount to new leads is a terrific strategy for turning a lead into a customer. The sooner you can convince them to buy, the sooner they will start developing a sense of belonging and loyalty. It’s that first purchase that always takes the most commitment. Once done, you can more quickly motivate a second&nbsp;purchase.</p>\n\n<p>So a one&#8209;time discount to new customers is a great marketing strategy for converting new leads into customers. That discount could come in several&nbsp;forms:</p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>A percent off or dollars off&nbsp;discount</li>\n\n<li>Buy one, get one&nbsp;free</li>\n\n<li>A free&nbsp;gift</li>\n\n<li>A free gift with&nbsp;purchase</li>\n\n<li>Discounted setup&nbsp;fees</li>\n\n<li>Get the first month&nbsp;free</li></ul>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"9-host-a-live-event-that-requires-an-email-to register\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">9. Host a live event that requires an email to&nbsp;register</h3>\n\n<p>For some businesses, it might not be a product that attracts new email leads. Sometimes, a webinar, live online conference, or other event will be more enticing. They want to hear from an expert, a celebrity, a special guest, or the founder of the company talk about a particular topic that matters to&nbsp;them.</p>\n\n\n<p>If all they have to do to see the presentation is provide their email address, that’s a small price to pay, and your target audience will happily do so.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"10-design-a-dedicated-lead-generation-landing page\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">10. Design a dedicated lead generation landing&nbsp;page</h3>\n\n\n<p>For almost all these examples, you’ll do better with a dedicated landing page in addition to a typical opt-in form. Forms can be placed in your website’s footer, sidebar, homepage, and within your content.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you should also have a separate webpage that goes into more detail about the benefits of joining your email list. Whatever incentive you’re offering in exchange for joining, this page gives you room to expand on the benefits and advantages it offers.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A page like this also gives you something to link to if you’re trying to generate leads from other sites like social media pages. You might run an ad or create a post featuring your lead magnet, but it’s far more effective to link that ad to a special landing page than just your homepage.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This will focus the attention of potential leads and keep them thinking only about the benefits of joining your list, and reducing distractions from the other content on your other pages.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>You can link to this landing page from all sorts of places,&nbsp;including:</p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Social media pages and&nbsp;ads</li>\n\n\n<li>PPC ads</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Display ads</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Partner websites</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Print marketing</li>\n\n\n<li>Marketing collateral at live events and&nbsp;booths</li>\n\n<li>Other pages and posts on your&nbsp;website</li></ul>\n\n\n<p>For the print marketing and live event situations, this is why you want to keep the URL for this landing page very simple. You want it to be easy to read, not too many characters, and easy to remember. For example, suppose you’re presenting to a live audience and your landing page URL is on one of your slides. The shorter it is, the easier it will be for people to&nbsp;respond.</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"11-implement-prominent-and-persuasive ctas\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">11. Implement prominent and persuasive&nbsp;CTAs</h3>\n\n\n<p>Both the main headline of your opt-in form and the text on your CTA button need to be persuasive and actionable. Don’t use generic language like “Join our list!,” “Sign up,” or the worst one of all — “Submit!”&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>Instead, customize the CTA language to fit what you’re offering. Examples for good button CTA language&nbsp;include:</p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Grab your report&nbsp;today</li>\n\n<li>Claim your free&nbsp;coupon</li>\n\n<li>Reserve your&nbsp;spot</li>\n\n<li>Yes! Sign me&nbsp;up!</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>You should also use actionable language in your headlines — both for the form and the dedicated landing page.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1600\" height=\"588\" src=\"https://akismet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-3.png\" alt=\"red email capture from Ladybird Education\" class=\"wp-image-284258\" />\n\n\n<h3 id=\"12-use-an-interactive-quiz-to-capture emails\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">12. Use an interactive quiz to capture&nbsp;emails</h3>\n\n\n<p>Sometimes, just having opt-in forms isn’t enough. And, how do you collect information about each lead that will help you follow up more effectively?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With regular forms, you have to either lengthen the form, which can depress response rates, or you have to try to segment your list afterward with follow-up marketing and data collection.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But online quizzes offer another great approach. With these, you can collect information and segment your leads from the start, and in a way they will enjoy. A good online quiz is fun to fill out, and there are some great quiz companies out there that make this easy.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>The best thing is, when they’ve finished filling out their quiz, they provide their email address at the end to see the results. And some quiz platforms will even personalize their results and give them an assessment of some sort. There’s a lot you can do with these. But they are a great way to attract email leads and grow your&nbsp;list.</p>\n\n\n<img width=\"1600\" height=\"1066\" src=\"https://akismet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image.jpeg\" alt=\"man explaining something to a camera\" class=\"wp-image-284259\" />\n\n\n<h3 id=\"13-create-a-talking-head-video-to-pitch-your offer\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">13. Create a talking head video to pitch your&nbsp;offer</h3>\n\n\n<p>Another advantage of having a landing page is that you can include a video. The owner of the company or some other key figure can make a quick 1-2 minute video promoting the benefits of subscribing to your email list. For people who respond to video, this is a great way to capture their attention and make sure they know all the reasons to join.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"14-use-timed-popups-to-strategically-nudge users\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">14. Use timed popups to strategically nudge&nbsp;users</h3>\n\n\n<p>Popups got a bad name when they first came out because they were intrusive, annoying, and sometimes kept coming up even after the user closed them.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>But when used well, popups can be very effective. It’s not uncommon for websites to collect the majority of their email leads using popups forms. A good strategy is, instead of having it popup right when the visitor reaches your site, add a time delay so it pops up after about a&nbsp;minute.</p>\n\n\n<p>This way, it’s only being seen by people who have already engaged with your content to some degree. For those people, by the time they see the popup, they might have seen enough to respond to the lead generation offer more favorably.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, offering a 20%-off discount to a new visitor the second they arrive might just annoy them. They’re not even sure they want to buy anything yet. But after a few minutes on your site, they might have found what they’re looking for, and that coupon will give them yet another reason to make the purchase and join your email list at the same time.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"15-test-exit-popups-and overlays\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">15. Test exit popups and&nbsp;overlays</h3>\n\n<p>Another type of popup is the exit popup. Here, when a visitor moves to close your page or leave the site, the exit pop appears and makes an offer. It’s a last ditch attempt to let them consider one more time if they want to engage with your&nbsp;business.</p>\n\n<p>These work well because, even if the person didn’t feel ready to take any actions today, they might have a favorable impression of your company. The exit pop lets them join your email list and gives them an easy way to remain in your&nbsp;circle.</p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">16. Optimize your thank&#8209;you&nbsp;page</h3>\n\n\n<p>The last part of lead generation happens after a person has completed your opt-in form. What then? If you have promised them some type of lead magnet, be sure to deliver it as fast as possible. But there’s more you can do with this moment.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When a person joins a new email list, they are feeling good, perhaps a little excited, and also a little unsure if this was a good decision. Do they want this company in their life?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You want to capitalize on this moment by confirming they have made a great decision, and solidifying their positive feelings about what happens next.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Creating a great thank-you page is the first thing to do.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>A good thank&#8209;you page does several&nbsp;things:</p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Communicates excitement about what they just&nbsp;did</li>\n\n<li>Reinforces the decision by restating key benefits they’ll soon&nbsp;realize</li>\n\n<li>Reminds them what happens next and what’s coming their&nbsp;way</li>\n\n<li>Gives them something to do right&nbsp;now</li></ul>\n\n\n<p>What should they&nbsp;do?</p>\n\n\n<p>It might be a blog post or other page of your site to visit. It could be a link to follow your social media page. It could be to watch a video.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or you could simply link to your online store, especially if you’re using a first-time coupon discount as your lead magnet.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Find something for them to do, so they can stay engaged with your site a little longer.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"17-build-an-email-series-to-nurture-new leads\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">17. Build an email series to nurture new&nbsp;leads</h3>\n\n<p>After the thank&#8209;you page, your other primary follow&#8209;up task for new leads is to create an email welcome series. Your new leads know you will email them. But they have no idea what you will say, or if they’ll regret joining your&nbsp;list.</p>\n\n\n<p>Create an email series to have the same effect as the thank-you page, but spread out over several days. With how busy and distracted everyone is, breaking into someone’s life in a positive way takes time and effort. A welcome series enables you to show up in their life several times, and will increase the chances they’ll remember you.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>A good series should be at least three emails, but you can also use five, seven, or even&nbsp;more.</p>\n\n<p>In your series, you can accomplish a number of things,&nbsp;including:</p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Reinforcing their decision to join&nbsp;(again)</li>\n\n<li>Delivering the content they asked for, if&nbsp;any</li>\n\n<li>Telling the story of your&nbsp;company</li>\n\n<li>Introducing the founder, owner, or other key&nbsp;personnel</li>\n\n<li>Telling them what they can look forward to and how exciting it&nbsp;is</li>\n\n<li>Sharing reviews and testimonials&nbsp;</li>\n\n<li>Introducing them to your community if you have&nbsp;one</li>\n\n<li>Making an offer to convert them into a paying&nbsp;customer</li></ul>\n\n\n<p>You don’t have to do all of that, but it certainly won’t hurt anything if you do. A good pace is to separate each of these emails by a day or two. And you can tell them up front how many emails they’ll be getting over the next few days so they won’t feel&nbsp;overwhelmed.</p>\n\n\n<p><strong>Reminder: </strong>Eliminating friction is key to getting the most from your hard work. <a href=\"https://akismet.com/features/\">Use Akismet</a> to reduce spam without annoying users. It’s a proven way to improve conversion rates.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h2 id=\"the-lifecycle-of-an-email lead\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The lifecycle of an email&nbsp;lead</h2>\n\n<p>To make sure you’re clear about all of this, let’s walk through the basic steps of lead generation and show you how each of the tactics we already discussed fits into the overall&nbsp;process.</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"acquisition\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Acquisition</h3>\n\n\n<p>Acquisition happens when someone sees your offer to join your list, and then responds favorably. This could mean they saw an online ad or social media post. It could mean they visited your website and saw your opt&#8209;in form. They may have found your dedicated landing&nbsp;page.</p>\n\n\n<p>During this stage, the potential lead may know little to nothing about your company. You have to introduce yourself and give them enough value to make them want to stay engaged, and your email list offers the path for doing so.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"nurturing\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Nurturing</h3>\n\n\n<p>Once they’ve joined your email list, the next job is to nurture and deepen their relationship with your company. As you saw, this begins with the thank&#8209;you page and the email welcome series. Beyond that, you can continue sending emails and other marketing&nbsp;content.</p>\n\n<p>This could include social media, SMS, print marketing, and other&nbsp;channels.</p>\n\n<p>Nurturing means making the lead feel valued, helped, supported, or encouraged by the content you’re sending to them. The feelings you’re trying to produce depend on your industry and what your target audience&nbsp;wants.</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"conversion\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conversion</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Conversion happens when they make their first purchase. Again, this is the reason to offer the first-time discount. For some leads, they will convert right away when they use this coupon. The job of the welcome series is to encourage them to use it soon.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But even if you don’t have a first-time discount, somewhere in the welcome series, it’s a good idea to make an offer and give them a chance to buy. Once the welcome series concludes, they’ll be receiving whatever marketing you’re sending other people in their segment, so it will be a little less personalized, most likely.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>If you can get that first purchase before the welcome series concludes, that’s the best possible&nbsp;outcome.</p>\n\n\n<img width=\"1184\" height=\"754\" src=\"https://akismet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-4.png\" alt=\"Magnga-Tiles thank you message\" class=\"wp-image-284260\" />\n\n\n<p>And by the way, we didn’t mention this before, but you can also go for a conversion right on the thank&#8209;you page. They just joined your email list. They’re feeling good. With the right offer, you can convert some of them right from that page. Give it a&nbsp;try!</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"retention\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Retention</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>After conversion, your goal is to motivate repeat purchases. Retention looks similar to nurturing, except now you can offer additional products, new deals and specials, and other ways to buy from your website.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a customer makes a second purchase, they will now see your business as part of their lives, rather than a one-time thing. A second purchase greatly increases the potential for an ongoing relationship.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h2 id=\"common-challenges-in-email-lead generation\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Common challenges in email lead&nbsp;generation</h2>\n\n\n<p>Is it easy to attract email leads? The honest response from anyone not trying to sell you something is, nothing in marketing is “easy.” You will have to work at this. Getting attention is hard and takes ongoing effort. Connecting with your target audience takes time and effort, too.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>Here are a few other common email lead generation&nbsp;challenges:</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"low-conversion rates\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Low conversion&nbsp;rates</h3>\n\n\n<p>The more steps in the chain, the harder it is to convert new leads. Imagine this funnel: You have a Facebook post, which links to your opt-in landing page. On that page is the opt-in form, which is followed by a thank you page and an email welcome series.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you’re measuring conversions as purchases, that’s at least five steps people have to walk through before buying anything.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, if 5% of people who see your Facebook post click on it, you’ve already lost 95% of potential leads, and they haven’t even read your landing page yet. Then, they have to follow through and fill out the form. From there, if you make a sales offer on the thank-you page, you might win your first conversion. Otherwise, it’s after your welcome series begins arriving.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the good news is, once you have these sorts of funnels up, they can just keep running. You can keep promoting that social media post over and over, and it may see a mostly new audience each time. With boosted posts and paid ads, you’ll spend a bit more, but you’ll also get more visibility. And if the content and message connects with enough people in your target audience, you can gain a lot of new email leads at a consistent pace.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Work on improving each component of each page to improve conversions. That includes the offer, the copy, the CTA button, the imagery, the landing page headline, the form text, and all the other elements.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"high-bounce rates\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">High bounce&nbsp;rates</h3>\n\n\n<p>A bounce happens when someone reaches your website and then leaves without doing anything. A high bounce rate means your landing page isn’t connecting with your potential leads. So if that’s your situation, now you know what to work on.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Focus on the headline, the copy, the imagery, and the opt-in form.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"dealing-with spam\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dealing with&nbsp;spam</h3>\n\n<p>Opt&#8209;in form spam is very annoying here because you keep thinking you’ve got a new lead, but really it’s just a bot or a scammer. It can demotivate a business owner from continuing to pursue&nbsp;leads.</p>\n\n<p>This is why <a href=\"https://akismet.com/features/\">Akismet</a> is so valuable. You’ll eliminate the psychological burden of dealing with all the spammers filling out your forms. And, your conversion rates will increase because your users won’t have a CAPTCHA or similar impediment making it harder to complete your form and join your email&nbsp;list.</p>\n\n<h2 id=\"frequently-asked questions\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Frequently asked&nbsp;questions</h2>\n\n<h3 id=\"why-are-email-leads-important-for-my business\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why are email leads important for my&nbsp;business?</h3>\n\n<p>Without new input, output will decline. Businesses need a steady flow of new leads who will then convert into new customers because their existing customers will eventually go elsewhere. Businesses survive, grow, and thrive by consistently attracting new leads. It’s their&nbsp;lifeblood.</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"what-is-the-difference-between-cold-warm-and-hot leads\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is the difference between cold, warm, and hot&nbsp;leads?</h3>\n\n\n<p>Cold leads refer to leads who have become unresponsive. They’re still in your database and on your email list, but they don’t engage. Warm leads engage and respond to some degree, but haven’t followed through or responded to any of your offers. Hot leads are ones who have explicitly told you, either by word or action, that they are ready and interested in buying.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"can-i-buy-email-leads-and-are-they effective\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Can I buy email leads and are they&nbsp;effective?</h3>\n\n\n<p>Buying email leads has become increasingly less wise, and it is not recommended at all with current email technology and anti-spam laws. Sending marketing emails to people who have not opted in to your email list can get you in trouble if they complain to the authorities.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plus, since they didn’t opt in, if they mark you as spam it will hurt your sender reputation. That means your emails even to your happy subscribers may not get delivered to the inbox, but to the spam folder.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"how-do-i-measure-the-success-of-my-email-lead-generation efforts\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">How do I measure the success of my email lead generation&nbsp;efforts?</h3>\n\n\n<p>You can measure each step of the process that features a call to action. How many people see your marketing promoting your lead magnet offer or email list subscription, and how many of those click on it? How many see your email opt-in form and how many click on it? How many view your thank-you page and how many of those respond to whatever it offers? How many receive your email welcome series, and how many convert based on what they receive?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p>Each step can have its own conversion rate, which you can use to improve and optimize the whole&nbsp;process.</p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How can I re&#8209;engage inactive email&nbsp;leads?</h3>\n\n\n<p>The first thing to do is send them a reactivation email campaign. This tells the recipients that they haven’t responded to any emails for a while, and if they want to remain on your list, they need to respond to this one. Reactivation emails often include a special offer to motivate your inactive leads to re-engage. It can be a single email or a short campaign.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can also try to engage with them on other marketing channels, as they may simply be more active on those as opposed to email.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"should-i-use-captcha-to-protect-my-forms-from spam\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Should I use CAPTCHA to protect my forms from&nbsp;spam?</h3>\n\n<p>No. CAPTCHA has been shown, in numerous studies, to depress conversion rates for opt&#8209;in forms. It is a needless barrier that makes it harder to complete the form. There are better ways to prevent opt&#8209;in form spam, with <a href=\"https://akismet.com/features/\">Akismet</a> being the most effective and seamless because website visitors don’t even know it’s&nbsp;there.</p>\n\n<h3 id=\"what-is-akismet-and-how-can-it-improve-my-lead-generation strategy\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is Akismet, and how can it improve my lead generation&nbsp;strategy?</h3>\n\n\n<p>Akismet is an anti-spam software service that prevents bots and spammers from filling out and submitting online forms. Akismet uses AI technology that analyzes behavior of the user, and detects when a bot or spammer is trying to engage with your form. It improves lead generation by removing one of the obstacles to completing and submitting an opt-in form.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<h3 id=\"what-types-of-companies-generally-use akismet\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What types of companies generally use&nbsp;Akismet?</h3>\n\n<p>Over 100 million websites are currently using Akismet to prevent opt&#8209;in spam. That’s a lot — and it says something about how effective and widespread this solution is. Akismet also has an enterprise&#8209;level service used by some of the biggest brands in the world, including Microsoft, Bluehost, and<a href=\"https://akismet.com/blog/convertkit-customerstory/\">&nbsp;ConvertKit.</a></p>\n\n<h3 id=\"where-can-i-learn-more-about akismet\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Where can I learn more about&nbsp;Akismet?</h3>\n\n<p>You can learn about Akismet and its primary features <a href=\"https://akismet.com/features/\">on our&nbsp;website</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, 11 Dec 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:11:\"Jen Swisher\";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:27;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:67:\"Gravatar: How to Enhance User Engagement with Gravatar on WordPress\";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:32:\"http://blog.gravatar.com/?p=2462\";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:70:\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/12/10/how-to-use-gravatar-in-wordpress/\";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:12671:\"<p>Ever wondered why some WordPress comments display professional profile pictures while others show generic gray icons? The secret lies in Gravatar – a powerful yet surprisingly simple tool that&#8217;s transforming how people connect across the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What is Gravatar, Anyway?