The PublishPress Podcast

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We talk with people interested in WordPress publishing. You'll hear interview with publishers who happen to be using WordPress, and also people in the WordPress space.

  1. What's Going to Happen With WordPress in 2026?

    12/17/2025

    What's Going to Happen With WordPress in 2026?

    In this episode of the PublishPress podcast we welcome Birgit Pauli-Haack, a developer advocate for Automattic. She also publishes the Gutenberg Times which is the best place to keep up with everything that's happening with the block editor. We discuss the recent release of WordPress 6.9, its new features, and the future of WordPress development next year, including the upcoming WordPress 7.0. What new feature are we going to see in WordPress? What's happening with the 4 phases of Gutenberg? We're excited again about WordPress after a slow year. There's the potential for transformative changes to WordPress in 2026.

    56 min
  2. How to Optimize Your Websites for AI Search

    12/01/2025

    How to Optimize Your Websites for AI Search

    Alex Denning has been in the WordPress and SEO communities for years. But for the last few years, he's been seeing those topics through on AI lens. Alex now runs the Ellipsis agency and helps his clients to get recommended by AI chats. Alex's life was changed when GPT-3 launched, because it radically changed the services he could provide to clients. In this episode we unpack all the changes that have happened to Alex's business in the last 3 years, and hopefully help you navigate this new AI world we're living in. Alex's agency is at https://getellipsis.com. 00:00 The Rise of AI and Its Impact on SEO 09:49 Developing Falcon AI: From Concept to Reality14:31 The Evolution of AI Tools and Their Applications20:12 Navigating Changes in Search Behavior and AI Integration28:16 Leveraging AI for Data Analysis 31:37 Optimizing Content for AI Responses 34:48 Understanding Consumer Behavior Changes 38:05 The Value of Personalized Recommendations 42:24 Technical Aspects of Content Indexing 45:10 Navigating the AI Bubble 48.05 The Evolution of SEO to AI Optimization

    51 min
  3. The Story Behind Checkout Summit: the New WooCommerce Conference

    11/17/2025

    The Story Behind Checkout Summit: the New WooCommerce Conference

    In this episode of the PublishPress Podcast, Rodolfo Melogli shares his journey from the early days of WooCommerce to the creation of his new Checkout Summit conference. This new WooCommerce conference will be in Sicily in April 2026. If you work with WooCommerce, you should be there. This is a conference we've been missing in the WordPress space. Rodolfo's aim with this conference is to prioritize great content and valuable networking. Rodolfo started as a civil engineer building roads in Ireland, before becoming a baker, and then a WooCommerce expert under the "Business Bloomer" brand. He takes us through the ups and downs of putting on a large event for the first time. Find out more: https://checkoutsummit.com 0:00 Reviving WooCommerce Conferences 03:05 The Checkout Summit: A New Beginning 05:59 Navigating Event Planning and Collaboration 08:56 Choosing the Right Time and Place 11:54 Rodolfo's Journey from Engineering to WooCommerce 14:49 The Bakery Dream: A Shift to Web Development 16:02 The Early Days of WooCommerce 19:08 A Career Built on WooCommerce 24:58 The Spark for Checkout Summit 27:18 Community Over AI: The Need for Human Connection 31:40 Building Trust and Community 35:05 The Road to Checkout Summit 39:07 Investing in Networking Opportunities 41:10 Creating Value Through Content 43:50 Future Plans and Expectations

    47 min
  4. Quality Over Noise: How a Shy Engineer Builds Awesome WordPress Products

