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For long-form interviews, news, and commentary about the WordPress ecosystem. This is the companion show to The WP Minute, your favorite 5-minutes of WordPress news every week.
Matt: Brian Kortz, welcome
back to the WP Minute.
Brian: Thank you for having me.
Matt: It's going to be the longest or
shortest video we've ever recorded.
Podcast.
Brian: Hopefully shortest
because it's a, it's a busy day.
I'm being punished for taking Monday
off by just constant scheduled meetings.
I don't know if that happens to you.
Matt: I had pneumonia for a week, and uh,
I can, like, today's the first day that I
can, like, actually breathe a little bit
better, so I've had to push all my content
creation from last week to this week,
so it's been, it's been pretty tight.
Brian: Yeah.
Well, you, you did miss a release,
you know, a big WordPress release,
Matt: I was watching our last
video that you and I did.
Uh, I'm already forgetting
what the topic was.
Brian: the tech.
Matt: Oh yeah.
The tech crunch one, the tech crunch one.
And I, there was a, there
was a visual discernible.
Like when I said, Hey Brian,
welcome back to the show.
You look down and you're like,
Oh, thanks for having me.
I think you knew mentally we were about
to get into, uh, with the content.
Hopefully today's a little bit better.
We're going to talk about 6.
7, WordPress 6.
7 was released.
Um, I started to play around
with 2025 this morning.
Well, I started playing with
it when it was first announced.
And started to play
with the final version.
I got some thoughts on that today.
I haven't got a chance
to get to block bindings.
This episode that we're recording
right now is going to be about
a two week ish lag from when
we record to when we publish.
So things might change when you're
listening to this right now.
It doesn't mean we're wrong.
It just, man, maybe things change,
uh, over the course of that time.
But, uh, we're going to
share our thoughts on 6.
7.
Maybe we'll dive into a little
bit of, uh, some AI stuff.
I've been addicted coding with cursor
Brian: Okay.
Matt: Well, we can talk about it.
We can talk
uh, as we progress.
So let's start with six, seven.
Um, not a, I mean, it's a lot of
people like saying they're excited,
but I didn't see it as like a major
release, but I say that a lot.
I feel, and it's like the iterations of
iPhones where I go, eh, not that big.
But when you look back from, you know,
three years ago, it is a big jump.
It's just not big in that iterative jump.
I see it as not a big, big deal.
What do you think?
Brian: Well, I think, yeah, I mean,
I think there's not like a standout
feature that you can get excited
about that like font, like the font
Google font installer was like a few
releases ago that got people excited.
Like when you have some kind
of big, exciting, shiny thing.
You know, that's usually the thing there.
I feel like this whole year and especially
this one is a lot of like under the hood.
Like these are going to lead to great
things just in a few more releases.
It's a lot of.
APIs, a lot of under the hood stuff,
a lot of like cleanup, a lot of, uh,
getting all the blocks to kind of
match, you know, and, and get all the
little settings on, you know, all the
design settings on all the blocks to
kind of match each other and stuff.
So like nothing big and exciting, um,
except for the default theme, I guess, you
know, this is that default theme release.
So, but yeah, I, not a lot
to like dive into maybe.
Matt: Now, I saw a demo video, which has
been getting high praise, uh, produced,
uh, I assume by, uh, Jamie Marsland in the
back end and, uh, starring Richard Tabor,
uh, who you and I shared a, uh, a few
beverages with at WordCamp US, uh, I saw
him actually like clicking and assigning a
custom field into, uh, a blocker pattern.
So that UI.
Is there for, for the block bindings
and the custom fields, or am I
mixing up the technology terms here?
Brian: Yeah, no, that's, that's it.
So yeah, the block bindings is
basically like, can I take a block
like a paragraph and can the content
of that block come from somewhere else?
So could I take a button, but the link
in that button, could it pull from,
you know, the permalink of the article
or a custom field that I've added?
So it's about.
Like connecting other
data into your blocks.
And so that part is really exciting.
And the, what they released this
time is you can actually like see
it in the sidebar and you can pick,
okay, I want the URL of my button to
pull from here and stuff like that.
The only downside is you have to
actually have custom fields to pull from.
And that's not something you can do
in WordPress without writing code.
So.
You can't go to playground
as far as I can tell.
I don't think you can go to playground
and just try it because you kind
of have to have custom fields.
So it's, it's, it's, it's a feature
that's going to get us somewhere.
It's a feature that developers I think are
going to be a little more excited about.
It's probably not a feature that
90 percent of WordPress users
are, are, are going to use.
Matt: It's almost like you are watching
my screen because that's exactly
what I'm doing while you're talking.
I booted up
Brian: Do you try?
Matt: which is my favorite place
to, uh, if you don't know, dear
listener or viewer, playground.
wordpress.
net, a great way to spin up
WordPress, um, to play, uh, use
it for free in your browser.
Without installing it anywhere else.
Uh, so yeah, I was trying to do that.
Can't do it.
Don't know how to do it.
But like you said, you probably have
to have some custom fields activated
and installed and, um, you know, to,
registered so that it actually pulls
from, uh, otherwise I don't know how
to, I don't know how to pull it up.
Brian: Yeah.
And if you use ACF or SCF as it is
also called, um, the advanced custom
fields plugin, it's not fully integrated
with that yet because advanced custom
fields are advanced and they're
not really quite one to one with.
So I think you'll see ACF probably is
working on, you know, getting that.
And I think that's where
most people are familiar with
registering their custom fields.