</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"2492\" height=\"1298\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/gravatar-new-homepage.png\" alt=\"Gravatar homepage\" class=\"wp-image-2391\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar, short for Globally Recognized Avatar, has evolved far beyond its origins as a simple avatar service. Today, it&#8217;s a comprehensive profile service that connects your email address to your digital identity, making it available wherever you interact online.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think of it as your digital business card that automatically follows you around the web. When you comment on a blog, join a new platform, or contribute to a project, Gravatar ensures your professional image is consistently represented. Major platforms like WordPress.org, Slack, GitHub, Mailchimp, and even OpenAI rely on Gravatar to enhance their user experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Gravatar Makes a Difference</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar eliminates common frustrations in online interaction. Instead of repeatedly uploading profile pictures and filling out information across different sites, users enjoy:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Automatic profile synchronization across WordPress sites</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Consistent digital representation in comment sections</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Professional presence across multiple platforms</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Complete control over their shared information through granular privacy settings</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The ability to maintain separate professional and personal identities through different email addresses</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">For Site Owners and Developers</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Implementing Gravatar brings substantial benefits to your WordPress site:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Streamlined user registration processes with auto-filled profile information</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reduced server load since Gravatar hosts all profile images</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enhanced compliance with data protection regulations</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Access to powerful developer tools through the REST API and SDK</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Built-in verification features to combat spam accounts</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The ability to create personalized user experiences based on imported profile data</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The real power shows up in community building. When users see their familiar profile picture and information automatically appear, they&#8217;re more likely to engage. This familiarity builds trust and encourages more interaction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And for sites targeting specific industries or niches, Gravatar helps create professional communities where members can easily recognize each other across different WordPress platforms.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How to use Gravatar with WordPress.com</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Getting started with Gravatar on WordPress.com is straightforward since every WordPress.com account automatically includes Gravatar integration. Here&#8217;s everything you need to know about using it effectively.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your WordPress.com account creates a Gravatar profile automatically when you sign up. To manage your avatar:</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1033\" height=\"448\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/wordpress-com-my-profile.png\" alt=\"Sign in to your WordPress.com dashboard and navigate to My Profile.\" class=\"wp-image-2469\" />\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sign in to your WordPress.com dashboard </li>\n\n\n\n<li>Navigate to <em>My Profile</em>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Upload or modify your picture.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1220\" height=\"836\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/profile-settings-wordpress-com.png\" alt=\"Upload or modify your picture.\" class=\"wp-image-2470\" />\n\n\n\n<p>However, the settings you can adjust here are very limited and for a full list of things you can add, you need to edit your <a href=\"https://gravatar.com/profile\">Gravatar profile</a> directly.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1263\" height=\"756\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/edit-gravatar-profile.png\" alt=\"Gravatar profile settings\" class=\"wp-image-2471\" />\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Advanced Features</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond basic avatars, WordPress.com includes several Gravatar-powered features to enhance your site.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gravatar Widget</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gravatar Widget adds a quick <em>About Me</em> section to your blog&#8217;s sidebar or footer. Add it by:</p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Going to <em>Appearance &gt; Customize &gt; Widgets.</em></li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1012\" height=\"642\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/gravatar-widget.png\" alt=\"Gravatar widget\n\" class=\"wp-image-2489\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"2\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Selecting <em>Gravatar Widget</em>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Customizing the size, alignment, and text.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Adding social media links if desired.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<p>For more detailed profiles, the Gravatar Profile Widget displays your complete bio, gravatar link, contact information, links, and recent activities.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Need to add a Gravatar somewhere specific? Use the shortcode:</p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>&#091;gravatar email=\"user@example.com\" size=\"96\"]</code></pre>\n\n\n\n<p>This works in posts, pages, and text widgets – perfect for team member profiles or guest author introductions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hovercards</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>And do you want to show more information when someone hovers over a profile picture, you can enable <a href=\"https://support.gravatar.com/profiles/hovercards/\">Gravatar Hovercards</a> to display mini-biographies, social media links, recent posts, and custom information.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1036\" height=\"569\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/hovercards-example.png\" alt=\"Gravatar hovercards\" class=\"wp-image-2474\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How to use Gravatar with WordPress.org</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Setting up Gravatar on a self-hosted WordPress site takes just a few extra steps but offers all the same benefits. Here&#8217;s how to get everything configured properly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Basic Setup:</p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Log into your WordPress dashboard and go to <em>Settings &gt; Discussion.&nbsp;</em></li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"918\" height=\"612\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/settings-discussion.png\" alt=\"WordPress.org discussion settings\n\" class=\"wp-image-2475\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"2\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Scroll to <em>Avatars</em> and check <em>Show Avatars</em>.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1148\" height=\"259\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/show-avatara.png\" alt=\"Enabling avatars in WordPress.org\" class=\"wp-image-2476\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"3\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Choose your preferred rating level (G, PG, R, X)</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1055\" height=\"223\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/avatar-rating-max.png\" alt=\"Setting the maximum rating for avatars in WordPress.org\" class=\"wp-image-2477\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"4\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Select a default avatar style.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1192\" height=\"687\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/default-avatar.png\" alt=\"Setting the default avatars in WordPress.org\" class=\"wp-image-2478\" />\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"5\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Save changes</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<p>After this setup, Gravatar automatically displays user avatars in comments, author bios, and other profile areas across your site.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Gravatar Enhanced Plugin&nbsp;</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1217\" height=\"530\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/gravatar-enhanced-plugin.png\" alt=\"Gravatar Enhanced plugin download page\" class=\"wp-image-2483\" />\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/gravatar-enhanced/\">Gravatar Enhanced plugin</a> is 100% free and takes functionality even further.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Privacy Shield feature helps ensure Gravatar doesn&#8217;t log the avatars that you serve on your site, perfect for community sites where privacy matters.&nbsp;</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"5600\" height=\"3200\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/gravatar-privacy-shield.png\" alt=\"Gravatar Enhanced Privacy Shield feature\" class=\"wp-image-2484\" />\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Profile Block makes it simple to add beautiful author bios to posts – just insert the block, and it automatically pulls the author&#8217;s Gravatar profile data.&nbsp;</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"5600\" height=\"3200\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/gravatar-profile-block.png\" alt=\"Gravatar Enhanced profile block\" class=\"wp-image-2485\" />\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Email notifications gently remind users to set up their Gravatar profiles, helping create a more engaging community.&nbsp;</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1023\" height=\"357\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/plugin-email-notifications.png\" alt=\"Gravatar Enhanced email notifications\" class=\"wp-image-2486\" />\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Site owners particularly appreciate the Quick Editor, which lets them update avatars directly from the WordPress dashboard.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1023\" height=\"912\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/gravatar-quick-editor.png\" alt=\"Gravatar Quick Editor\" class=\"wp-image-2487\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Gravatar API&nbsp;</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gravatar REST API is how WordPress.org users import their profile data, allowing website owners to build more intuitive and user-friendly sign-up processes, <a href=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/09/06/onboarding-user-experience/\">customize customer onboarding</a>, and create a sense of community on the site.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And for custom solutions, the Gravatar API opens up exciting possibilities. Pull in comprehensive user data to create dynamic author pages that showcase a writer&#8217;s latest posts, social media activity, and professional background. Build team pages that automatically update when members change their profiles. Or create custom comment systems that show different profile information based on user roles.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Building a Stronger Community</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The true power of Gravatar lies in its ability to transform anonymous usernames into recognizable community members. Consider these strategies:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Add welcoming setup instructions near comment sections</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Include Gravatar guidance in welcome emails</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Create helpful documentation for new users</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Encourage profile completion through gentle reminders</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Privacy and Control</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar stands out for its commitment to user privacy:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Users maintain complete control over shared information</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Multiple identity management through different email addresses</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Granular privacy settings for different contexts</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Easy profile updates that propagate across all connected platforms</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Taking Action</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Ready to enhance your WordPress site with Gravatar? Start with these steps:</p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Review your current avatar settings</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Update your own Gravatar profile</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Consider adding enhanced features through plugins</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Create clear documentation for your users</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Monitor community engagement improvements</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Remember, building an engaged community requires more than just tools – but having the right tools makes it easier. Gravatar removes common friction points in user interactions, allowing your community to focus on what truly matters: creating meaningful connections and conversations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Want to learn more about implementing Gravatar in your WordPress site? Check out our <a href=\"https://support.gravatar.com/gravatar-enhanced-wordpress-plugin/\">comprehensive Gravatar Enhanced plugin documentation</a>. Let&#8217;s go!</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/gravatar-enhanced/\"><img width=\"3243\" height=\"729\" src=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/gravatar_enhanced_cta.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2634\" /></a>\";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:\"Tue, 10 Dec 2024 21:57:16 +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:\"Ronnie Burt\";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:28;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:51:\"WPTavern: Automattic Acquires AI Company ‘WPAI’\";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=182018\";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:56:\"https://wptavern.com/automattic-acquires-ai-company-wpai\";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:3075:\"<p>Automattic has announced that it has acquired <a href=\"https://wpai.co/\">WPAI</a>, a company specializing in AI-powered tools for WordPress. Founded two years ago, WPAI has developed innovative products like CodeWP (an AI IDE for WordPress developers), AgentWP (an AI agent for WordPress), and WP.Chat (a ChatGPT alternative for WordPress). No financial details of the deal have been disclosed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WPAI’s founding members James LePage, Greg Hunt, and Ovidiu “Ovi” Iulian Galatan will join Automattic. “Our entire WPAI team is making the move to Automattic, and we’ll be integrating our products, data, and tools into both new and existing offerings. We couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead.”, James LePage shared on <a href=\"https://x.com/jameswlepage/status/1866208939680923694\">Twitter</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Automattic’s <a href=\"https://automattic.com/2024/12/09/automattic-welcomes-wpai/\">announcement post</a> revealed that the founding members will “lead the exploration of applied AI as an interaction paradigm for WordPress. They’ll be working on testing, building, and integrating innovative AI solutions into the core ecosystem to redefine how users and developers work with WordPress.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of the transition, CodeWP and AgentWP will be sunset in their current forms, the core technology powering these platforms will be reimagined and integrated into new offerings under the Automattic umbrella. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>“We expect that all products will be completely sunset by January 9th, but it is up to Automattic on the exact timeline now.”, shared James LePage in the WPAI <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/codewp\">facebook group</a>. “As we wind down our current products, monthly subscriptions will end without renewal, and annual subscribers will receive prorated refunds in the coming weeks.”, he continued.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>While many are optimistic about the acquisition, some customers have expressed concerns. Some are worried that it’s disastrous for the current customers and they are not happy with CodeWP and AgentWP being sunset. But James Lepage has assured that “This move allows us to gather more resources and build a much more robust solution. We were punching way above our weight class. The agent will be back!”&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matt Mullenweg shared in his <a href=\"https://ma.tt/2024/12/wpai/\">personal blog</a>, “Very excited to share that <a href=\"https://automattic.com/2024/12/09/automattic-welcomes-wpai/\">we’ve acquired WPAI and the team is joining Automattic</a>. They have some very cool products including <a href=\"https://codewp.ai/\">CodeWP</a>, <a href=\"https://agentwp.com/\">AgentWP</a>, and <a href=\"https://wp.chat/\">WP.chat</a>.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The acquisition comes on the heels of Automattic’s recent purchase of <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/automattic-acquires-harper-founder-elijah-potter-joins-the-team-as-code-wrangler\">Harper</a>, a grammar-checking tool tailored for developers. Harper’s founder, Elijah Potter, also joined Automattic as a Code Wrangler.</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:\"Tue, 10 Dec 2024 19:33:22 +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:29;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:90:\"WPTavern: WPForms Plugin Patches Vulnerability Affecting Stripe Payments and Subscriptions\";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=182005\";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:101:\"https://wptavern.com/wpforms-plugin-patches-vulnerability-affecting-stripe-payments-and-subscriptions\";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:1799:\"<p>Awesome Motive’s <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpforms-lite/\">WP Forms</a> plugin has patched a Missing Authorization to Payment Refund and Subscription Cancellation vulnerability. This issue allowed authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access or higher to refund Stripe payments and cancel subscriptions without proper authorization. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wordfence reports that “The WPForms plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data due to a missing capability check on the ‘wpforms_is_admin_page’ function in versions starting from 1.8.4 up to, and including, 1.9.2.1. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to refund payments and cancel subscriptions.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Researchers have classified the vulnerability (CVE-2024-11205) as “High,” with a CVSS score of 8.5. The vulnerability researcher <a href=\"https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2024/12/6000000-wordpress-sites-protected-against-payment-refund-and-subscription-cancellation-vulnerability-in-wpforms-wordpress-plugin/\">István Márton’s post</a> has more technical details about the plugin’s vulnerability.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Researcher <a href=\"https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/researchers/villu164\">Villu Orav</a>, who initially discovered and reported the vulnerability via the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program, earned recognition as Wordfence’s first recipient of the WordPress Superhero badge. Orav also received a $2,376 bounty for his discovery.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WPForms is a widely used plugin with over 6 million active installations, making this patch particularly critical. Users are strongly advised to update to the patched version, 1.9.2.2, to safeguard against potential revenue loss and ensure site security.</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:\"Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:25:04 +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:30;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:90:\"Do The Woo Community: Welcome Matthias Pfefferle as a New Host Talking About the Fediverse\";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=87455\";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:89:\"https://dothewoo.io/welcome-matthias-pfefferle-as-a-new-host-talking-about-the-fediverse/\";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:177:\"In a new episode, BobWP introduces Matthias Pfefferle as a host, discussing the upcoming show \"Open Web Conversations,\" with his focus on WordPress and broader Fediverse topics.\";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:\"Tue, 10 Dec 2024 11:40:04 +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:31;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:25:\"Matt: DrupalCon Singapore\";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=131618\";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:42:\"https://ma.tt/2024/12/drupalcon-singapore/\";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:2545:\"<p>This week, <a href=\"https://events.drupal.org/singapore2024\">DrupalCon Singapore</a> is bringing together an incredible community of Drupal platform creators, developers, and supporters.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://ma.tt/2023/05/with-mike-little-and-dries-buytaert/\">Last year, I had the chance to share the stage with Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal</a>, and the conversation stuck with me. It highlighted the profound impact we can have when communities like ours come together to push the boundaries of Open Source and shape the future of the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>At Automattic, we believe that Open Source is more than a license—it’s a philosophy that drives innovation and makes publishing accessible to all, and we want to support fellow open source communities. Our team is at DrupalCon to share some of the tools we’ve built, including <a href=\"https://akismet.com/\">Akismet</a> (<a href=\"https://www.drupal.org/project/akismet\">check out the Drupal extension here</a>), <a href=\"https://magazine.atavist.com/\">The Atavist Magazine</a>, <a href=\"https://www.beeper.com/\">Beeper</a>, <a href=\"https://dayoneapp.com/\">Day One</a>, <a href=\"https://longreads.com/\">Longreads</a>, and <a href=\"https://pocketcasts.com/\">Pocket Casts</a>. These products, much like the web itself, thrive on connection and collaboration. (Basically all our non-WP stuff.)</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I’ve loved hearing about how people are engaging with our booth—whether exploring our tools, grabbing a local snack, or taking a moment to recharge. For those of you at the event, I encourage you to swing by the Automattic booth, meet our team, and share your thoughts. Together, we can continue to create an open web that’s full of possibilities.</p>\n\n\n\n\n<img width=\"604\" height=\"453\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/12/DrupalCon-1-1-1024x768.jpg?resize=604%2C453&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-131632\" />\n\n\n\n<img width=\"604\" height=\"805\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/12/DrupalCon-2-1-768x1024.jpg?resize=604%2C805&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-131628\" />\n\n\n\n<img width=\"604\" height=\"453\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/12/DrupalCon-3-1-1024x768.jpg?resize=604%2C453&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-131631\" />\n\n\n\n<img width=\"604\" height=\"453\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/12/DrupalCon-4-1-1024x768.jpg?resize=604%2C453&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-131629\" />\n\n\n\n<img width=\"604\" height=\"453\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2024/12/DrupalCon-5-1-1024x768.jpg?resize=604%2C453&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-131630\" />\";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:\"Tue, 10 Dec 2024 03:56:32 +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: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:32;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:10:\"Matt: WPAI\";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=131612\";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:27:\"https://ma.tt/2024/12/wpai/\";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:342:\"<p>Very excited to share that <a href=\"https://automattic.com/2024/12/09/automattic-welcomes-wpai/\">we&#8217;ve acquired WPAI and the team is joining Automattic</a>. They have some very cool products including <a href=\"https://codewp.ai/\">CodeWP</a>, <a href=\"https://agentwp.com/\">AgentWP</a>, and <a href=\"https://wp.chat/\">WP.chat</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:\"Tue, 10 Dec 2024 02:38:29 +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:33;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:89:\"WPTavern: Jessica Lyschik Wins the WordPress Speed Build Challenge Against Matt Mullenweg\";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=181921\";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:100:\"https://wptavern.com/jessica-lyschik-wins-the-wordpress-speed-build-challenge-against-matt-mullenweg\";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:2916:\"<p>Jessica Lyschik, a WordPress Developer at GREYD, has won the highly anticipated WordPress Speed Build Challenge, defeating WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/luminuu/\">Jessica</a> announced that she would donate her $5,000 prize money to Girls Who Code.