    11/10/2025

    Quality Over Noise: How a Shy Engineer Builds Awesome WordPress Products

    Akshat Choudhary is the founder of WP Remote, which is an awesome and successful backup service for WordPress sites. But you won't hear him boasting about that. Akshat doesn't talk much. He's a self-professed shy guy. He's not someone you'll always be hearing from on YouTube, social media, podcasts. Instead, Akshat is an engineer who loves to focus on building great products. We dig into Akshat's story on this episode and how his quiet, quality work has produced a legion of loyal customers and fans. Although he's shy, Akshat has some great stories to tell. Make sure you hear about his WhatsApp-style messaging platform that went viral, attracted 10,000's of daily users, and then nearly bankrupted him. Listen out also for how being a bad salesman helped him get his big break by selling migration services to WPEngine. 00:00 Introduction to Akshat Choudhary and WP Remote04:41 The Importance of Office Culture in Tech Companies09:44 Navigating the WordPress Ecosystem: Products and Target Audiences14:39 The Journey of Building a Startup: Early Experiences19:44 Partnerships with Hosting Companies: Strategies and Challenges25:02 Quality Over Quantity: Business Philosophy and Pricing Strategy30:02 The Power of Public Persona30:25 Challenges of Operating from India31:11 Understanding the North American Market33:28 Balancing Marketing and Product Development33:51 Navigating AI's Impact on Business36:16 Top-Down vs Bottom-Up AI Implementation44:44 Visual Regression Testing: A New Product Launch51:22 The Complexity of Visual Regression Testing55:08 Crafting High-Quality Software59:59 Engaging with the Community

    1h 1m
  5. Big Business Loves WordPress Because It's Open Source

    11/03/2025

    Big Business Loves WordPress Because It's Open Source

    Our guest is Karim Marucchi from the Crowd Favorite agency and the FAIR project.  With Karim's help, we're going to try and tell two stories in this episode. The first story is Karim's life working with some of the biggest agencies in the world, and selling projects to some of the largest companies in the world. He tells the story of how he sat down and sold Steve Jobs on a website project.  The second story is about the value of open source and WordPress to those big enterprise customers. Karim is working really hard at the moment with the FAIR project. We'll explain what that is. The FAIR project is part of Karim's efforts to bring the benefits of open source to big enterprise customers. [00:00:00] - Introduction [00:01:21] - Early career and transition [00:05:17] - Big breaks: Nissan and Pixar [00:07:38] - Acquisition and rapid growth [00:09:25] - European expansion and IPO [00:11:16] - Integration work and lessons [00:13:40] - Entering open source and WordPress [00:16:00] - Crowd Favorite and Alex King [00:17:49] - Bridging publishing and enterprise [00:20:00] - Composable and modular architectures [00:21:18] - Enterprise value: ownership and cost [00:24:23] - System architecture role and compliance [00:26:08] - CRA and supply chain security [00:28:36] - Enterprise practices: updates and SBOM [00:33:00] - Introducing the FAIR project [00:33:56] - Enterprise examples and collaboration [00:39:23] - FAIR adoption and partners [00:41:06] - Linux Foundation governance model [00:45:03] - Goal: trusted WordPress supply chain [00:45:55] - FAIR roadmap: ecosystem and policies [00:47:56] - Defining moment for the coming decades [00:49:38] - Follow-up and closing

    51 min
  6. The Fediverse and WordPress Should Be Better Friends

    10/27/2025

    The Fediverse and WordPress Should Be Better Friends

    Evan Prodromou is often called "The father of the Fediverse". It's amazing how much overlap there is between the aims of WordPress and Fediverse. These two communities should work together more! The Fediverse consists of independent social networking platforms including Mastodon (micro-blogging), PeerTube (videos), Pixelfed (images) and more.  Just like WordPress, most of the Fediverse runs on open source code. And just like WordPress, you get to create content that isn't swallowed by corporate algorithms. And you can build successful business or communities on your platforms that you own control. We talk with Evan about the origins and evolution of the Fediverse. Evan has played a key role in building several early Fediverse sites such as Wikitravel, Identi.ca, and StatusNet. He also helped to develop Activity Pub which the key protocol that enables Fediverse to talk to each other. Find out more about Evan: https://evanp.me.  00:00 The Birth of the Fediverse03:06 Evan's Journey in Open Source and Social Networking05:56 The Evolution of Protocols and Privacy08:55 Philosophical Underpinnings of Open Systems12:05 Meta's Threads and Its Impact on the Fediverse15:08 From Identica to Threads: A Historical Overview18:07 The Role of Standards in the Fediverse21:13 Commercial Interest in the Fediverse25:04 The Power of Newsletters and Social Feeds28:07 Hyperlocal Connections in the Fediverse30:03 Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Social Networks32:58 Building Community through Fediverse Instances38:12 Innovations and Future of the Fediverse42:12 Encouraging WordPress Community Engagement with the Fediverse

