Discussion

WordPress.com and Jetpack should lead the way toward standardizing custom post types

By Brian Krogsgard on July 23, 2014

Two themes were released in the last few days by a couple of theme shops I hugely respect: Bailey by The Theme Foundry (above) and Designer by Array (below). Both themes are for portfolio websites, and both themes use a custom post type for the portfolio. What’s interesting, is that both themes are offering support for a common portfolio custom post type: the one on WordPress.com and the one coming soon to Jetpack 3.1. For years we’ve been talking about […]

Who is buying commercial WordPress themes?

By Brian Krogsgard on June 18, 2014

To say the theme marketplace is undergoing a transition is probably an understatement. We’ve seen many shops sell or change focus over the past year. A few have maintained their place in the market or even grown some, but it’s not easy work. One theme shop that’s seen steady growth since launch is Theme Furnace. They’ve learned some lessons along the way though. Oli Dale runs Theme Furnace, as well as the WP Lift blog (where he keeps a keen eye on the […]

Impressions from a Drupal professional new to WordPress →

Josh Koenig is a co-founder of Pantheon, the Drupal hosting platform turned Drupal and WordPress hosting platform. I interviewed Josh when they launched their WordPress product in March, and also wrote about their Series B financing round of $21.5 million.

In a recent post on the Pantheon blog, Josh — a ten year veteran of the Drupal community — talked about his experience getting to know the WordPress community so far. He’s interacted with a number of developers and agencies since they launched their product, and spent a few days down at WordCamp Miami.

His takeaways are enlightening. He talked about a number of WordPress myths that float in the Drupal community that were pretty easily busted in his mind, but he also talked about some of the things he believes we in the WordPress world should watch out for.

In particular, I appreciated his thoughts about what he calls the WordPress Island.

There are a lot of people who want to solve all the problems of WordPress with WordPress. While an inevitable part of tooling up as a framework is testing the boundaries of what you can do, I’ve seen this lead to some problems in the Drupal project.

You want to push the limits of your project, but you also want to use the best tools available, and to keep up with what the rest of the internet is doing. There’s a concerted effort now in Drupal to “get off the island” and form more alliances with other projects. I wonder if the same will some day be necessary in WordPress.

I certainly know that I live on a WordPress Island. I read news about other technologies and platforms, but I’ve concentrated so much on specializing with WordPress, that perhaps I’ve got a bit too strong of tunnel vision for the project. Fortunately, given the current landscape, that’s been just fine for my career; but I think his perspective from the Drupal community serves as a great reminder that I should open up my peripheral vision.

A phrase or two in this post made me flinch, but overall I thought it was an incredibly fair take from a self-titled Drupal “believer”. It’s worth a read, and some self-analysis by those of us that are solidly in the WordPress “believer” camp.

h/t WP Shout

BackupBuddy Gold and unlimited updates

By Travis Northcutt on April 30, 2014

This week, the iThemes launched “BackupBuddy Gold” – a new pricing tier for their BackupBuddy plugin. They already had a $150 tier, which included a license to use the plugin on unlimited sites, as well as support and updates for one year. The only difference with the Gold tier (currently priced at $297) is that it includes lifetime updates. By now, many people in the WordPress community have become wary of anything with the words “unlimited” or “lifetime” in the title, for good […]

The power of WordPress.org on freemium products

By Brian Krogsgard on April 23, 2014

There’s a ton of discussion going on around the WordPress.org theme review incentive program right now. The incentive program was structured around a concept of rewarding reviewers for their work by allowing them to choose which themes get featured on the WordPress theme showcase, based on how many themes they review and approve in a given month. As you may expect, the program has had some issues, mostly because it essentially encourages pay-for-play. Review themes? You can feature your own. With the […]

WordPress 3.9 roundtable with core contributors

By Brian Krogsgard on April 17, 2014

I was privileged to be joined by six core contributors to WordPress 3.9 for a Google Hangout where we talked about the new release, contributing to WordPress, and more. To learn more about WordPress 3.9, check out our summary. You can watch the full video right here: I was joined by an all-star cast. Of course, keep in mind, these six people are amazing, but a whopping 267 people made WordPress 3.9 happen. That said, here was our panel:

The Church of WordPress →

Mike Jordan wrote an excellent post on the future of the WordPress community.

The natural evolution of community is exclusivity. The WordPress community is still so young, that this has not yet become a problem- but it is a looming threat.

[...]

Now that we are becoming established and pioneering a very plausible economy, we can afford to start being elite.

Danger, Will Robinson.

Mike’s post is an excellent call to all of us to remember our collective origins, and to work hard to ensure our community doesn’t grow in a way that shuns newcomers.

h/t Brian Richards

Building a non-blog website with WordPress is not a hack →

Noted speaker and podcaster Sarah Parmenter noted on a recent episode of “Happy Monday” that building anything other than a blog in WordPress is something of a “hack.” In her response post, Tracy Rotton argues that it isn’t:

The fact that WordPress started its existence as a blogging platform and grown into something more is not a hack. It’s the result of thousands of hours put in by hard-working, dedicated and passionate people.

Recommendations for improving WordPress comments

By Brian Krogsgard on March 4, 2014

There are a number of things that concern me in regard to WordPress comments. They are one of those features that I have a love hate relationship with. Comments are great for active, well moderated communities. I genuinely enjoy receiving comments from Post Status readers, where people often add value to the conversation. For many websites, comments can be a sad and inactive wasteland or a trollfest. For most business and corporate websites I’ve worked on, comments are not wanted at […]

The hate and vitriol of WordPress →

Tom McFarlin posted a great article today on the “hate and vitriol of WordPress.”

Straight up, people despise WordPress, its codebase, the fact that people not only work on it, but also write about it, build for it, and make any argument for using it outside of its primarily use case of being a blog and/or a content management system.

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