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The showdown was set following Jessica&#8217;s public challenge to Matt during WordCamp Europe. The challenge hosted by Jamie Marsland, required both participants to replicate the<a href=\"https://bobdylanart.com/\"> Bob Dylan</a> website within 30 minutes using any tools or techniques of their choice. Jessica utilized the GREYD theme and plugin, while Matt opted for the Twenty Twenty-Five theme and AI.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jessica, the Co-Lead for the Twenty Twenty-Four Default Theme, prioritized accessibility during the live event impressing the audience and prompting <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/patricia70/\">Patricia BT</a> to comment, “Jessica is so good at accessibility, I think the whole Greyd team is btw (and shoutout to Anne-Mieke as well).” </p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Jamie confirmed that using AI was not against the rules, the audience was divided about Matt&#8217;s use of it. Some appreciated using AI to speed up development, while others felt that “as the founder of Blocks, he should at least do it the core way.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The audience was amused to see Matt getting stuck and grow frustrated with alignment, padding, and borders. He accepted that he would have never found some options in a million years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Audience reactions included, “It&#8217;s good that WP leadership tries hands-on to use the Block Editor, that&#8217;s the only way of experiencing where we can improve. Thanks Matt for being here and maybe noting the issues.”, “Love that Matt is learning WordPress Live.”, “​​Wonder if he&#8217;ll now believe all the criticism of Gutenberg”, “Haha&#8230; Matt is saying that something is annoying about blocks?”, and “like watching a baby calf learn to walk.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But some defended Matt’s efforts: “He actually did alright imo. esp for one not building sites on the reg. Doesn’t mean there’s not improvements to be had by any means though.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jessica was finally declared winner for a “more polished finish.” Before this event, she had competed against <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/richtabor/\">Rich Tabor</a> and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/francgrasso/\">Francesco Grasso</a>, while Matt was participating in the challenge for the very first time. 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The <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-consent-api/\">WP Consent API feature plugin </a>was originally introduced in early <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/proposal-to-add-a-consent-api-to-wordpress-feature-plugin-available\">2020</a> to standardize the communication of accepted consent categories between plugins.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Automattician Brian Alexander has placed two options before the community: add this feature to Core or make it canonical. 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This marks only the second time the event will be held outside North America, following last year’s address in Madrid, Spain.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A select group of 300 attendees will have the chance to experience the event in person, with <a href=\"https://wordcampcentral.survey.fm/2024-sotw-ticket-request\">ticket requests</a> now open. For global audiences, the address will be live-streamed on the official <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/wordpress\">WordPress YouTube channel</a>. Community members are encouraged to host or join local watch parties to enjoy the event together.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The address will feature Matt&#8217;s retrospective on 2024, demonstrations of the latest WordPress innovations, and insights into the future of the open-source project.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Japan, known for its thriving WordPress community, is a fitting host for this year’s <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-to-deliver-state-of-the-word-2024-from-tokyo-japan\">SOTW</a>. Matt shared his enthusiasm, stating, “It’s exciting for Japan to host a State of the Word and really showcase how vibrant their community is. I’m so impressed with all of the books about WordPress there, the market share we have in that country, and the warmth of the events they do throughout the year.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shusei Toda, one of the organizers of WordCamp Asia highlighted the significance of the event, saying, “82.3% of Japanese websites are powered by WordPress, and this event holds immense importance to our local web developers, bloggers, and digital creatives. Hosting the State of the Word in Japan is not just a testament to our community and also in Asia but also a celebration of the pivotal role WordPress plays in our digital landscape.”</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:\"Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:26:31 +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:37;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:78:\"Do The Woo Community: Enhancing WooCommerce for Accessibility with Amber Hinds\";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=87398\";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:77:\"https://dothewoo.io/enhancing-woocommerce-for-accessibility-with-amber-hinds/\";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:225:\"Anne, Amber, and James discuss the significance of accessibility in web development for WooCommerce stores. They emphasize the Accessibility Checker plugin, upcoming audits, and compliance with the European Accessibility Act.\";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:\"Mon, 09 Dec 2024 10:35:02 +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:38;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:83:\"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #112 Gutenberg 19.8, Create Block Theme Plugin\";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:53:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=31209\";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:100:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-112-gutenberg-19-8-create-block-theme-plugin/\";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:58247:\"<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack and Sarah Norris talked about Gutenberg 19.8, Create Block Theme Plugin, WordPress Day for Developers in Lisbon, Developer Hours, and so much more</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-112-gutenberg-19-8-create-block-theme-plugin/#shownotes\">Show Notes</a> / <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-112-gutenberg-19-8-create-block-theme-plugin//#transcript\">Transcript</a></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/\">Sandy Reed</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://markuraine.com/\">Mark Uraine</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Production:&nbsp;<a href=\"https://icodeforapurpose.com\">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-larger-font-size\" id=\"shownotes\"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://events.wordpress.org/lisboa/2024/wordpress-day-developers-en/\">WordPress Day for Developers, Lisbon</a>, Portugal</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://events.wordpress.org/lisboa/2024/wordpress-day-developers-en/session/help-shape-gutenberg/\">Help Shape Gutenberg</a> w/ Sarah Norris</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://events.wordpress.org/rome/2024/coredays/\">Core Days, Rome,</a> Italy</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://events.wordpress.org/rome/2024/coredays/session/onboarding-gutenberg-development/\">Onboarding Gutenberg Development</a> w/ Birgit Pauli-Haack</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Announcements</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/304881623/\">Developer Hours: Everything you need to know about WordPress Playground</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/304668126/\">Developer Hours: Improve your workflows with WordPress development tools</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gutenberg Fun &amp; Games</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Code is Music</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Aki Hamano <a href=\"https://x.com/tetsuaki_hamano/status/1858914117987529004\"> “Code is Music” </a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/piano-block/\">Piano Block</a> </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/t-hamano/piano-block\">study the source code on GitHub</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Play Snake</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Tom Rodes: <a href=\"https://tomrhodes.blog/2024/11/28/using-a-gutenberg-block-to-run-snake/\">Using a Gutenberg Block to run Snake</a>. </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/tommusrhodus/snake-gutenberg-block\">inspect the code on GitHub</a> or </li>\n\n\n\n<li>play the game <a href=\"https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tommusrhodus/snake-gutenberg-block/refs/heads/main/blueprint.json\">inside Playground</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Play Dodge</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Jonathan Bossenger: <a href=\"https://jonathanbossenger.com/dodge-a-wordpress-game/\">a variation of Dodge game </a></li>\n\n\n\n<li> <a href=\"https://github.com/jonathanbossenger/interactive-game-standalone-demo\">The code is available on GitHub</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gutenberg 19.8</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/\">What’s new in Gutenberg 19.8? (04 December)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/60021\">Writing and contentOnly modes</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What&#8217;s in the works or discussed</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/#developers\">Create Block theme plugin / Changelog</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/25/recap-hallway-hangout-theme-building-with-playground-create-block-theme-plugin-and-github/\">Recap Hallway Hangout: Theme Building with Playground, Create-block-theme plugin, and GitHub</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">Stay in Touch</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Did you like this episode? <a href=\"https://lovethepodcast.com/gutenbergchangelog\"><strong>Please write us a review </strong></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ping us on X (formerly known as Twitter) or send DMs with questions. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/gutenbergtimes\">@gutenbergtimes </a>and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bph\">@bph</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Please write us a review on iTunes! <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/itunes/\">(Click here to learn how)</a></em></li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\" id=\"transcript\"><strong>Transcript</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So, hello and welcome to our 112th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast. In today&#8217;s episode, we&#8217;ll talk about Gutenberg 19.8, the Create Block Theme Plugin, Lisbon Developer Hours, and so much more. I&#8217;m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and a full-time core contributor for the WordPress Open Source Project, sponsored by Automattic, Five for the Future program.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With me, the wonderful Gutenberg contributor, full-time core contributor Sarah Norris, also sponsored by Automattic, is today&#8217;s co-host and she brings updates to the Create Block Theme Plugin, as well as impressions from last week&#8217;s WordPress Day of Developers in Lisbon. Sarah is also the co-core team rep together with Joe McGill. If you have any questions about the core team and contributing, find her on WP Slack, Mikachan. That&#8217;s M-I-K-A C-H-A-N. Sarah, how are you today? Thanks for taking the time to join me, the last episode of the year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah, last episode of the year. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I&#8217;m good, thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Excellent, excellent. So yeah, tell me about the&#8230; What was the Developer Day like in Lisbon? And I can also contribute what the Rome Core Days was like in Rome a month before. So yeah. You&#8217;re just back?</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Lisbon Developer Hours</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah, that&#8217;s right. Yeah, the Rome Core Days is very similar, wasn&#8217;t it? Yeah, so Lisbon WordPress Day for Developers, so it was all for developers, totally focused on tech talks and tech workshops. It was a relatively small event. I think there were about 60 people. As a speaker I think that&#8217;s better, but it&#8217;s really good as an attendee as well. It feels like you get to meet nearly everyone, if not everyone. Because it is about the right size to get around the room.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We had two tracks. One was the talks and then the other was the workshops. And then I think I spent the majority of my time on the talk track because I was doing one of the talks, so I thought I wanted to stay in the room, not move too much. We had some great talks. We had Milana, Cyril, Miguel, Shadi, Mikael, and there was a lot of talk about, new features in WordPress, like the interactivity API and the HTML-type processor as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that was really, really cool to see. It&#8217;s great to see them being talked about and people asking questions about them and getting excited about them and using them on client sites and stuff. It&#8217;s so good to see. And my talk was about contributing to Gutenberg. So I always like to encourage more contributors to get on board. Because it&#8217;s so satisfying as a developer as well. I&#8217;m biased, I know, but I really think it&#8217;s a good repo to work in, so many lovely people to work with.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I also talked through a few things that I&#8217;ve been working on recently as well. Because I find that often when I attend these events, people are really interested in what you&#8217;re working on, what&#8217;s coming up in Gutenberg and stuff. So yeah, I talked about some stuff I&#8217;ve been working on in the Query Loop Block and then some DataViews bits as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, it was good. And also the food was amazing. You might be able to beat me, actually, because you were in Italy. The food at Lisbon, it was so good. Probably the best food I&#8217;ve had at an event like that. So good. Yeah. What was Rome Core Day like?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, Rome Core Day was similar. It was more about, was a lot about contribution, because there were three talks about it. One from Olga, one from me on Gutenberg, Olga Foucault. And then Stefano also talked about contributing to the accessibility team. And also had a talk track. Carlos was talking about the Block Bindings. The DataViews with Andre and Riyadh was very interesting. And then somebody talked about&#8230; Oh, Bernard Reiter talked about the HTML API and stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then there was a second track and there was more a discussion panel kind of thing. And that was also very interesting, but the panel competed with the talks. So everybody left the room for the talks and went to the panel, because it was hot topics or something. And then the talk room&#8230; But it was also small, was really&#8230; I liked that, a small event. It was a little bigger than&#8230; Lisbon was a 100 people, about. And also had some sponsors there, that was cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, the food was actually from a mall, so we were adjacent to the station, to the train station, and there was one food court there where you can go from all the different booths and then have a central place where you sit and talk. So everybody picked up their food, what they liked, and then joined the other ones, either on the second floor or the third floor to just have a big table there. And it was really nice. And it was good food, but I like Italian food. But I have found in Porto, when we were for work in Porto, that the Portuguese have really&#8230; It&#8217;s not hot food, but it&#8217;s very tasty. It has these explosions of flavors in their food and I know a few Italians that can do that, but yeah, it&#8217;s more likely tomato, meat, noodles, pizza kind of thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I figured from the description that you all talked about contributing and my talk about contributing, I think we would make a good kind of event that we could do virtually and put this all together. Because I think yours was more like the tips and tricks to get your hands dirty, so to speak, get your hands onto code. And mine was more like on the philosophical side, who should contribute or what&#8217;s it like to contribute, what are the steps to get to your first PR? And that was a little bit different. So I&#8217;ll see if we can get this on the schedule for the Developer Hours next year, to have a place where we can share with other people that want to know how is it when you contribute, to watch those two. So that would be really cool. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah, that sounds good. Because I think a lot of the time when you&#8217;re reading documentation, you don&#8217;t really get a feel for what it is actually like to contribute. Well, and I don&#8217;t suppose you will until you actually contribute. But yeah, I was trying to&#8230; Some tips on finding reviewers and getting help if you need help, and have conversations or keep them going, those kinds of tips. But you do need to know all the other sides as well. You need to know if you can contribute. Of course you can. But maybe you need to know where. So you need all that information as well. So yeah, they sound very complimentary.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So I read some of the surveys of why you contribute, how much you contribute, from the WordPress surveys that were done previous years. And I&#8217;ve found that many contributors that are freelancers or working with agencies, they have these feast and famine cycles on their business, but they like to contribute in the famine part, but they can&#8217;t keep it up when there&#8217;s actually really big work to be done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But they still would like to do those fly-by contributors, I call them, to say, &#8220;okay, I have two hours and I want to get my head clear, I do something else and let me see what&#8217;s up.&#8221; And it&#8217;s really hard to find those tasks where you can go and say, oh, I&#8217;ll do one of those 15 tasks, that are very well specced out, very contained, and could be busy work for core contributors. But it could be very gratifying for someone who just wants to do something for two hours or so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;m kind of thinking, would that work for Gutenberg or Core, or is it just something for documentation or for marketing or something like that? But yeah, that&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on in my head about that after the conversations that I had. Because someone asked me in the talk kind of, &#8220;oh, I just want to fix one little thing. Do I have to read it all?&#8221; And I said, well, you need to, at least some of it. Because somebody&#8217;s going to review your stuff, and if you are not following the guidelines, then you are wasting their time and yours too, because you have to redo it again. So I think it would be better to, but that kind of thing, &#8220;well, you&#8217;re doing it wrong.&#8221; Not very welcoming.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah. But then it&#8217;s important that we have at least some loose standards, so it&#8217;s just better for everyone involved with reviewing and writing. I think that&#8217;s some really good insight from people who want to contribute. I think there is a lot to read and obviously it&#8217;s important to know most of, all of the guidelines, but maybe there&#8217;s a big time sync at the start and then once you&#8217;ve got your head around it, or maybe you could make your own notes as well, like shorthand notes, and then hopefully after that point it&#8217;s much easier to jump in and just do an hour here or there. But easier said than done. And it can be quite intimidating as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, it can. And I try to like it with, when you start with a new company. So in a new company you get 30 days, but you are not going to touch code in that 30 days. You read all the handbooks and all that. So it&#8217;s kind of wanted and it&#8217;s necessary. So why would an open source project not require people to do that? Especially when they&#8217;re in there for the long haul. If you just want to badge, okay, fix some documentation and send to PR and then you&#8217;re done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if you want to really make an impact, it&#8217;s important to know how the ins and outs are, because then you develop a shortcut with the other contributors.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, we have&#8230; I think the numbers are staggering, so every Gutenberg release has at least 6 to 13, so it&#8217;s first contributors every release. And 6.7 I think the numbers were really interesting. It was over 780 contributors and 230 were first contributors, so a third. Well, more than a third were new contributors. So yeah, there&#8217;s some great brave people out there who start with the open source project and come in and contribute. That&#8217;s really great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah, that&#8217;s amazing. That&#8217;s such a good number. See if we can be 6.8 or maybe 6.1.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> We&#8217;ll see. Yeah, 6.8 might even be more because, it&#8217;s such a long runway.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: Right. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Announcements</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So we&#8217;ll see, we&#8217;ll see what comes out of it. But now all about contributing. Let&#8217;s go a little bit further. We have some announcements for those who want to build on top of WordPress, and that&#8217;s the Developer Hours. And I made it a ritual that every podcast we&#8217;re kind of talking about the Developer Hours a bit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there is one coming up on December the 17th and that&#8217;s the Developer Hours, Everything you need to know about WordPress Playground, and that&#8217;s on December 17th at 16:00 UTC, and it&#8217;s the final Developer Hours of 2024. But I don&#8217;t think an hour is enough to learn everything you need to know about WordPress Playground, so take it with a grain of salt.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Nick and Ryan will try their very best. They take a closer look at WordPress Playground. Because this tool lets you create fully functional WordPress instances directly in your browser with no installation on setup required beyond spinning up WordPress sites, Playground also offers powerful capabilities from testing plugins and themes to running demos, and even supporting app development. No matter how engaged you are with WordPress, Playground has something valuable to offer to you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, I&#8217;m a total fan of Playground and I have done some Footprints and also did some workshop. Oh, I&#8217;m actually doing a workshop at WordCamp Asia about creating a demo with Footprints for Playground. So you only give the people a link and then they can play around with your plugin or play around with your theme, and that&#8217;s such a cool tool to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah, actually plugin, sorry, Playground itself is so helpful for if you&#8217;re doing talks like the WordCamps and events and stuff because can give people&#8230; You&#8217;re talking about a new feature you&#8217;ve built or you&#8217;re showing something off that&#8217;s just been released and then you can say, now visit this Playground link thing, or you can go and play with it immediately. You don&#8217;t have to go back and wait until you&#8217;re working on your own instance or&#8230;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Right. Yeah, you can do it&#8230; You could even do it on your mobile phone. It&#8217;s a little slow if you have a slow connection. But yeah, I really love that. It&#8217;s for someone who grew technical in the age of the early internet where you had HTML, but you needed a server, you need FTP, you need kind of a hosting company and a database server, that you need to hack into with phpMyAdmin. And then of course the application server with PHP and there&#8217;s so many things that need to go into, to actually have a website that you want to play with. That Playground is just magic. It&#8217;s really something. How can that be, that the browsers are&#8230; the machines are so powerful to have it all in one browser, it&#8217;s amazing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then this week&#8217;s Developer Hours recording is available. That was about improving your workflow with WordPress development tools, and Ryan Welcher, and Nick did that as well. And they took a deep dive in the advanced usage of the tools like Create Block Scaffolding or WP Scripts, along with a few others, and they focused on solving common challenges and showcasing techniques that go beyond the basics, even for developers already familiar with these tools. So that&#8217;s definitely one to watch for someone who has already got their feet wet halfway into Block Development and see how you can streamline your process and your debugging superpowers.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Community Contributions<strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>All right, so next up I have three&#8230; Fun and Games was a headline that I did in the weekend edition of last week, and today is December 6th that I record this with Sarah Norris, and I found three things that are very fun to do, no commercial value at all, but it shows the fun that you can make with Good Mood. And Aki Hamano demoed on X how code is music and shared a video on how he used his Piano Block to create music and record that. I have not yet found out how he recorded it, but you can actually study the source of the Piano Block on GitHub.