    49 min

  7. 10/20/2025

    The PressConf Story: How Raquel Manriquez Launched the Best WordPress Business Conference

    In this episode of the PublishPress Podcast, Raquel joins Dan and Steve to chat about bringing PressConf to life. PressConf is the spiritual successor to Pressnomics, a business-focused WordPress conference. Raquel tells the PressConf story and shares her lessons for other event organizers, including Dan who was part of the WordCamp Canada team. Raquel talks about what it’s really like to organize large events, the ups and downs along the way, and why community is at the heart of it all. We dive into the behind-the-scenes details: how sponsorships work, how to make speakers feel safe and supported, and why global representation matters so much. Raquel shares what made PressConf 2025 such a success and what’s next for her events. Check out PressConf 2026: https://pressconf.events Timestamps:  00:00 The Birth of PressConf 03:04 Organizing Large Events: Challenges and Strategies 06:07 The Unique Experience of PressConf 09:07 Sponsorship Dynamics in Smaller Conferences 12:02 Creating a Safe Space for Vulnerability 15:01 The Global Reach of PressConf 17:57 Reflections on the Success of PressConf 2025 29:11 Navigating Visa Challenges for Events 30:51 Funding Models for Conferences 34:51 Balancing Ticket Prices and Sponsorships 36:22 Understanding Event Costs 39:07 PressConf's Future and Expansion Plans 41:21 Attracting New Audiences and Diversity 45:31 The Future of PressConf and Open Source Events 49:38 The Role of the Host in Event Success 51:01 Building Trust in Event Organization 56:32 Looking Ahead to PressConf 2026

    1h 1m
  8. Green Street News: How A Major Real Estate Publisher is Thriving on WordPress

    10/13/2025

    Green Street News: How A Major Real Estate Publisher is Thriving on WordPress

    In this episode, I talk with Than Taintor from the Human Made agency and Zeshan Ahmed from Green Street News. Together they've been part of the project to revamp the Green Street News website.  Green Street News is a major real estate publisher. They're based out of the UK, but have recently been expanding to Europe, Australia, and North America. That's meant a lot of changes to their business and their WordPress platform. This project had significant challenges, including codebase over a decade old. There was also a large volume of content, with over 100,000 articles split across multiple regions. There were also membership and scaling challenges as the Green Street team sends several highly-popular newsletters multiple times every day. 00:00 Introduction to HumanMade and Green Street 03:23 The Evolution of the Green Street Codebase 06:41 Architectural Decisions for Regional Content Management 10:48 Scaling Challenges with High Traffic 14:42 Implementing the Block Editor for Content Creation 18:15 Transitioning to Digital: The Evolution of Green Street News 20:51 Membership Management: Navigating Complex Systems 24:00 Modernizing Legacy Systems: The Ship of Theseus 27:20 AI in Action: Auto-Tagging Content 32:37 Expanding Horizons: Future Growth Plans 35:52 Data Privacy: Safeguarding Sensitive Information 38:01 Recommendations: Influential Voices in Publishing

    39 min
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About

We talk with people interested in WordPress publishing. You'll hear interview with publishers who happen to be using WordPress, and also people in the WordPress space.

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    PublishPress
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    © 2025 PublishPress
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