WPwatercooler - Weekly WordPress Talk Show WPwatercooler Network

On this episode, we’re celebrating WordPress’s 20th birthday sharing some stories of the past and what were expecting from the future of the software and community that were quite fond of.
Show Notes
Panel Jason Cosper Jason Tucker Sé Reed

On this episode hosts Jason Tucker and Sé Reed will be joined by Guildenberg founder Jonathan Wold and Courtney Robertson Open Source Developer Advocate at GoDaddy to discuss the intersection of corporate influence and community in the world of WordPress. For 20 years, WordPress has been shaped by a vibrant, open-source community of volunteers. But is the ever-increasing pressure of venture capital and the corporate boardroom putting the unique makeup of the WordPress community at risk? We’ll explore the tension between corporate interests and community-driven development, and examine the impact of corporate influence on WordPress’ future.
Show Notes
Links 20 Days to Celebrate 20 Years of WordPress, From Blogs to Blocks A Newcomer’s Guide to WordCamps Andrea Middleton: Will What Got Us Here, Get Us There? WordPress Community at Scale Five for the Future GitHub – WordPress / five-for-the-future Panel Jason Cosper Jonathan Wold Sé Reed

This week on the show we’ll be discussing twenty years of WordPress.
WordPress 20 WordPress Mercantile WordPress 15 Join the Marketing Team TRAC #6938 Whats your favorite WordPress moment?

This week on WPwatercooler, join your hosts Jason Tucker, Sé Reed, and Jason Cosper for a captivating conversation exploring the dynamic world of AI in the realm of WordPress. Together, they’ll discuss how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing various aspects of WordPress, from streamlining code development to enhancing content creation with smart algorithms. They’ll share their insights and experiences, and highlight the latest AI tools reshaping the way we interact with and manage our WordPress sites.

This week on WPwatercooler Sé Reed and Jason Cosper will be talking with Jonathan Wold about some of the economic and development problems facing plugin-based businesses in the WordPress ecosystem, and his new plan to help. https://guildenberg.com
Summary In EP451 of WPwatercooler, titled “Accelerating WordPress w/ Jonathan Wold,” hosts Sé Reed, Jason Cosper and Jonathan Wold dive deep into the WordPress ecosystem, its growth, and its integral role within the open web. They highlight the importance of the open-source nature of WordPress, its extensibility through plugins and themes, and the vibrant community that has formed over the past two decades. Reed and Wold emphasize the unique incentives present in open-source projects, which foster passion and diverse contributions, in contrast to proprietary platforms.
The hosts explore the role of commercial plugins and businesses in addressing gaps in the WordPress ecosystem, citing the significance of tools like Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) and Pods for website development. They also discuss the resilience of the WordPress community in the face of competition from proprietary platforms and assert that the project’s real strength lies in its global contributors’ collective efforts.
Wold shares his vision of WordPress as an operating system and notes the importance of product companies in driving its growth. He identifies three main challenges faced by these companies: monetization, compatibility, and an unnamed third challenge. Wold also highlights the need for a healthy, resilient web with pockets of development worldwide, exploring the differences between centralized and decentralized communities.
The podcast delves into the issues within the WordPress ecosystem, including its complexity, hosting companies’ reluctance to recommend specific plugins, and challenges for investors due to its decentralized nature. Wold introduces Guildenberg, an organization aiming to help product companies overcome these challenges by offering neutral support in the WordPress ecosystem. Guildenberg will initially operate as an accelerator, working with individual products and assisting with distribution, partnerships, and hosting company relations.
Guildenberg’s ultimate goal is to foster long-term thinking and support founders’ best interests, including when they’re ready for an exit. The organization aims to help founders find non-hosting company buyers and may even consider acquiring some companies themselves. Wold emphasizes the importance of backing founders and preserving the overall health of the WordPress ecosystem.

Join us for an exciting episode of WPwatercooler, where Jason Tucker, Sé Reed, Jason Cosper, and special guest Lesley Sim dive into the highly anticipated WordPress Phase 3: Collaboration. Building upon the success of previous phases which introduced block editing and extended it across entire websites, Phase 3 aims to revolutionize the way creators and teams work together within WordPress.
We’ll discuss a variety of features designed to enhance the user experience and foster seamless collaboration. Our conversation will cover real-time and asynchronous collaboration, improving publishing flows, refining the post revisions interface, and polishing admin design. Additionally, we’ll delve into the introduction of a global search and command component that aims to streamline content management.
Don’t miss this episode as we explore the next stage in the evolution of the Gutenberg project, and learn how WordPress Phase 3 will transform content creation and teamwork within the platform.
Links Phase 3: Collaboration
What is WordPress?

 

Panel Jason Cosper   Jason Tucker   Lesley Sim   Sé Reed