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And of course I share all the links with you in the show notes, so you can follow up on that. But that was really cool. It kind of has the Block Editor and then a piano kind of keyboard with a few additional dials and then it has continuing music in there. That was really fantastic, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> It&#8217;s such a good idea. I really like the code is music line as well. It&#8217;s so good.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, it comes from code&#8217;s poetry, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: Yeah, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> And then Tom Rodes used the Gutenberg Block to run a snake game. There&#8217;s a snake coming in and you need to navigate it so it eats the block. There&#8217;s a square on the canvas and your snake needs to eat the block and you need to navigate it with the keys WASD with up and down and left and right. That&#8217;s kind of in-between when you have a Block on your creativity or a Block on a bug that you need to solve, play that for a moment. It&#8217;s really cool. And he also got it inside a playground, so really love that. Yeah, Tom Rodes is on the engineering team of Automattic, and he just shared those on his private personal blog, and he used React to run it in the Gutenberg Editor.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the last one is from Jonathan Bossenger who created a variation of the dodge game, and you can play it on his site, and he used it to dive into the interactivity API directives. And his code is also available on GitHub, but that is a game where the logos of Wix and Squarespace and Weebly kind of chase the WordPress one, and you need to get out of the way. You&#8217;re the WordPress one, and you need to get out of the way with the arrow keys. So it&#8217;s kind of interesting. I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s finished yet. He wants to display the&#8230; What is it? The highest scores as well. But it&#8217;s not there yet. But yeah, maybe you can do some tournaments or so with those two games.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah, that&#8217;s a fun one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, it&#8217;s very fun. So that&#8217;s kind of coming after Matt Mullenweg asked to bring more fun to Gutenberg. So here we are, first three examples.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What’s Released &#8211; Gutenberg 19.8</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And that brings us to the Gutenberg 19.8 Plugin release. It has 149 PRs by 52 contributors, 6 of them first-timers. And there were 34 enhancements and 48 bug fixes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The enhancements were mostly nice quality of life improvements to make users much more confident about what just happened, kind of what did I do or what didn&#8217;t I do. So let&#8217;s dive in. Do you want to start?</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Enhancements</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: Yeah, let&#8217;s see. What have we got first? We&#8217;ve got this one about making the Social Block Icon navigation&#8230; Well, improving it with keyboard navigation. So previously I think it required two taps of enter, if you&#8217;re navigating by keyboard, which I don&#8217;t think was intentional and was just the side effects of where we used the markup basically. But now the markup has been improved and it only requires one hit of enter to navigate through the icons.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Like I say, it feels like just a small quality of life improvement, but it&#8217;s one of these tiny details that really makes things just feel much better.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Right. And when you use the Social Icon Block often you halve your time that it takes to build it out. So yeah, it&#8217;s streamlined.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> And the next one is the page list has now Border and Spacing Support, that&#8217;s in line with all the other efforts to bring Border and Spacing Support to as many Core Blocks as possible. And so in 6.7, there were a ton of Blocks getting new border support and this one is now coming for 6.8.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah, it&#8217;s so good to have those controls. It just feels&#8230; Yeah, they&#8217;re visual controls, so having them on as many Blocks as possible is great. The next one we have is another&#8230; Well, it&#8217;s a Social link Block, it&#8217;s related to Social, adding the content-only editing support. So I think previously when you&#8217;re in content-only editing mode with the Social link Block, you couldn&#8217;t edit the URLs of the links, but now that the Content Support has been added, you can edit that link. It just makes sense, as you&#8217;re going through the links that you can edit the link itself rather than just staring at the block thinking, there&#8217;s something…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Well, how do I get there? Yeah. Especially when the link is wrong. You can use the Social links for so many things. So if you have a team or author list where you want to put the Social links in or for the website, how to get the people that build the website on the social website, it&#8217;s such a versatile block that it definitely needed some more attention. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So part of DataViews, there were two improvements amongst, or the many improvements that came in with that release, and one of them, it&#8217;s called the density option of a Table layout, but what it really does is actually have three levels of how much white space or between the rows in a table. Sometimes you want to have it really dense, because you want 60 or 70 pieces on the screen, and sometimes you just want to have four or five on it, and then more white space makes a better layout, but there is now, as a user, you can change those density options. So it&#8217;s really cool. It&#8217;s between comfortable, compact and default or something like that, that has a line that you just tip on it and see how that works.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second one is for the extensibility or for plugin developers, and of course also for core that you can register and unregister fields that are in display. So if you don&#8217;t want the post layout to show the date of the publishing date, you can unregister that field for the layout. And that is something, because the data use will have such a broad application, so every plugin, every custom post types, any additional features that come into WordPress might want to use that. So the use cases are so vast that extensibility is one of the first things that they look at now when they build that out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And with the custom fields kind of being part of the&#8230; It&#8217;s not only custom fields, it&#8217;s also fields from the meta places, meta table or Post Meta that you can unregister there as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah. Yeah, that&#8217;s really cool. It&#8217;s off of that level of flexibility. It&#8217;s really good. Our next section is the global styles changes. Well, a couple of things that were experimental marked as experimental in Gutenberg, but they&#8217;ve now been stabilized, so they&#8217;re not experimental anymore. It&#8217;s probably something that we&#8217;re not always that quick to change in Gutenberg. There&#8217;s so many things going on, but yeah, it&#8217;s always great to see when the experimental flag has been removed. So it&#8217;s been removed from the Block. Which one? Which block is it? It&#8217;s for borders, is it Block Supports?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. And it&#8217;s also text, the borders and also the default content. No, it&#8217;s not default content, hang on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Default controls.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Default controls, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah. And skip serialization and the border controls as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Developing Gutenberg, you&#8217;ll probably know about these things and that you&#8217;ve been needing to add experimental, so you don&#8217;t need to add that anymore, because it&#8217;s…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Right. And they are really heavily working on backwards compatibility, because there are multiple levels where these Block styles come in, and then one is core, one is a plugin and one is a theme. If either one of them uses experimental, what wins? So that&#8217;s kind of a little bit of a tricky approach. And I am fairly sure that although that&#8217;s merged now and released that there will be some adjustments to be done. But this early release is really important for those who have been using the experimental flags or methods and settings to test the code and see what happens with the code or what needs to be changed, especially plugins and themes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also, and I&#8217;m really happy about that, as soon as they are stabilized and from this day on forward, the blockers to adjust or adopt Block Development or Block Themes are getting less and less, because that is for a lot of developers, a blocker says, &#8220;well, this is experimental. If I base my code on it, I never know what&#8217;s happening, because experimental is not documented.&#8221; There&#8217;s no promise of backwards compatibility and it can change at any moment. So I need to be really watching for that and I don&#8217;t have time for that. Or I don&#8217;t want to waste time to redo it over and over again because things change. So they held off in adopting some of the features that are now coming out of experiments. So that&#8217;s a good sign, to increase adoption of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So the next thing I really like, that&#8217;s what I referred to when I said at the beginning, what actually happened, if the quality of life, when the user knows exactly what happened, the Block editor now has notices after actions that are coming from the image editing. So it will show you, okay, cropping done, or do you want to undo in a little notification settings where you also see view post and these, it&#8217;s on the bottom right of your screen once you&#8217;re done with either cropping or replacing or something like that on the image editing features, now you know what happened and that it was a success. Yay. Before it was really, did it work? Did it not work? Or let me look at it, how it looks at the front end. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah, yeah. Left you guessing. Really good. The next section we got is for the REST API. So we have a new feature for allowing setting the editor rendering mode by post type. So this allows the user to define the default rendering mode for the editor with a post-type. So it adds a filterable default rendering mode property to the post-type object, allows you to easily switch between the template view and the post-only view, allows you to change the default. Because the template view makes it easier to see what the content will look like on the front end. And there&#8217;s a few things that are only available in template view, because it&#8217;s more for the design editing, but then the post-only view is for editing content. So for decorations, you&#8217;re going to want the different views and this lets you control the view.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, there are quite a few developers who like that. That is coming now. And then the next one is in the Zoom Out View. So the Zoom Out View helps you when you add patterns to, or it automatically goes in&#8230; Your canvas goes automatically into Zoom Out mode when you try to add a pattern to it and then you can drop and drag it and drop it into a section on that. But then if that pattern has a section styles attached, no, it&#8217;s not attached, but if it&#8217;s a Group Block and there is section styles for group, then you can navigate through just a little button through the color settings of that particular section and you see how it looks in blue or in dark mode or in black and white.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s really nice to easily organize, see how the page&#8230; You don&#8217;t have to go to the sidebar and find the switch. You just kind of loop through the button. It&#8217;s really cool. There&#8217;s also a button next to it that says change design button or change design, and I have not yet found how it&#8217;s triggered, but sometimes it&#8217;s there and something it&#8217;s not. It&#8217;s probably that you have a same category for the Call for Action, and then you can change the design for the Call for Action and loop through all the available patterns for that particular task. So that&#8217;s also very cool to see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You don&#8217;t have to go back-and-forth and back-and-forth to figure that out. You just use those two buttons to see how it changes, and how it changes in the context of your page. So this is a really great feature. It sounds so, oh, we add a button to that, but it&#8217;s just a powerful superpower.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah. I think anything like this, especially in Zoom Out mode, it really takes the cognitive load away for designing a site and it makes it so much quicker. You can just cycle through all these available styles immediately. So within five minutes you have a design that you probably would&#8217;ve taken you hours previously.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Just to see what the theme offers and what you want to use and kind of&#8230; So it&#8217;s a really powerful thing. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah. The next thing we have is, so in the site editor, again in the Blocks, adding a check for the parent before converting a block to a pattern. So I think previously you could select child blocks and convert those to a reusable pattern, which usually doesn&#8217;t make sense, or it&#8217;s not ideal. So now there&#8217;s an additional check to check that the block is the parent before converting it to a reusable pattern.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> No, I think that&#8217;s a good there, because sometimes people didn&#8217;t know that it was only part of the pattern and yeah, it&#8217;s kind of&#8230;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Right. Yeah, put it on a Group Block or whatever. If you select the next InnerBlock, because sometimes that&#8217;s going to be the more obvious block to select as well, and then you make that reusable, you&#8217;re going to miss the block out of the reusable pattern, and that&#8217;s going to be holding everything together.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. And where all the section styles are applied to, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you&#8217;re going to miss all these styles.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. The next thing is&#8230; I also like that, and it&#8217;s really, it&#8217;s the font family preview in the font family picker. So on the right-hand side, when you open up the taxonomy font family, it not only lists the name of the fonts, but also how it&#8217;s actually rendering that. So you see more closely what the font would look like when you&#8217;re selected for your header or for your paragraph or even for all the blocks. So that&#8217;s another take the guesswork out of it and let me see what I&#8217;m doing feature.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah. It&#8217;s really cool that it&#8217;s in a drop-down as well. It&#8217;s cool that we have a component in Gutenberg that allows you to show all these different font families.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> It looks so&#8230;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> That you can style them, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>The font family. Yeah. Yeah. So that was actually all the things&#8230; No, that wasn&#8217;t all the things that I wanted to talk about.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bus Fix</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>But I also wanted to, there&#8217;s a bug fix for Zoom Out, but it&#8217;s actually a feature, it&#8217;s kind of disabling Zoom Out when in distraction-free mode is activated. And of course, you don&#8217;t want to all of a sudden kind of look at the whole thing when you say, I only want to do distraction-free mode, get away from me, all the block stuff and all the features, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a Zoom Out mode. That&#8217;s definitely a little bit disconcerting there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: Yeah, because Zoom Out is more for designing. You can use it for whatever you want, but I&#8217;d definitely say you&#8217;re probably going to be designing the whole site if you&#8217;re in Zoom Out mode, whereas it&#8217;s for free. It&#8217;s in the name, isn&#8217;t it? You don&#8217;t want any control. Don&#8217;t show me any tool list or anything.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: So Zoom Out, but it&#8217;s a bit of an odd experience. So yeah, good to see that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, I&#8217;m writing here, not there. I&#8217;m writing here, get out of my way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> I need to see the words, don&#8217;t make them smaller.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Experiments</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. What happened? And I wanted to point out also, in the Changelog there&#8217;s always an experiment section. One of the experiments is the Inline Commenting and it just updates the placement of the reply. So Inline Commenting is when you can add for each block on a canvas a comment, and then there can be a conversation about that with a reply.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And also it shows the author info and all that, and it updates just a placement where the reply is going to be put. If you want to try that out, you need to enable that Inline Commenting on the experiments page of the Gutenberg plugin. And it would be really helpful if you dive in there and add your comments to, there&#8217;s a tracking issue, I will share that tracking issue for Inline Commenting in the show notes, where you can leave comments about your experience. Because of course it&#8217;s called experiment for that reason. They don&#8217;t know yet what&#8217;s their final version is of it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But sometimes you don&#8217;t know what you get until&#8230; You don&#8217;t know what you want until you see what you get, and that&#8217;s kind of that part of it. This is what we have now, what you like and what you don&#8217;t like.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It&#8217;s so important, even though they&#8217;re experimental, I guess kind of related to stabilizing the block supports as well, until they&#8217;ve actually been in use and you&#8217;ve tested them out and used them in lots of different situations, you don&#8217;t really know when they&#8217;re not experimental anymore until you know. You&#8217;re like, &#8220;okay, what happened?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah. So in the next one, experiment means that the right mode functionality that the team has been working on for quite a while is now a functionality behind the Good Mood experiment. Also, because of the reason that there is so many opinions about how it&#8217;s going to work or should work or part of it, but one does not really know what good it does for the whole experience. So yeah, you find that on the experiments page as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> If anyone&#8217;s interested in that. There is a very good issue linked to this PR that we&#8217;re looking at, and it&#8217;s got a well organized to-do list for stabilizing that whole experience. So if anyone&#8217;s interested in helping out there, there&#8217;s a very easy to use to-do list, which is always the nicest thing if you&#8217;re into to-do lists and what checking things up.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. So I&#8217;m going to share that also outside the changelog there. All right.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Documentation</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I wanted to point out in the documentation section of the Changelog, all the changes that are made to the Storybook. So the Storybook is a way to see components outside of the WordPress content, but also see what are the attributes and design tools that are available for that particular component.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for developers, it&#8217;s really a great way to explore components that you might use in your app or in your blocks. And it has gotten a lot of reorganization because it was just one long list of components and now they&#8217;re categorized. So there&#8217;s a layout category, a section layout category and fonts category and all that. So it&#8217;s really more organized because it also will house all the design standards that are coming out of the design team with the color settings and some of the other standards as well from settings as well. We all are working from the same interface standards, and it needed a little bit more organization there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it&#8217;s also differentiating between the stable components and the experiment components. Both of them have all the categories in there and then the block mover story. So they&#8217;re called stories when you want to have that interface, be interactive, and some of them are now updated with the Readme files, and there&#8217;s an ongoing process to update the documentation for the stories.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: I think contributing to the Storybook is a really nice intersection between writing documentation and coding, especially if you&#8217;re learning to build with Gutenberg. Because as you&#8217;re learning and you&#8217;re like, oh, this is missing from the docs, then you can go and write a story and fill in the docs. That might be a good area for contributions. I&#8217;ve never really thought about it until we were just talking about it here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Right. Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. But you need to know a little bit about the Storybook library for that, and of course of the React library. But yeah, maybe we can do a pre-beginner&#8217;s show about how to contribute to Storybook or something like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> You can get really stuck into the stories and it&#8217;s kind of therapeutic, because they&#8217;re all the same, so you&#8217;re doing the same pattern over and over, and it&#8217;s very satisfying to complete stories for each component. So it&#8217;s a good area for first-timers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. So is there anything else, things that you found that you wanted to talk about or that you want to point out for our listeners?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> I don&#8217;t think there was anything else in this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, it&#8217;s all code quality and ESLinting and all components, the other components changes, but they were all just code quality changes, that changed the button size or deprecate some size values. All right, so this is the end of the 19.8 Good Mood Changelog.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What’s in active development or discussed</h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading alignwide\">Create-Block Theme<strong>                                                  </strong></h4>\n\n\n\n<p>So we&#8217;re coming to the section of what&#8217;s an active development or discuss. I wanted to take the opportunity to talking to Sarah, to talk also about the Create Block Theme Plugin and see what&#8217;s in the works. And there was a release a couple of months ago, but there are also things that you are working on, so why don&#8217;t you take us through it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah. Yeah. So it hasn&#8217;t really been prioritized that much recently. I think we kind of go in waves and it really depends what&#8217;s happening in the Gutenberg repo as well. Because we don&#8217;t want to be competing. We want to either complement each other or if something&#8217;s taken a while to come into Gutenberg, then maybe we can get it into the plugin first. So it&#8217;s always a little bit tricky trying to decide what to work on. And then if there&#8217;s nothing happening in that plugin, it&#8217;s probably because we&#8217;re like, oh, patterns seem to be getting quite a lot of work in Gutenberg. Let&#8217;s just cool it a little bit in the plugin and see what happens. And then we&#8217;ll come back to plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I think we&#8217;re kind of in one of those flows at the moment, but my feeling is that probably in the new year we&#8217;re going to pick up work again. And we already have a few things in flight from a lot of different contributors as well. There&#8217;s some improvements to pattern management. Bug fixes with the way that Theme JSON is passed. And there&#8217;s a fix for localizing the background image URL on the Cover Block as well. So there&#8217;s a few specific fixes and then some pattern management improvements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then we also have so many issues in there. It&#8217;s getting a mini version of Gutenberg really. So yeah, we have got a project board actually, if anyone&#8217;s interested in helping out. There&#8217;s definitely some triage work that could be done, but we do have an existing list of things that we think are good things to work on next. We definitely welcome more contributors. I think it&#8217;s a really good place to work if you&#8217;re interested in Block Theming and you like working on Gutenberg as well, but you maybe don&#8217;t want to dive too deeply into the Gutenberg repo. It&#8217;s a very specific smaller repo, but with basically all the same guidelines and stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, I don&#8217;t have any specific news, but I do think work is going to pick up in the next month or so. And I&#8217;m looking forward to getting another release out as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. So from the conversations that I had on Core Days and also Word Games recently is that a lot of people really like the Create Block Theme plugin just to get easily out the user changes that are in the Block Editor, in the Site Editor, specifically changing Block Styles or having new headers, changing templates. There&#8217;s a lot of things that can go on a site and agencies really like it, that they can get everything else in the file directory style again, and then in the GitHub for version control.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s a really good plugin to use for that, especially when you&#8217;re theme developer. Or the site builders are actually no coders that use the site editor to build it out and then you can in one swoosh kind of put it back into the final.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah. Yeah, that&#8217;s essentially what the plugin is, it&#8217;s a good way to sum it up. It&#8217;s basically from database to file system.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> The whole site edits the stuff. Yeah, that&#8217;s what we see so often, so many people want&#8230; Because of course you want a version control, the new way of theming, but everything tends to go&#8230; Because, again, obviously it goes into the database because it&#8217;s all changes on that side. So yeah, it just gives you a way to easily pull that out into the files. But yeah, I think we have the same problem as everyone else as well. It&#8217;s tough to keep up with Gutenberg.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. That&#8217;s what I figured. Yeah. Especially with the section styles that came in 6.7, 6.6, and then I&#8217;ll find a nice one in 6.7, with a new theming, the default theme as well. And it&#8217;s not settled yet there. There are some quirks with the section style, so I think waiting for them to resolve would really be helpful before you add them to the Create Block Theme plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the pattern export, that&#8217;s pretty much the one that&#8217;s missing, what people feel missing, but there is no way around it. Through the pattern page you can actually mark the patterns that you want to export and put it all in one JSON file, and then add it to your&#8230; You obviously need to massage those files to get into your theme, but you definitely can at least get them out the database and into a file system, even if it&#8217;s just JSON.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> With the Create Block Theme at the moment you can export patterns. So we do have the starting of pattern management so you can export sync patterns.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Oh, cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris: </em>Yeah. Yeah. It&#8217;d be great to get more feedback on that, because I think ideally you want to export any pattern.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Well, in my mind, we probably need to add UI to the patterns page, because at the moment, all the controls are on the Create Block Theme panel, and it&#8217;s getting a bit full. So I think, yeah, we maybe need to add another panel that&#8217;s specific to patterns and then we can do some more fine-grained control on the patterns page. And then when you go to export, then maybe you could open the original panel and then you&#8217;ve already set up way off, for what patterns to be exported. But yeah, there&#8217;s some initial work there, so you can export some patterns.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yes. Excellent. Yes, but not others. Yeah, I think what a lot of theme developers are really waiting for is the Synced Pattern overrides for Themes, that they can offer some patterns. Half the content kind of singled out, but you can&#8217;t change them anymore, only change them with&#8230; And change them then side-wide. Something that the theme developers are really waiting for. A lot of us have had hoped that it would be in 6.7, but yeah, we will see if it makes it into 6.8.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> That was partly why we added the Synced Patterns to Create Block Theme, because it&#8217;s like halfway to the Synced Pattern overrides that&#8217;s coming in Gutenberg. But yeah, we were the same. We were kind of waiting and just like, oh, we won&#8217;t work. Because we both, the primary contributors who work on both the plugin, and we work on Gutenberg as well. So it&#8217;s kind of like, do I work in this? Do I put all my time into Gutenberg or do I put a bit of time into Create Block Theme? So yeah, because we thought that was coming. But yeah, it is coming. It&#8217;s just&#8230;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> It&#8217;s coming, but it&#8217;s tied to the Block Bindings API. And the block bindings API is definitely not finished and it&#8217;s only for four blocks, and before they want to add it to other blocks, they still need to figure something out. There are a few technical hurdles there, and as long as the Block Bindings isn&#8217;t finalized I think the Synced Patterns overrides won&#8217;t make it for themes. Because all of a sudden you also have backwards compatibility issues there with themes. But good things to come for Twenty Twenty Five. Are you looking forward to a special thing that might come in 2025? Well, we don&#8217;t have a roadmap yet, but yeah, we all have hopes and dreams.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: I guess the roadmap probably coming soon though as well. There&#8217;s so many things going on. I&#8217;m really looking forward to seeing where all the stylebook changes end up. That&#8217;s feeling really good and I&#8217;m looking forward to seeing where that evolves. And I&#8217;m really enjoying working with DataViews as well. I really like all the stuff that&#8217;s foundational. Because it feels like that&#8217;s going to be like a 10 times or a 100 times in quality or experience. Yeah, I&#8217;m enjoying seeing those at the moment, so I&#8217;m looking forward to what&#8217;s coming next year with both of those.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, I have the same thing. It&#8217;s kind of the DataViews are really exciting when you kind of think, I don&#8217;t know if we get to that in Twenty twenty five, that it will take over WP admin, but I think we get a good look at how it could be. There&#8217;s a lot of extensibility issues that need to be worked out because that has been around for so many, many years and people have built on it. And the backwards compatibility piece is really something that you don&#8217;t want to mess up too much. So I think there&#8217;s a lot of conversations and back-and-forth, and also testing to be done from the plugin developers community that need to come around and figure out what they need and what they don&#8217;t need.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> I&#8217;d also like to see some more fun blocks as well, encouraging people to build more pianos and snake games.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. Well we are also waiting for accordions and tabs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris:</em> Yeah, that&#8217;s exciting. But probably more important, yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> But yeah, I like the fun part. And also, I saw some great patterns, visual patterns that I want to see if we can do this with blocks, kind of Group Blocks, InnerBlocks, and have some fun with that on a visual part of it and maybe expand the Block Museum again, that has been around for two years now, or even longer, I don&#8217;t know. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, I&#8217;m looking forward to the State of the Word. I think there&#8217;s some great stuff that&#8217;s coming in there that we know of, on what the outlook is. State of the Word, if you haven&#8217;t seen it yet, is on December 16th at 9:00 AM UTC, though that&#8217;s middle of the night for the Americans. But it will be live-streamed and it&#8217;ll be recorded and it&#8217;ll be available probably within two or three hours of the event ending.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will be in Tokyo. It&#8217;s a wave at the large Japanese community that has pushed WordPress forward very early on. And I think the market share of WordPress is about 80% in Japan of websites. I remember the story that Matt told at one of the town halls or AMAs throughout the years, that Japanese was the first language it was translated to, and they did a complete copy of WordPress and translated every string and then released the new copy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was no Holly Glots team. There was no tools to do all that and with the PO files and all that. So that was kind of the start of having WordPress in a different language and Japanese was the first language that it was introduced to. So there&#8217;s a big tip to the hat making the State of the Word taking place in Tokyo. And there will be&#8230; Yeah, of course the keynote of Matt, but there will also be&#8230; We&#8217;ll see Mary Hubbard, the new executive director for the open source project and so much more.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matias is going to be doing some demos I think. So there&#8217;s some great stuff coming down. That&#8217;s kind of the save the date thing, and that&#8217;s the end of the show. Oh, as always, the show notes will be published on Gutenbergtimes.com/podcasts. This is episode 112, a hundred and twelve, and if you have questions, suggestions, or news you want us to talk about, send them to <a href=\"mailto:Changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">Changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. That&#8217;s <a href=\"http://gutenbergtimes.com\">Changelog@ gutenbergtimes.com</a>. And the Gutenberg Times is now also on Mastodon and on Bluesky.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you have left Twitter and all of a sudden in search of information, you can get them from Gutenberg Times as well as from myself. Are you on any of the new kids on the block, Sarah?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sarah Norris</em>: Yes. Yeah, I&#8217;ve been trying to use Bluesky much more and yeah, I&#8217;m really enjoying it. I&#8217;m finding more and more WordPress news coming out over on Bluesky too. Yeah. Yeah, I&#8217;m loving it. Trying to be a bit more mindful about using it as well. I&#8217;m not great at social stuff. But yeah, it&#8217;s the thing at the moment, I&#8217;m going to try and ride that wave and be a bit better at social media.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. It feels like less noise, more signal, but I think the more people are coming, that kind of changes again. But yeah, it&#8217;s really an interesting small community there. A little smaller than on Twitter, but that&#8217;s changing rapidly. I saw in the last two weeks probably they&#8217;ve got 100s of followers more, that are coming over. So it&#8217;s a really good place.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m also diving into the Mastodon ActivityPub, Fediverse kind of thing. And I need to watch Matias Pfefferle&#8217;s videos that he did with DocPop on the Fediverse. That&#8217;s probably something I&#8217;d do for a holiday vacation, because it&#8217;s not part of my normal job and I really wanted to dive in and see what&#8217;s happening there.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>All right, well thank you so much, Sarah. This was wonderful and lovely to have you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And dear listeners, we will be back in the second week of January with episode 113 and see what&#8217;s happening there. We might even push it until Gutenberg 20.0 comes out and see what&#8217;s in there, because it&#8217;s going to be&#8230; Maybe there are some Easter eggs in there. Who knows? All right, get us out of here. Take care. Happy holidays for everyone and a happy and healthy New Year, and I&#8217;ll see you on the other side.</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:\"Sun, 08 Dec 2024 09:38:10 +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: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:39;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:23:\"Matt: Bezos at Dealbook\";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=131422\";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/2024/12/bezos-at-dealbook/\";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:221:\"<p>It looks like the Dealbook Summit had a number of great interviews this year, major props to Andrew Ross Sorkin, but this one with Jeff Bezos was particularly good. </p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div>\";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, 07 Dec 2024 19:33:08 +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:40;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:66:\"WPTavern: WordCamp Asia 2025 Unveils Official Wapuu Mascot Tahopuu\";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=181698\";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:77:\"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-asia-2025-unveils-official-wapuu-mascot-tahopuu\";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:2672:\"<p>WordCamp Asia has unveiled its official Wapuu mascot for the 2025 edition: <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/meet-the-wordcamp-asia-2025-wapuu/\">Tahopuu</a>. Designed by Andrew dela Serna, a talented graphic designer from the Philippines, the mascot was chosen from 10 submissions by designers from India, Malaysia, Nepal, Lithuania, the Philippines, and Ukraine.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"500\" height=\"492\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tahopuu-1-500x492.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-181719\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Tahopuu pays homage to Filipino street culture, drawing inspiration from the iconic Taho vendor. Taho is a beloved snack in the Philippines, made from silken tofu, arnibal (caramelized sugar syrup), and sago pearls.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>“This year’s Wapuu selection was a true testament to the bayanihan spirit — a Filipino value that embodies community, collaboration, and coming together to achieve something greater.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>-WordCamp Asia Organizers</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/\">WordCamp Asia 2025</a> is scheduled from February 20th to 22nd at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Manila. The organizers have already announced 5 rounds of <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/speakers/\">speakers</a> and three invited speakers &#8211; <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/first-invited-speaker-matt-mullenweg/\">Matt Mullenweg</a>, <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/second-invited-speaker-matias-ventura/\">Matías Ventura</a> and <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/third-invited-speaker-christy-nyiri/\">Christy Nyiri</a>. They are also scouting for the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-asia-seeks-host-city-applications-for-2026\">next host city</a> for the 2026 edition.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The detailed schedule of the event is yet to be released. But the event will kick off with <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/contributor-day/\">Contributor Day</a> on February 20 and there will be a special <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/igniting-the-future-youthcamp-at-wordcamp-asia-2025/\">Youth Camp</a> for children aged 8-17 on February 22. Jamie Marsland’s popular <a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/open-your-possibilities-by-learning-from-the-experts-wordpress-speed-build/\">WordPress Speed Build Challenge</a> is also scheduled where Jessica Lyschik and Nick Diego will attempt to recreate a famous website in just 30 minutes using only Gutenberg blocks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://asia.wordcamp.org/2025/tickets/\">Tickets</a> are still available for the 2025 event.</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, 07 Dec 2024 18:57:26 +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:41;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:66:\"WPTavern: Gravatar Introduces Free Domains and Bluesky Integration\";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=181613\";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:77:\"https://wptavern.com/gravatar-introduces-free-domains-and-bluesky-integration\";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:2102:\"<p>Gravatar, or &#8220;Globally Recognized Avatar,&#8221; now <a href=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/12/03/new-free-domains-and-bluesky-integration/\">offers its users</a> more free domain options and Bluesky integration for a limited time. These domains, featuring extensions like .bio, .link, .social or .contact, can be used across the Gravatar profile, email signature, or business cards and seamlessly integrate with Bluesky, the decentralized social network that&#8217;s gaining traction.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"2188\" height=\"982\" src=\"https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-181621\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Bluesky uses domains as handles instead of traditional @usernames giving users more control over their online identity and Gravatar users can use their custom domains as their Bluesky handles. Custom domains build trust and credibility, ensuring a unique and professional online presence.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Users can claim their domain directly from their dashboard, connect it to their Bluesky account, and start using the domain as their Bluesky handle. No need to worry about complex DNS configurations or technical know-how. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar is offering the first year of domain ownership completely free. But this offer is only available for a limited time. For more information, check out the <a href=\"https://support.gravatar.com/bluesky-custom-domain-handle/\">guide</a> on using Gravatar with Bluesky.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gravatar team shared that “This integration reinforces our belief that everyone should have full ownership of their digital identity.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gravatar team became active again in 2023 after a long hiatus, launching new payment features for profiles. Then they released a new <a href=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/06/03/profiles-as-a-service/\">REST API</a>, native integrations for <a href=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/10/30/introducing-native-integrations-for-gravatar-mobile-sdk/\">Gravatar Mobile SDK</a> and<a href=\"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/09/11/gravatar-enhanced/\"> Gravatar Enhanced plugin</a> for WordPress.</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, 07 Dec 2024 17:29:03 +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:42;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:75:\"WPTavern: BuddyPress Lead Developer Mathieu Viet Leaves WordPress Ecosystem\";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=181533\";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:86:\"https://wptavern.com/buddypress-lead-developer-mathieu-viet-leaves-wordpress-ecosystem\";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:3106:\"<p>BuddyPress Lead Developer Mathieu Viet has <a href=\"https://imathi.eu/\">announced</a> his departure from the WordPress community, marking the end of a long-standing association that began with BuddyPress 2.0.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a statement shared on his<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/imath/\"> WordPress profile</a>, he said, “I’ve decided to stop involving into the #WordPress community following the way WordPress leadership decided to prevent some users to benefit from WordPress.org API services just because they were customers of a specific hosting company.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Viet has also chosen to stop using WordPress for his <a href=\"https://imathi.eu/\">personal website</a>. He wrote, “While Mr. Mullenweg&#8217;s first attacks pushed me to leave this community and stop contributing to WordPress® open source projects (including BuddyPress®), the latest one (making the premium code of a plugin marketed by the attacked competitor available for free ) convinced me that disapproving and condemning them as a former contributor was not enough. Indeed, I have also decided to stop using WordPress® to manage this website.”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In October this year, WordPress.org took over WP Engine’s <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/acf-plugin-forked-to-secure-custom-fields-plugin\">ACF plugin</a>, citing security issues, and renamed it Secure Custom Fields (<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/\">https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/</a>) and then  released the <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-releases-new-secure-custom-fields-plugin-with-acf-pro-features\">‘Secure Custom Fields’ Plugin</a> (<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/\">https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/</a>) with ACF Pro features last month. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The news of Viet leaving sparked discussions across the WordPress community. One user on <a href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1h4ek6j/buddypress_lead_developer_quits_wp_blackout/\">Reddit</a> commented, “I don&#8217;t blame Mr Mathieu, but honestly, I hope as a community, we can bring this madness to an end, A lot of damage has been done, but I am hopeful we can forget the past at one point, make amends and move forward and come back with a fucking vengeance. Not asking for Peace in the World, just asking for Peace in the WordPress ecosystem.”  Others expressed curiosity about which platform Viet would migrate to next.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the Automattic -WP Engine dispute started, several prominent contributors, including <a href=\"https://bjornjohansen.com/farewell-to-wp/\">Bjørn Johansen</a>, <a href=\"https://x.com/cdils/status/1851045517901357510\">Carrie Dils</a>, <a href=\"https://thefragens.com/wordpress-on-hiatus/\">Andy Fragen</a>, and <a href=\"https://chriswiegman.com/2024/10/so-long-wordpress/\">Chris Wiegman</a>, have ceased their involvement with WordPress. Some have <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/developers-remove-plugins-from-wordpress-org-repository-after-acf-controversy\">removed their plugins</a> from the WordPress Repository.</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, 07 Dec 2024 14:55:17 +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:43;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:111:\"Gutenberg Times: State of the Word, Speed Build Challenge,  Woo Starter Theme and more — Weekend Edition #313\";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=31099\";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:114:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/state-of-the-word-speed-build-challenge-woo-starter-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-313/\";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:24021:\"<p>Hi there, </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2015, YouTube reported that every minute, 500 hours of videos are uploaded. One of the most important skills of the 21st century is to locate trusted sources of relevant news and use critical thinking to separate the wheat from the chuff. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then, Artificial Intelligence (Short AI) entered the stage from the left. It has almost replaced my Googling habit. More often than not, I use <a href=\"https://www.perplexity.ai/\">Perplexity.ai</a> to get real answers to my many questions on the Internet. What AI <s>crutches</s> tools do you use in your daily work? Please reach out to me and hit reply or leave a comment.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week a lot happened on video: Developer Hours, Hallway Hangouts, Speed Building Challenge, and Live-coding streams. And there is more to come. If you want to just watch one Livestream, put this year&#8217;s<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/state-of-the-word/\"> State of the Word on Dec. 16 at 9 am UTC</a> on your calendar.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, without further ado, this week&#8217;s updates. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<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\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/state-of-the-word-speed-build-challenge-woo-starter-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-313/#0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/state-of-the-word-speed-build-challenge-woo-starter-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-313/#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/state-of-the-word-speed-build-challenge-woo-starter-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-313/#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/state-of-the-word-speed-build-challenge-woo-starter-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-313/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/state-of-the-word-speed-build-challenge-woo-starter-theme-and-more-weekend-edition-313/#this-week-in-playground\">This week in Playground</a></li></ol>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p>📣 <strong>Save the date! </strong>The annual <strong>State of the Word, Matt Mullenweg</strong>&#8216;s keynote presentation of the year, will take place on <strong>December 16, 2024</strong>, in Tokyo, Japan. The <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/@WordPress/streams\">livestream</a> will start at<strong> 9 am UTC</strong> on WordPress YouTube channel. You&#8217;ll learn more about WordPress space in 2024 and an outlook on priorities for 2025. The topics might resolve around WordPress Meetups and WordCamps, Gutenberg Phase 3 collaboration, Playground, Data Liberation and Data Views.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/state-of-the-word/\"><img width=\"652\" height=\"192\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-03-at-11.57.48.png?resize=652%2C192&ssl=1\" alt=\"State of the Word 2024 logo\" class=\"wp-image-31123\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This week, I managed the release of the Gutenberg plugin version 19.8, with 149 PRs by 52 contributors, 6 of them first timers.&nbsp; There were 34 Enhancements, mostly nice Quality of Life UX improvements, to make user more confident about what just happened, and 48 Bug fixes.&nbsp;<br />In the release post, <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/\"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 19.8? (04 December)</strong></a>, I highlighted</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/#section-styles-selector-in-toolbar\">Section styles selector in toolbar&nbsp;</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/#font-family-preview-in-dropdown\">Font family preview in dropdown</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/#success-notices-for-image-editing-with-undo-link\">Success notices for image editing with Undo link</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/#other-notable-highlights\">Other Notable Highlights</a>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/#dataviews-improvements\">DataViews improvements</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/#block-supports-from-experimental-to-stable\">Block supports from experimental to stable.</a></li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/12/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-19-8-4-december/\"><img width=\"652\" height=\"326\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/gb-19-8-change-design.png?resize=652%2C326&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31177\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<p>It was a wonderful delight to have <strong>Sarah Norris</strong>, core contributor and co-core team rep, recording <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/\"><strong>Gutenberg Changelog 112</strong> </a>with me. We discussed Gutenberg 19.8, the Create Block theme plugin, Lisbon WordPress Developer Day, Developer hours and so much more. This is also the last episode of 2024, and we will be back in the second week of January 2025. As always, the episode will arrive at your favorite podcast app over the weekend. If you <a href=\"https://spoti.fi/3B03k9W\">listen to it on Spotify</a>, you can also leave a comment directly from your mobile app. </p>\n\n\n\n<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\">\n<p>🎙️ Latest episode: <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-112-gutenberg-19-8-create-block-theme-plugin/\">Gutenberg Changelog #112 Gutenberg 19.8, Create Block Theme Plugin</a> with Sarah Norris</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"652\" height=\"183\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-07-at-12.04.50.png?resize=652%2C183&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31178\" />\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/12/02/design-share-69-nov-18-nov-29/\">Design Share #69 (Nov 18-Nov 29)</a>, Joan Asmussen highlights the work on the WordPress design team of the last two weeks.</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Adjust appearance of&nbsp;sidebar&nbsp;active menu item</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Menu editing flow</li>\n\n\n\n<li>System icon and dark mode announcement for Openverse</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Design system updates</li>\n\n\n\n<li>DataViews: Table layout density</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Button: Update appearance of&nbsp;<code>secondary</code>&nbsp;variant</li>\n\n\n\n<li>New Component: Badge</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/design/2024/12/02/design-share-69-nov-18-nov-29/\"><img width=\"652\" height=\"436\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Dataviews-density-options.webp?resize=652%2C436&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31180\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In the episode <a href=\"https://dothewoo.io/wordpress-6-7-insights-with-birgit-pauli-haack-and-joe-mcgill/\"><strong>WordPress 6.7 Insights with Birgit Pauli Haack and Joe McGill</strong></a> of&nbsp;<strong><em>the WordPress Way</em></strong>&nbsp;host<strong>&nbsp;Abha Thakor</strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Joe McGill&nbsp;</strong>and I had a conversation around the highlights of WordPress 6.7. We discussed the impact of tools like the Plugin Checker, Create Block Theme plugin, and WordPress Playground on developers and end users. They also share insights into the evolution of features such as data views, interactivity API, and advancements in site performance and user experience. Listen in! </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Since WordCamp EU in June, I waited for this: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzduYKuZAIg\"><strong>WordPress Speed Build: Matt Mullenweg versus Jessica Lyschik</strong></a>. It finally happened. Hosted by Jamie Marsland, Mullenweg and Lyschik had to match the design of the homepage of <a href=\"https://BobDylanArt.com\">BobDylanArt.com</a> inside 30 minutes. It was a fun site to build, and both contestant finished it. No spoilers here, you need to see for yourself.</p>\n\n\n<div width=\"100%\" class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"toolbelt-video-wrapper\"></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his post on OllieWP, <strong>Richard Goodwin</strong>, tries to answer the question: <a href=\"https://olliewp.com/gutenberg-editor-vs-full-site-editing-fse/\"><strong>Gutenberg editor vs. Full Site Editing (FSE): what’s the difference?</strong></a> I know that you know the difference, but maybe you need a resource to point to explain the difference, fast. It&#8217;s also not entirely correct to as both are part of the Gutenberg project. Content editing was Phase 1 and Site editing Phase 2. The block editor powers both, content creation and site creation. As a user, you wouldn&#8217;t need to learn two different methods and once you are familiar with the interface of the block editor, the additional concepts of templates, template parts, template hierarchy and global styles are much easier to learn and to master. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Shout-out to my friend <strong><a href=\"https://x.com/ackids\">Hans-Gerd Gerhards</a></strong>, who just landed his first theme in the WordPress repository, called <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/themes/circles-wp/\"><strong>Circles WP</strong></a> It is quite opinionated with interesting color combination and a big background circle as a design element. Sometimes it&#8217;s quite dominant and sometimes is stays in the background. The theme comes with ten Style variations and over 15 Patterns with cards, landing pages, banners, headers, and footer.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/themes/circles-wp/\"><img width=\"652\" height=\"411\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-05-at-17.53.14.png?resize=652%2C411&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31157\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Did you notice the updated Theme directory?  My favorite feature is that you can test all patterns with any of the style variations and see how the various color work with the sections. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other new block themes: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/themes/streamer/\">Streamer</a> by Automattic, with some appealing font styles.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/themes/anastasi/\">Anastasi</a> by Roman Fink, his fourth block theme. </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/themes/toothwise/\">Toothwise</a> by Fly Themes</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/themes/advantura-trails/\">Advantura Trails</a> by WPTravel</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/themes/the-free-blogger/\">The Free Blogger</a> by Suberb Addons with six Style variations and 14 patterns. </li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> updated his plugin <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-query-loop/\"><strong>Advanced Query Loop.</strong></a> The latest version 4.0 comes with a new Taxonomy Query Builder and gives you fine grain control over your taxonomy queries. The <a href=\"https://github.com/ryanwelcher/advanced-query-loop\">source code is availabl</a>e on GitHub. In his latest live streams he built the additional UI in public. You can follow along in these three videos.</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dGq88qLgf8\">What&#8217;s the PERFECT UI Component for My WordPress Plugin Settings?</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aaghy90L39o\">Creating an advanced UI for plugins</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctqCNWCOglk\">The biggest feature for my Advanced Query Loop plugin ever!</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"652\" height=\"436\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-06-at-18.47.35.png?resize=652%2C436&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31169\" />\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nathan Wrigley</strong> interviewed <strong>Stephen Dumba</strong> on <a href=\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/148-stephen-dumba-on-empowering-uganda-with-wordpress-education-and-community-initiatives\"><strong>Empowering Uganda With WordPress Education and Community Initiatives</strong></a> for the WPTavern Jukebox. The topic is not entirely focused on the block editor, however well worth reporting. &#8220;Stephen has been a high school teacher in Uganda since 2007. He specializes in WordPress, computer repair, and teaching IT skills. As the National Coordinator of the ICT Teachers’ Association of Uganda, he mentors both students and teachers in ICT.&#8221; Wrigley wrote in the introduction. <br /><br />At WordCamp Europe, I had the pleasure of introducing <strong>Abraham Waita</strong> who also spoke about Diverse and sustainable future: <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2024/07/03/diverse-and-sustainable-future-how-high-school-teachers-in-uganda-are-nurturing-a-young-wordpress-community/\">How high school teachers in Uganda are nurturing a young WordPress community</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ellen Bauer</strong> and WooCommerce hosted a meeting titled Let’s Talk Themes. <strong>Brent MacKinnon</strong> published <a href=\"https://developer.woocommerce.com/2024/12/04/event-recap-lets-talk-themes-with-ellen-bauer/\"><strong>Event recap: “Let’s Talk Themes with Ellen Bauer”</strong></a> and shared the recording and what&#8217;s next. The big announcement is that WooCommerce, with the help from the Community theme builders, will be working on a new starter theme for ecommerce. The preliminary target date for a release is mid-2025.  MacKinnon also announced more events like this in the future and plans one already for January. If you are interested, sign up for the <a href=\"https://join.slack.com/t/woocommercecommunity/shared_invite/zt-2w4svp9r4-JvNvACWvAg~r5~OnX6PTew\">WooCommerce Community Slack</a> space and <a href=\"https://developer.woocommerce.com/newsletter/\">subscribe to the newsletter</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Troy Chaplin</strong> wrote a tutorial on the WordPress Developer Blog on <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/12/03/bridging-the-gap-hybrid-themes/\"><strong>Bridging the gap: Hybrid themes</strong></a> and helps you discover the key differences between two common WordPress theme types. You&#8217;ll learn how to seamlessly integrate modern block theme features into a classic theme. This approach allows for a smooth, gradual transition to block-based functionality while retaining the flexibility and familiarity of traditional development.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> presented on the WordPress YouTube Livestream <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9vWaWG02nI\"><strong>&#8220;Building Your First WordPress Gutenberg Block: Beginner&#8217;s Guide!&#8221;</strong></a> He covered how to set up your local development environment, how to use the create-block scaffolding tool, understanding the block structure and customizing your new block. Welcher also shared some testing and debugging tips. </p>\n\n\n<div width=\"100%\" class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"toolbelt-video-wrapper\"></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>This week&#8217;s  Developer Hours was all about <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibXCMaG8J0\"><strong>Improving your workflows with WordPress development tools</strong></a>.  <strong>Ryan Welcher and Nick Diego</strong> took a deep dive into the advanced usage of tools like create-block and wp-scripts, along with a few others. Their focus was on solving common challenges and showcasing techniques that go beyond the basics, even for developers already familiar with these tools.</p>\n\n\n<div width=\"100%\" class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"toolbelt-video-wrapper\"></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"this-week-in-playground\">This week in Playground</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In the <strong>Hallway Hangout on Blueprint Block Editor</strong>, <strong>Ajit Bohra</strong>, <strong>Adam Zielinski</strong> and <strong>Dawid Urbansk</strong>i discussed on how to integrate the stand-alone Blueprint builder into Playground platform. Ajit Bohra demonstrated how to create blueprints with the block editor like interface. He also touched on plans for the app. You can watch the recording and follow additional resources on this Make Playground blog post: <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/playground/2024/12/02/recap-of-hallway-hangout-blueprint-block-editor/\">Recap of Hallway Hangout: Blueprint Block Editor</a></strong></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Adam Zielinski</strong>, <strong>Tammie Lister</strong> and other agency developers discussed in this week&#8217;s <strong>Hallway Hangout Playground for agencies. </strong> how playground can help agencies and product builders. <a href=\"https://youtu.be/Yg4iRAYOlNc\">The recording is available on YouTube</a>. The recap post follows on <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/playground\">make.wordpress.org/playground</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In the upcoming <a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/304881623/\"><strong>Developer Hours: Everything you need to know about WordPress Playground</strong></a> will take place on <strong>December 17th at 16:00 UTC. </strong>In the final Developer Hours session of 2024, <strong>Nick Diego</strong> and <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> take a closer look at <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/playground/\">WordPress Playground</a>. This tool lets you create fully functional WordPress instances directly in your browser, with no installation or setup required. Beyond spinning up WordPress sites, Playground offers powerful capabilities, from testing plugins and themes to running demos and even supporting app development. No matter how you engage with WordPress, Playground has something valuable to offer.</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Dev-Hours-Playground.avif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31191\" />\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Featured Image:</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n<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, 07 Dec 2024 13:15:30 +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:44;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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: Friday Shares: What You May Have Missed v7\";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:43:\"https://dothewoo.io/?post_type=blog&p=87358\";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:67:\"https://dothewoo.io/blog/friday-shares-what-you-may-have-missed-v7/\";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:214:\"A curated weekly collection featuring community-driven content, podcasts, news on WordPress developments, digital identity innovations, event recaps, and resources for developers and entrepreneurs in the ecosystem.\";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, 06 Dec 2024 10:20:35 +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:45;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:71:\"Do The Woo Community: Welcome Our New Host, Mark Westguard from WS Form\";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=87341\";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:69:\"https://dothewoo.io/welcome-our-new-host-mark-westguard-from-ws-form/\";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:191:\"BobWP introduces Mark Westguard as a new host. They will launch a monthly show where Mark chats with small businesses in WordPress, sharing their stories and challenges starting January 2025.\";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, 05 Dec 2024 15:19:36 +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:46;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:13:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:98:\"WordCamp Central: WP Campus Connect Recap: A Journey of Empowering Students and Building 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:39:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=8788569\";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:122:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2024/12/wp-campus-connect-recap-a-journey-of-empowering-students-and-building-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:11970:\"<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Idea Behind WP Campus Connect</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The journey of WP Campus Connect has been nothing short of extraordinary for us. This first-of-its-kind initiative was born out of a desire to bridge the gap between students and the WordPress ecosystem and also to grow the local community. As an active member of the WordPress community, I often noticed the need to introduce fresh talent to the platform and create a space where students could learn, grow, and connect with the global WordPress community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I shared this idea with our local community members, and we decided to design an event tailored specifically for students, providing them with hands-on exposure to WordPress and opening doors to potential career opportunities. Over the course of 23 days in October 2024, we conducted a WordPress workshop in four colleges in Ajmer, India, to bring this vision to life through engaging seminars and workshops.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What began as an experimental event has now set a foundation for nurturing the next generation of WordPress enthusiasts and contributors. In this blog post, we’ll discuss WP Campus Connect&#8217;s highlights, achievements, and incredible journey.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Event Format</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When we decided to organize a WordPress event exclusively for students, the big question was: How do we gather interested students, and where? Instead of asking them to come to us, we chose to meet them where they are—on their campuses. That’s how the event got its name: WP Campus Connect. We also decided that unlike other WordPress events, where attendees had to purchase the ticket, we removed this barrier and kept it free for all.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We decided to partner with four colleges, making it a multi-day event planned across four Saturdays in October. Though we had to adjust the schedule along the way (more on that later!), the concept remained the same.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once our proposal was approved by the WordCamp Central, we started pitching the idea to colleges. The plan was to conduct 5-6 hour workshops in each college to introduce students to WordPress and career opportunities in web development. However, WordPress awareness in our region was low, and convincing colleges wasn’t easy. Out of six colleges we approached, four partnered with us after seeing the potential impact of the event.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Feedback from our partner colleges added another layer to our format. Most students had never heard of WordPress, so jumping straight into workshops might not have been effective. To address this, we introduced a pre-event seminar in each college. These 90-minute sessions aimed to familiarize students with WordPress, its global impact, career opportunities, and the upcoming workshops—ensuring they were motivated and prepared.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To maintain quality, we capped participation at 100 students per college, considering the infrastructure provided and our capacity to deliver a meaningful experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the end, our final format became:<br /><strong>4 Colleges, 4 Seminars, 4 Workshops, and introducing WordPress to 400 students.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Event Planning &amp; Execution</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Team</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Once the event format was finalized and approved, it was time to turn the vision into reality. Organizing WP Campus Connect required meticulous planning, dedicated teamwork, and the support of our vibrant community. With a clear roadmap ahead, the next step was to form a team and assign responsibilities to ensure everything was executed smoothly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We built a 10-member organizing team, with each member taking on a specific role based on their expertise. Here’s how we divided the tasks:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Program Team:</strong> Crafted the workshop flow, deciding what to teach, how to teach it, and ensuring the sessions were engaging and impactful.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>College Coordinator:</strong> Liaised with our partner colleges to ensure we had the necessary infrastructure for the seminars and workshops, from projectors to seating arrangements.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Design Team:</strong> Created promotional materials, session slides, certificates, and other visual assets that gave the event a polished and professional feel.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Sponsorship Team:</strong> Focused on securing funds by reaching out to sponsors, ensuring we had the financial backing needed to organize the event seamlessly.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Social Media and Content Team:</strong> Managed promotions across platforms, kept the community engaged, and shared regular updates about the event. They were also responsible for creating engaging content, such as announcements, blog posts, and updates, to amplify excitement and spread awareness.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Every aspect, from logistics to content creation and online engagement, was managed collaboratively, with frequent check-ins to track progress and address challenges. With each team member playing their part, we turned the concept of WP Campus Connect into a well-coordinated, impactful event.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This teamwork not only made the event possible but also strengthened the bonds within our community, showcasing the power of collaboration in achieving ambitious goals.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Student Selection: Ensuring the Right Participants</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>With participation capped at 100 students per college, the respective colleges were responsible for selecting attendees. To ensure a fair and effective process, all colleges followed a similar pattern.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each pre-event seminar was conducted for a larger audience, introducing students to WordPress, its career potential, and the workshop objectives. Following the seminar, the college faculty invited students to express their interest in joining the workshop. This allowed students who were genuinely motivated and eager to learn to step forward.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on these expressions of interest, the final list of workshop attendees was prepared. This approach ensured that the workshops were filled with enthusiastic participants who were ready to make the most of the learning opportunity.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Event Days: Bringing WP Campus Connect to Life</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The event days were the highlight of WP Campus Connect, with seminars and workshops conducted at all four partner colleges. Each session was tailored to inspire and engage students, introducing them to the power of WordPress and its vast career opportunities.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Seminars: Setting the Stage</strong></h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The 90-minute seminars introduced WordPress, its global presence, and its potential as a career path. While engaging a large audience within this short timeframe was challenging, we managed to keep the sessions interactive and enjoyable, ensuring students left motivated and curious.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Workshops: Hands-On Learning</strong></h4>\n\n\n\n<p>While the seminars only required two team members, the workshops were a full team effort. Each workshop was approximately 5-6 hours long and designed to provide students with hands-on experience building their first WordPress website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The college infrastructure varied, adding a layer of complexity. At one college, a single large computer lab accommodated all participants, allowing one lead facilitator to guide the session while others assisted. In other colleges, the workshops were split across multiple rooms. To maintain consistency, we conducted an internal team session before the event to ensure every facilitator was aligned on the workshop structure and delivery.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We helped students build their first WordPress websites, set up WordPress, understand themes and plugins, manage pages and posts, and more. In this hands-on workshop, they built a website home page, set up a blog, and added a contact form to the site.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Breaks and Activities</strong></h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Workshops included a small break where we provided refreshments and set up fun activities like photo booths. These activities added a lively touch and allowed students to interact and capture memories of their day.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Closing Moments</strong></h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Each workshop concluded with a feedback session, during which we interacted with students, learned about their experiences, and encouraged them to join our Meetup group to continue their learning journey with the WordPress community. Participation certificates and swag were distributed to all attendees, leaving them with a token of their experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The events wrapped up with group photos, which captured the energy and excitement of the day—a perfect end to a successful event.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2024/12/image-3.jpeg\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" tabindex=\"0\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2024/12/image-3-1024x682.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8797843\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2024/12/image-2.jpeg\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" tabindex=\"0\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2024/12/image-2-1024x682.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8797842\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2024/12/image-1.jpeg\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" tabindex=\"0\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2024/12/image-1-1024x682.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8797841\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2024/12/image.jpeg\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" tabindex=\"0\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2024/12/image-1024x682.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8797840\" /></a>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Challenges Faced</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One major challenge was ensuring the required infrastructure at partner colleges. While students were encouraged to bring their own laptops, many relied on college computer labs. At some colleges, outdated systems and missing configurations made it difficult to install the necessary software.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To overcome this, we used <strong>InstaWP</strong> to spin up temporary WordPress sites, allowing students to work seamlessly without delays. This quick solution ensured the workshops ran smoothly and introduced students to an innovative way of using WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Final Impact</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Through WP Campus Connect, we introduced WordPress to over 370 students, sparking a newfound enthusiasm among many of them. The impact became evident at our next meetup, which saw a record-breaking attendance of over 50 participants—most of whom were new members. What stood out was their active involvement. They were not just attending but also contributing ideas for future meetups, showcasing their eagerness to engage further.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the growing number of attendees, we recognized the need for a larger venue. One of our partner colleges stepped forward and is now a venue sponsor for our meetups, solidifying their support for the community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another exciting outcome was the suggestion to establish <strong>Student WP Clubs</strong> within colleges. These clubs can help sustain in-campus activities and introduce WordPress to students who missed the WP Campus Connect event. It can be a critical step toward ensuring the long-term growth and sustainability of the local WordPress community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking ahead, we’re in talks with stakeholders and exploring possibilities to integrate WordPress into the college curriculum soon. This initiative has the potential to embed WordPress knowledge at an academic level, equipping students with a competitive edge by the time they graduate.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The momentum from WP Campus Connect has strengthened our local community and set a strong foundation for continued growth, innovation, and collaboration.</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, 05 Dec 2024 06:25:51 +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:\"Anand Upadhyay\";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:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:85:\"WPTavern: ClikIT Acquires UglyRobot’s Infinite Uploads and Big File Uploads Plugins\";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=181425\";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:93:\"https://wptavern.com/clikit-acquires-uglyrobots-infinite-uploads-and-big-file-uploads-plugins\";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:2618:\"<p>ClikIT has <a href=\"https://clikitnow.com/clikit-acquires-infinite-uploads-big-file-uploads/\">announced</a> its acquisition of the Infinite Uploads and Big File Uploads plugins from UglyRobot, LLC, owned by Aaron Edwards, the former CTO of WPMU DEV. The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://infiniteuploads.com/\">Infinite Uploads</a> is a versatile WordPress plugin offering cloud storage, video hosting, and CDN delivery to enhance media management and site performance.<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/tuxedo-big-file-uploads/\"> Big File Uploads</a>, on the other hand, simplifies the process of uploading large media files directly to the WordPress media library without requiring FTP or SFTP.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Blake Whittle, owner of ClikIT, shared that his team had been seeking an acquisition opportunity since December 2023. Discussions with Aaron Edwards had been ongoing for several months before finalizing the deal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>About the acquisition, Blake said, &#8220;“As websites become more complex and WordPress developers continue to innovate, we aim to solve the challenges of storing large amounts of media, such as images and PDFs, while making video streaming effortless with Infinite Uploads. We’re also leveraging Big File Uploads, used by over 100,000 websites, to simplify the process of uploading large files and bypassing web host limits. Our goal is to make managing WordPress websites as seamless as possible, and these plugins move us closer to that goal.”&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>“Existing customers will not notice any changes in billing, their portal, support emails, or even the description on their credit card statements. Much of the Infinite Uploads infrastructure was separate from UglyRobot’s other assets, meaning we didn’t need to decouple or migrate any data. The only noticeable change will be that support responses will now come from our team—and we’re dedicated to providing support that goes above and beyond.”, Blake promised.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>ClikIT plans to relaunch Infinite Uploads’ affiliate program, improve support response times, optimize CDN caching, and further integrate the plugin into the ClikIT brand.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When <a href=\"https://x.com/jeffr0/status/1863629551353430019\">asked</a> on X if he was stepping away from WordPress, Aaron Edwards <a href=\"https://x.com/UglyRobotDev/status/1863633075873157401\">responded</a>, “Pretty much! I still have small Imajinn AI plugin. Excited to see what @BlakeWhittle7 and team do with @infiniteuploads now. It’s in good hands and has so much potential!”</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, 04 Dec 2024 18:23:27 +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:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:104:\"WPTavern: #148 – Stephen Dumba on Empowering Uganda With WordPress Education and Community Initiatives\";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=181298\";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:118:\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/148-stephen-dumba-on-empowering-uganda-with-wordpress-education-and-community-initiatives\";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:41141:\"Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<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 school educators are bringing WordPress to the people of Uganda.</p>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<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>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today, we have Stephen Dumba.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stephen has been a high school teacher in Uganda since 2007. He specializes in WordPress, computer repair, and teaching IT skills. As the National Coordinator of the ICT Teachers Association of Uganda, he mentors, both students and teachers in ICT.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>An active WordPress community members since 2019, Stephen organizes WordCamps and conducts online, and in-person, WordPress training across Uganda. Initiatives like Each One Teach One, and 1000 WordPress Ninjas aim to promote the use of WordPress nationwide.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stephen regularly speaks at WordPress events, and focuses on integrating WordPress into education and community building.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I suspect many listeners might not know about the landscape of WordPress and ICT education in Uganda. Stephen is here to correct that today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We start off talking about the ICT curriculum in Uganda, the initiatives to equip schools with computer labs, and the surge in student interest for ICT education.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We then discuss how WordPress is beginning to see adoption in Ugandan educational circles and Meetup communities. Stephen talks about how investing in WordPress turned his business around, and the larger impact it has had on education and employment opportunities.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But why is WordPress so embraced in Uganda? Stephen emphasizes its simplicity, extensive plugin options, and community support. He also describes the vibrant WordPress community initiatives, including regular Meetups, and the goal to host a thousand attendee WordPress event in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Towards the end of the podcast, we discussed Stephen&#8217;s vision for building future WordPress leaders in Uganda, and the significance of sponsorships, and financial support, to sustain and grow these initiatives.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re curious about how WordPress is shaping communities and education in Uganda, and the broader implications of ICT education in different regions, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding 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>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Stephen Dumba.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Stephen Dumba. Hello Stephen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:44] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> Hi Nathan.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> This is going to be a really interesting episode for me. There&#8217;s going to be an awful lot in here that I do not know about. We&#8217;re not going to be talking about WordPress, the code. We&#8217;re going to be talking about WordPress, the community, and how it&#8217;s grown up in the country where Stephen lives, which is Uganda.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And before we begin that, Stephen, I just want to give you the opportunity to tell us a little bit about yourself, your history with WordPress, the job that you do, and then we can unpack all of the wonderful things that you are involved with in Uganda. So over to you, your little potted bio.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:23] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> Thank you, Nathan. I am Stephen Dumba. By profession I&#8217;m a teacher, but many times when I tell people that I&#8217;m a teacher, the next question is, where do you teach? Unfortunately, I&#8217;m not stationed in a particular school where I&#8217;m teaching, but I&#8217;m a teacher by profession.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I&#8217;ve been, for the past 15 years, interested in computer repair. And then of recent, around 2018, I got invited to WordCamp Kampala. So that&#8217;s where my WordPress journey started.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I attended a WordPress event in 2018, at the close of 2018, and then I got an opportunity to speak at WordCamp Entebbe three months later. That was in 2019. And then from then on, I discovered that, yeah, I think this is a field that I can put all my energy on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I started developing websites in WordPress. But most importantly, I found that many of my fellow teachers were not well versed with web design and WordPress. So because of my role as the National Coordinator of the ICT Teachers Association of Uganda here, I took on the role of mentorship, a voluntary mentor. So I&#8217;ve trained many teachers in Uganda on how to use WordPress, and that&#8217;s how we are growing as a community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:44] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you for that. That was really enlightening. So just to reiterate, you began your journey in 2017, having not used WordPress before. But also at the same time as that, a history of teaching, and with a current role of the National Coordinator of the ICT Association of Uganda, which sounds like a fairly influential role.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I mean by that is I&#8217;m guessing that if you make some decisions about what CMS may be on offer to the school children in Uganda, your decisions count for something because of the role that you have. Would that be fair to say, your decisions matter?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:23] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> I wouldn&#8217;t say it&#8217;s a personal decision, but it is a decision of a couple of us as teachers. You see, what we call the ICT Teachers Association of Uganda is a congregation of teachers who teach ICT as a subject here in Uganda, across the entire country. So basing on the conversations we have on our platforms, majorly WhatsApp, you come up with a decision even when no one mentions it. You find that it is easier to build websites with WordPress. And all the reasons are there for us to see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Previously when I was still teaching, we used to teach web design as one of the topics in our subject, but we were using very rudimentary tools. We would even use stuff like Office to come up with something like a website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I got to know about WordPress, shared it with a few teachers, and by the way, I was introduced to WordPress by a fellow teacher, and by then he was the national coordinator of the ICT Teachers Association. He&#8217;s called Rogers Mukalele.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So he invites us to a group of WordPress users because he wanted us to improve on our skills, our web development skills. And then when it came that there was a WordCamp in 2018, I remember it was December, either November or December, WordCamp Kampala. We all went there just to see how are these people making websites, because they&#8217;re telling us in just a day you can come up with something so beautiful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And when we went there and, true to his words, people had at least a homepage in just one or two hour session. So from there on, everyone was convinced.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for us who had gone, we started sharing with those who hadn&#8217;t gone to this event. And so when Arthur organised WordCamp Entebbe in 2019, many teachers were like, we also want to go to WordCamp and learn how to use WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s how I came up with the idea, wow, so I can speak at this event to the teachers. Because usually they take people, the way they communicate with teachers, it may not be as straightforward or as simple as us teachers understand ourselves.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I thought I&#8217;d give this talk, and good enough this talk is even on, my very first is on WordPress TV. Things went on, and so people started seeing us as the go-to people for WordPress. And because of that, we had to keep on improving our skills. And so all other WordPress events that were organised in Uganda, I struggled hard to make sure that at least I catered for that particular audience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So finally, Rogers goes out of this role of national coordinator and everyone was like, I think Steve, you can do this. Steve, be our national coordinator, please. Who&#8217;s going to teach us WordPress? Who&#8217;s going to mentor us in this field? And because of our association, people believe in what we say.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So when we tell them it&#8217;s good to have WordPress, we give them the figures of course, 43% of the web. And then when you come to government agencies here, I even wrote an article about 10 common websites in Uganda that are using WordPress, of which we have State House, that&#8217;s the President&#8217;s official home. He&#8217;s using WordPress. Then we have the tax body in Uganda, switched to WordPress. We have universities in Uganda are using WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we were giving just those big, big, big agencies as examples. And then when we tell you that you can do something in a day, you can come up with an idea and build something in WordPress, and maybe improve that later, everyone would like this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>First of all, not many of our schools in Uganda have websites. So teachers had space where they could practice their WordPress skills. They would go to the head teacher, tell them, I developed some WordPress skills. Can I volunteer to build a school website? And so the teacher would volunteer, and then ask us some questions, we would guide them. And where we fail, we would also go to the more advanced community, the WordPress community of Uganda. And they&#8217;re also very helpful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Can I ask, where I live in the UK, we have an education system called the National Curriculum, and what that means is that basically every child receives, certainly when they&#8217;re very young, the same subjects. So if you&#8217;re a child in an entirely different part of the country, you&#8217;ll still be having basically the same palette of subjects, you&#8217;ll be doing maths, and history, and what we call ICT. And the ICT, in our case, stands for Information Communication Technology.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is that the same in Uganda? Do you have one sort of curriculum which covers the whole country, or can different areas and different schools pursue whatever they like?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:08] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> In Uganda we also have a curriculum developed by the National Curriculum Development Center, and it is across the country.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:15] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, thank you. And also, what is the current state of technology like in Uganda? So where I live there&#8217;s lots of desktop computers. There&#8217;s lots of mobile phones. I&#8217;m curious as to how people are consuming the internet. Is it generally a keyboard with a screen, or does it tend to be more like a mobile phone?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:37] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> The adoption of technologies in Uganda is still very, very, very low. Although, since the lockdown, there has been some improvement. However, I also like to mention, what we call the Uganda Communications Commission. They have been instrumental in making sure that secondary schools, that is for students from 13 to 18 years, they&#8217;ve ensured that all secondary schools at least have a computer lab of at least 30 users, 30 user stations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this is something that came around more seriously in 2013, because then ICT as a subject was introduced to advanced level. That is for the, 17, 18 year olds. It came as a compulsory subject.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the way, in Uganda, students start learning ICT at 13. Below that, the curriculum doesn&#8217;t cater for that. So the curriculum starts it as an option at 13 years onwards. But in 2013, the government thought it wise to introduce this as a compulsory subject for the 17 and 18 year olds, what we call A Level here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And because not all schools would afford to have computer labs, our communications agency, the Uganda Communications Commission, through their project which is now called UCUSAF, they came up with an idea and stocked computer labs across the entire country. So the chances of finding a computer lab in a secondary school are almost I think 90, I&#8217;ll give a figure of 90%.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And would it be fair to say that home ownership of computers is not particularly widespread? Or would it be that most people going home would have access to a computer or a mobile phone, once they&#8217;re outside of the boundaries of the school?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:28] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> It is not widespread. It&#8217;s not at all widespread. Computers will only be found in offices, and that is big offices. Computers only be found now in secondary schools, apart from a very few privileged schools that will have maybe a hundred computers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So young people, their exposure to computers is typically going to be in their educational institute, their school, or the college that they go to. And is the interest in ICT, well, is ICT as a subject popular in the same way that it is in my country? I mean, it&#8217;s almost the most exciting thing you can do to a child where I live, to put them in front of computers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems that there&#8217;s just something about that interaction of the keyboard, the mouse, the computer, and all of the myriad things that it can do that is tremendously exciting. And also it&#8217;s a conduit to learning almost every other subject as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But is it something that the children themselves are excited about, learning how to work with computers? Or is it more that, a bit like maybe something like maths is here, you&#8217;re just kind of told you&#8217;ve got to do it because you&#8217;ve got to do it. Like I say, is it popular?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:45] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> ICT is a very popular subject here in my country. I&#8217;ve even given the numbers. I remember, the last school where I taught, you would have a class of 80 learners and you had only 30 computers. And the kids had to struggle into the lab just to be the first on the computer. You just have to come out with ways of grouping them, and making sure that each of these learners has a chance to touch and use the computer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, because of this demand where I was, I was often asked to come to school earlier than the official reporting time. For example, being at school at around seven so the kids can use the time between seven and nine, for those who did not have the chance to practice, to use the lab. And then even after work, after five, you&#8217;ll be obliged to stay at school up to around eight, so that you give chance to other learners, because the interest is just too much, just like the UK.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So there&#8217;s loads of demand, but not enough places to put that demand. At the moment there simply aren&#8217;t enough devices for the amount of children, in this case, who wish to learn.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s an exciting thing to be involved in then I guess, because I think a lot of teachers, certainly in the UK, face the problem of disinterested children. Children who don&#8217;t wish to study a particular subject, and yet they&#8217;re being made to teach it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whereas it sounds like you&#8217;ve got the opposite problem. You&#8217;ve got children who are extremely interested to learn, but aren&#8217;t able to because, well, there&#8217;s a big queue to get into the ICT lab, and you&#8217;ve got to take your turn. Come before school begins, or wait after school has finished in order to give it a go. Okay, that&#8217;s really interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:31] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> If I can add, it&#8217;s for that reason that at a certain point we take these kids through a test to decide who will stay with us in the computer lab at a certain level. So when you have a class of 80 students, where as a teacher you could imagine, the African way, the problem is when it comes to time for assessment exams, are you going to spend two days in the computer lab examining in just one subject? No.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what we do, if there are 80 students in your class, they&#8217;ll have to go through a test that will determine, and unfortunately we usually choose the best performers. And so we could say we need only 40 students. And so you leave out 40. Not that they don&#8217;t want, they are really interested, everyone is interested, but you don&#8217;t have just enough equipment to serve them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Again, linking back to the UK because it&#8217;s basically what I know. In the UK the ICT curriculum covers a lot of ground, it isn&#8217;t just about the web. And I wondered if that was the case as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Obviously the WordPress component is about building something which could go online ultimately, perhaps a website or something like that. But also they learn about programming languages, and how to write things in code on their local development environment, and what have you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you cover any of that as well, or is it mainly to do with the internet, websites, WordPress, that kind of thing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:55] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> Not at all. In fact, websites is just part of the curriculum. They learn, of course, the obvious stuff, it&#8217;s basically learning Microsoft Office programs, and then web, and then there is security, a little bit of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In our new curriculum, right now we don&#8217;t have coding, we don&#8217;t have programming. What we have is a bit of HTML and CSS before we involve them in WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do the students have career opportunities outside of school, once school has finished? Is that maybe why it&#8217;s so popular? Apart from the fact that it&#8217;s obviously quite interesting sitting in front of a computer, you know, it opens up a whole world of possibilities. Is there also a credible career path with that as well?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because I can imagine that if you were successful, let&#8217;s say you were incredibly good at building websites with WordPress, I can imagine that the career, the opportunities, would allow you to step outside your own town, your own region, your own country. And so I just wondered if there was a career path that the children could understand and conceive. That it would allow the world to be more available to them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:04] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> As teachers, we have shown them some career paths, like the standard web developer, stuff like that. But given that, in our country, the chances of getting employed are really so minimal. So most of these kids are learning it, first for the interest, but then they are also looking at the opportunities. They look at people like us that, yes, he has his own web development agency, that is Steve. You look at Rogers, he&#8217;s also surviving his way because of that skill.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So even when we are going in our mentorship talks with them, we show them that, learn this skill and you&#8217;ll be self-reliant after school. You&#8217;re not going to depend on someone who&#8217;s going to ask for your CV, someone who&#8217;s going to ask for your experience when you&#8217;re just fresh out of school. Many of them are learning it right now because they want to make a buck by themselves.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:58] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, that&#8217;s brilliant. Thank you. And can I just ask, why WordPress? Given all of the different bits and pieces out there. I mean, obviously you attended the event in 2017, and that turned your head towards WordPress, but I&#8217;ve got to imagine there&#8217;s more to it than that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is it just that it is a tool which is, well, I mean for a start it&#8217;s freely available? You just go to a website and there it is, and you can download it, and there&#8217;s loads of software available that allows you to install it on a local environment, so you don&#8217;t need to pay for a hosting company or anything like that. What were the reasons that WordPress was the CMS of choice, the software of choice?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:35] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> First of all is the ease with which you create this website. So I&#8217;ll give my personal example. And by the way, the teachers and learners follow my story so much, and it&#8217;s an inspiring one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Around 2015, I hired a friend of mine to create a website for me. And we went through ping pong for some months, and then even after all those months, the website wasn&#8217;t really what I wanted. And then they told me that it&#8217;s because you&#8217;re using a friend to do it. You&#8217;re doing it cheaply. So you have to get some good money and hire another web developer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I got my, I think it was three months salary, I gave it to a person to develop a website who did not come up with a website even after a, you get it, yeah. Now look at, after a whole year you don&#8217;t have a website, some sketchy. And then in school we were teaching using Publisher. I don&#8217;t know if you heard about Microsoft Publisher, we were using it to create websites. And the websites are so sketchy versus the websites we see on the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So here you go to an event in the morning. You arrive at nine, get breakfast at 10, go into a session at 11, and at 2 you have a website. Who wouldn&#8217;t want to use that tool? And in fact, all my interests right now, like I told you before, I repair computers. So the only people who knew that I repair computers are the people in my community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that I learned WordPress, I came up with a website, a website using WordPress. I think I used maybe two nights and it&#8217;s out there. And now because of this website, I&#8217;m traveling across the country. Now the people who are following my story will also want to do their own websites because of the ease with which you can use it to come up with a deserving website. A website that a client will look at and say, wow, this is what I wanted.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it is even easier, even if you looked at another website for inspiration, it is easier to come out with a similar website in WordPress, as opposed to the other hard coding, that is one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then the other thing is, there&#8217;s one thing that I really look at, WordPress has a community in Uganda. You&#8217;ll simply call David, hi, I have a problem here. David will help you. Then you say, who can help me with this? And then they&#8217;ll lead you to another person.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then look at the problems like when you want to monetise your website, when you want to add payment gateways to your website. All the other options that are available, it&#8217;ll take you a lot of effort to get them working. Whereas in WordPress, you&#8217;ll just dream of something, oh, I need this, then go to the plugin repository and the plugin is there. Even the free ones are working.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just for example, as teachers, during the lockdown we wanted students to be able to access lessons when they are at home, while we were also in our homes. On WordPress, you&#8217;ll just go and look one LMS, and it creates a very perfect learning solution for you, just within no time. So I think there are very many reasons why you should love WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And let me tell you what, even the big agencies here, they were using other technologies. But we have been following them in the last maybe four years. All the big ones are getting to WordPress. So if we don&#8217;t know the reason why we want WordPress, perhaps they know the reason why they want WordPress. You get it, eh?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So even those, the naysayers who are still doubting WordPress, when they look at State House going for WordPress. When they look at our revenue agency going for WordPress. When they look at our Business Registration Bureau going for WordPress. When they look at our universities going for WordPress, then who are you? You have to give us a very big reason to choose any other.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:18] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I guess modern WordPress with things like built-in patterns, so the ability to just basically click a button and have a pre-designed page, or row, or selection of blocks, really leans into that real ease of putting something on a page immediately.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in the olden days, you would probably still have to have a variety of different plugins to wrangle to get things the way that you wanted it to look, but you&#8217;d also have to have a degree of HTML knowledge. And it sounds like, you know, especially for the people who are just beginning with WordPress, those kind of features are really key for getting that excitement going. Look, log in, click that button, and then that one, you&#8217;ve got a page, look at that. And you get something almost immediately.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How do you disseminate, or how do you communicate with all the other staff where you want to share your experience about WordPress? How do you communicate with all the other teachers throughout the country to coordinate what you&#8217;re doing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:21] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> Like I said earlier, I am the National Coordinator of the ICT Teachers Association of Uganda. The ICT Teachers Association of Uganda brings all teachers of ICT in Uganda together.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So one of the ways, yes, we have a website, ictteachersug.net, but for easier communication we use our WhatsApp platform. Right now we are using WhatsApp majorly. So when we are there, sometimes someone will ask a question, and someone will say, can you ask Stephen? He has been there, he has done that. And when they ask you, you tell them the whole story.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we did, we came up with a few initiatives. For example, every Tuesday evenings 8:00 to 9:00 PM East African time, we have what we call Each One, Teach One. We believe no one has the monopoly over knowledge. There is something I know that Nathan doesn&#8217;t know. There is something that Nathan knows that I don&#8217;t know, and a hundred others don&#8217;t know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what we do in this session, Each One, Teach One, we get a topic that is on everyone&#8217;s mouth. And then we get one person to come and facilitate, and then you take them through an hour. They&#8217;ll ask you questions and stuff like that. And these topics are diverse. Sometimes it&#8217;s just motivation. Sometimes it&#8217;s really, how do I get started with WordPress? And then, how do I deal with SEO? The topics are very diverse, but we come together because we are a fraternity, and we have that objective of bettering ourselves inside and outside our profession.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So that&#8217;s an online event, you do that via the internet. But you also mentioned that there&#8217;s a fairly vibrant WordCamp community that goes on with a variety of events across Uganda each year. Did I get that right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:14] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> Yeah. Now look at this, the story goes, Rogers comes and invites us to join the WordPress community of Uganda, which was based in Kampala then. And then three months later, we have an event in Entebbe, under WordPress Entebbe Meetup. So from there, the teachers who had traveled miles to come and attend this event are like, can&#8217;t we have such events nearer our places?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So Rogers comes up with the idea, I think I can start a WordPress Meetup in Jinja, that is 80 kilometers away from Kampala. And then in collaboration with existing meetups, we ask that these events should also include sessions for teachers and learners, not only the advanced topics. Also get to the basics, the beginners, the absolute beginners. So Rogers initiates WordPress Jinja Meetup.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the lockdown, Moses initiates the WordPress Masaka Meetup. This is another teacher. And then in Lira we have another WordPress also initiated by a fellow teacher.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>All these are done in collaboration with the existing meetups, and it is one community. But because of these distances, Stephen cannot come from here and travel 400 kilometers to attend a meetup. So it is better if a meetup group is started in that town. So even of recent, we have another Moses who started another meetup just outside Kampala, but Lira was started by Emmanuel Angoda. And more meetups are coming up by the way, because many teachers are interested.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It does sound like the teachers are the backbone of the whole thing. The WordPress community is largely being driven by the teachers because, you know, they attend this one thing, and then go and start another little satellite meetup, which then is sprouting another meetup and so on. But it does sound like the teaching network is the thing which is really driving the community over there, which is interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:17] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> That would be a lot of pride on our side so that the teachers are the backbone of the WordPress community. Like I said, teachers work hand in hand with existing meetups because we engage with these people every other day.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our request was that we work hand in hand to have more inclusive WordCamps, or more inclusive meetups. While the previous meetups were for advanced users, that is in our own thinking. Things were too advanced for us. You go to an event and people are speaking APIs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we were like, how about we had a meetup, we had a WordCamp where even an absolute beginner, a person who only knows how to click, can come up with a website on that day. And this was a welcome idea, so we are working hand in hand. The thing is that, with teachers, at least they have places where they can put these events, as in the schools. They have somewhere to start. It is easier for them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I was going to ask about exactly that, about the location, because that can be quite a thing where we are, finding a location can be really hard. But I guess that&#8217;s a good short circuit, isn&#8217;t it? Because the teachers have access to a building. They have access to a computer lab, which they can use for the evening. Okay, I see. That all hangs together perfectly, doesn&#8217;t it? The school is, in a sense, the central place where it all happens, and the teachers are the people who make it happen in those locations. That&#8217;s fascinating.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s really interesting because here in the UK,, the WordPress community is usually not really the school, there&#8217;s no part of the educational system which is involved in it. It&#8217;s typically business owners, people building websites, people who&#8217;ve got companies where they&#8217;re selling something into the WordPress space, those kind of things. And they&#8217;re typically done in, I don&#8217;t know, venues of an evening, but schools don&#8217;t appear to be part of it. So there is quite a difference there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is there anything, Stephen, that you would say, if you could stare into the future, sort of five years or something like that, is there anything that you would like to happen? Now that could be as straightforward as, well, it would be great if we had more computers, or more members in our communities. I&#8217;m just thinking, five years, what would you like to be different in five years than is now with the Uganda community?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:42] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> One thing we want with the community, in five years one of our dreams is to have an event with a thousand attendees. An event with a thousand attendees is testament of the years of efforts that we are put into building this. It&#8217;ll be really heartbreaking if after all those years of pushing WordPress, you still have an event with 50, 80, 200 attendees.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to see my students as speakers. I want to see them as organisers at events. I want them to come up and say, that&#8217;s our teacher. That is the person who introduced me to WordPress. And I want to see many of them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Indirectly, this is good market for those who are in the business of web design, like I intend to be. The more people that we know who are interested in WordPress, it&#8217;ll be easier for us to mobilise people for events.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s things that really pain us, sometimes we have an event and all you have is international sponsors. You don&#8217;t have any local sponsor for this event. It shows you that the people who are in charge don&#8217;t know about WordPress yet. So let us train these young ones, and when they are in charge they&#8217;ll be very willing to support, to give back to the community, even if they don&#8217;t attend.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:02] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> What a fabulous, fabulous thought. The idea of an event of that magnitude with homegrown talent, if you know what I mean. The people that over the last many years you have been teaching, who are themselves the speakers, and presumably would themselves be now the teachers of the next generation as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you&#8217;re kind of describing a thing which self perpetuates itself into the future. It just keeps going, and you&#8217;ve got the older generation who&#8217;ve been doing it for a while, the ones who are currently working inside of WordPress. And at the same time you&#8217;ve got the people who are coming up through the education system. That is such a fabulous, fabulous, idea.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another question around that then, Stephen, is the financial thing I suppose, talking about how we get these events to work. Now, you mentioned that events are in schools and things like that,</p>\n\n\n\n<p>but I&#8217;m just wondering if there&#8217;s something that you</p>\n\n\n\n<p>would like to say regarding, I don&#8217;t know, sponsorship, or</p>\n\n\n\n<p>people reaching out to assist in some way or</p>\n\n\n\n<p>other.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:59] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> one thing is. our community is entirely, we work entirely on our own resources, personal resources. It&#8217;s voluntary, but the demand for WordPress lessons is so high. And of recent, we started, an initiative called 1000 WordPress Ninjas. and our target was with three friends of mine.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a teacher called Noeline and another teacher called Simon. So we came up with the idea, let us at least give ourselves a target of training a thousand youth and teens in WordPress, especially those who are finding it hard to continue with school. is, easier to get those in school.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there are many others who are there that we interact with. They are struggling with school. So you want to teach them, stuff like WordPress and life skills, indirectly life skills, but majorly WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then they really want to associate with us. So they ask, but what really shows that I&#8217;m a WordPress Ninja. Then we ask them, what do you want? Then they say, don&#8217;t you have a T-shirt? But they cannot even afford this T-shirt. So while I can offer the lessons free, I don&#8217;t have enough money on me to buy T-shirts for a thousand learners. So there are those small things that any other person can come up and any idea and say, perhaps I will get a thousand T-shirts for these a thousand WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ninjas Anything in anyway. And then sometimes there are places that are far remote that would also be interested, but we go there only when we can afford. So even if they ask me to go for this session this weekend, they ask for a session this weekend. As long as I don&#8217;t have enough money on me, I tell them maybe next month.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And sometimes I can push it to two, three, even six months. But if. There is a way that we can come up with something small. It can facilitate one of us to go to that place maybe 600 kilometers away, stay a night, have a day or two with them, and then come back. But otherwise, everything is voluntary by using our own pockets But any assistance would be Very welcome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:10] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think it&#8217;s the perfect place to end it, Stephen. Before we do end it, I&#8217;m just going to ask, where could people reach out to you? Either personally or perhaps that&#8217;s a website for the institute that you are in charge of? The National Coordinator of the ICT Teachers Association of Uganda. Anywhere that we can find you, email, social media, whatever you like.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:31] <strong>Stephen Dumba:</strong> Yeah. So I&#8217;m on X, people can find me on X and my handle is SteveUG. Our website of the ICT Teacher Association is ictteachersug.net.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> All of these links will head into the show notes, so if you go to wptavern.com and search for this episode with Stephen, you&#8217;ll be able to find all of the links there. All I can say is thank you so much for all of the hard work that you&#8217;ve put in so far. It sounds like you&#8217;ve got a really interesting, growing community over there, and also good luck for the future. I hope that in the next five years you do indeed put on a WordCamp with a thousand people. That would be absolutely marvelous. Thank you for talking to me today.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today, we have <a href=\"https://x.com/SteveUG\">Stephen Dumba</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stephen has been a high school teacher in Uganda since 2007. He specialises in WordPress, computer repair, and teaching IT skills. As the National Coordinator of the ICT Teachers’ Association of Uganda, he mentors both students and teachers in ICT.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>An active WordPress community member since 2019, Stephen organises WordCamps and conducts online and in-person WordPress training across Uganda. Initiatives like Each One Teach One and 1000 WordPress Ninjas, aim to promote the use of WordPress nationwide.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stephen regularly speaks at WordPress events, and focuses on integrating WordPress into education and community-building.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I suspect many listeners might not know about the landscape of WordPress and ICT education in Uganda. Stephen is here to correct that today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We start off talking about the ICT curriculum in Uganda, the initiatives to equip schools with computer labs, and the surge in student interest for ICT education.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We then discuss how WordPress is beginning to see adoption in Ugandan educational circles and Meetup communities. Stephen talks about how investing in WordPress turned his business around, and the larger impact it has had on education and employment opportunities.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, why is WordPress so embraced in Uganda? Stephen emphasises its simplicity, extensive plugin options, and community support. He also describes the vibrant WordPress community initiatives, including regular meetups and the goal to host a thousand-attendee WordPress event in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Towards the end of the podcast, we discuss Stephen’s vision for building future WordPress leaders in Uganda and the significance of sponsorships and financial support to sustain and grow these initiatives.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you’re curious about how WordPress is shaping communities and education in Uganda, and the broader implications of ICT education in different regions, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://kampala.wordcamp.org/2023/\">WordCamp Kampala</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://entebbe.wordcamp.org/2023/\">WordCamp Entebbe</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/Entebbe-WordPress-Meetup/\">WordPress Entebbe Meetup</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/Jinja-WordPress-Meetup/\">Jinja WordPress Meetup</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/masaka-wordpress-meetup/\">Masaka WordPress Meetup</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.meetup.com/lira-wordpress-meetup/\">Lira WordPress Meetup</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://ictteachersug.net/\">ICT Teachers Association of Uganda</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://statehouse.go.ug/\">State House of Uganda website</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://ncdc.go.ug/\">National Curriculum Development Center</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.ucc.co.ug/\">Uganda Communications Commission</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.ucc.co.ug/ucusaf/\">Uganda Communications Universal Service Access and Fund</a> &#8211; UCUSAF</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.ursb.go.ug/\">Business Registration Services Bureau</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, 04 Dec 2024 15:00:00 +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:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";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:62:\"Do The Woo Community: Join Our Community Friends at Do the Woo\";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=87314\";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:61:\"https://dothewoo.io/join-our-community-friends-at-do-the-woo/\";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:136:\"BobWP requests year-end support for the podcast through Community Friends, offering benefits while acknowledging listener contributions.\";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, 04 Dec 2024 13:23:26 +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:\"\";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:\"type\";i:128;s:7:\"headers\";O:48:\"WpOrg\\Requests\\Utility\\CaseInsensitiveDictionary\":1:{s:7:\"\0*\0data\";a:9:{s:6:\"server\";s:5:\"nginx\";s:4:\"date\";s:29:\"Wed, 18 Dec 2024 22:00:41 GMT\";s:12:\"content-type\";s:8:\"text/xml\";s:13:\"last-modified\";s:29:\"Wed, 18 Dec 2024 21:45:30 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\"; 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