Um, there is talk about in a few
years, getting to a place where
you can make custom post types and
custom fields in WordPress core.
So, I mean, I think.
Like, so it's like foundational.
It's going to get somewhere.
Developers are going to
get excited about it.
But, um, I was even just talking to
somebody, a contributor, and it was
kind of like cool, but like not yet
ready to be functionally used, but,
uh, you know, you see potential.
Matt: There is one feature that was
added that I, I am really excited
about, which I literally just learned
about 30 minutes before we started
recording, uh, from somebody I think
you know, Jessica Lischick, Lischick?
Is that how you say her last name?
she introduced a feature inside
of the preferences window.
Panel.
So if you're in the site editor
or WordPress editor or page post
editor, and you go to preferences,
uh, under the general screen, there's
a little toggle to show patterns.
I can toggle that on or off.
So every time you create a
Brian: To
Matt: things pops up and I'm
like, just get it out of my
way, man, I don't need it.
Uh, we can now disable it and do it except
for the fact, I learned today, uh, that
20, today, I learned yesterday that 2025.
need that turned on in order
to slap the, uh, business
template on, which, which blows my
mind because it's a huge departure
from 2024 where 20, 24 had that air
quotes, business template loaded in
templates, and you would, uh, assign
it, uh, by creating a blank page
and then selecting that template
or just actually loaded by default.
So when you pulled up a fresh install
of WordPress, ah, there's my homepage.
It's It's a placeholder content,
might not be what I exactly want,
but at least as the end user, you
knew this is a starting point.
This is where you can go with this thing.
Um, but that's gone in 2025,
which was weird for me.
Brian: it's a weird philosophical choice
this time that 2025 loads so blank.
Um, it's, it, it reminds me of 2023,
which was the really stark black and
white one with like the neon green button.
But this one is even
less placeholder content.
And I guess in a sense,
that's maybe useful in certain
situations, but I loved 2024.
I felt like all that
placeholder content really.
Made you feel optimistic that
you could build something
really cool for your homepage.
And now we're back to WordPress
as a blog and here's your single
posts with the picture of a boat
or whatever it's going to be.
And it's not, it's, I don't know.
It's not, it's not as exciting.
I don't know why.
Matt: I was chatting about this
with, uh, Frank Klein on Twitter.
Do people still use Twitter?
Uh, and Mike McAllister jumped in and he
said, debatably, 2024 is little trick of
putting the homepage design on the blog
homepage template broke a longstanding
quote, no content in templates guideline.
It's a bandaid for a much bigger issue.
I'm not against it per se, but
it sets a bad example for many
folks, uh, who now do this.
Um, Frank also came back and mentioned,
uh, it could be easy as WordPress
a homepage dot HTML template.
So front page covers, both cases home
covers, the blog homepage covers.
The page on front, uh, up for
changing the name, but the,
the idea makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
It's from the end user experience.
I think, um, the, just the hello world
single blog post has always been something
that has stumped end users since I
was making themes back in 2007, they
were just like, what the heck is this?
Where's the homepage?
Brian: It's a, there are
perennial issues that WordPress
people like to complain about.
Onboarding is one of them and defaulting
to posts over pages is one of them.
And, uh, you know, it, this one kind of
falls back on it, but to go back to what
you were saying about the, the pop up
where you get to pick your page pattern.
Um, When you start a new page and
it shows you here's some default
patterns, that feature, when it came
out, went from everyone loved it to
living with it for about 48 hours
and everybody suddenly hated it.
It was like.
So cool.
I can't believe this is great.
Immediately just could not
get rid of it fast enough.
Um, so I feel like they need to take
the extra step and make you opt into
turning it on or make theme developers
have to turn it on or something because,
uh, because that one isn't as good.
Uh, it's, it's, it's,
it's a weird workflow.
Matt: Here's what I don't understand.
Um, and maybe it's just
because a weird thing.
I haven't noticed yet in WordPress.
I'm actively searching for it right now.
First of all, what, what do we call those?
Do we call those templates or
are they patterned templates?
Brian: They're technically patterns.
They're patterns where you can.
There's a thing you can put in your
pattern file if you save your patterns
as like PHP files that says, you
know, show in this for this post type.
Matt: Okay.
So there's that, but they're not
accessible anywhere else, but in that
modal, like I can't see those designs.
Like I can't go into the site
editor, which you would assume
you would do, because that's what
I did when I first installed it.
I've been, I've been watching the design
development of 2025 through the Figma.
Link project that, you know,
they actively develop on.
I've been watching those
things are pretty cool.
These are nice.
of these things are nice.
So I was just in my brain going,
okay, I'm going to make my 2025 video.
I'm going to pull up the templates.
templates.
I'm going to apply this time.
I would teach people how to use it.
Uh, then it didn't exist in
the traditional templates.
Direct view directory.
I don't even know what called the screen.
Uh, but now you can't even get to them.
It's not like they're
compiled anywhere to go.
Oh, I want that.
Let me click it and add it to my page.
It has to come from that modal, uh,
where feature themes to contrast.
This is like a cadence.
If I click on the cadence library, I
can see all those patterns and I can
click on, yeah, this is the pattern.
This is the collection I want.
Boom.
Insert it into the page.
There's no other way to activate this.
If you.
you're not loading the
page for the first time,
Brian: No, no, you can find them.
So if you're on a page, you go to add,
like, you're going to add a block and
then you jump over to the patterns
tab where you can see all the patterns
and it shows the, you'll get that nice
zoom out view activated, which we can
talk about then under there, there's
something called, there's all the
categories and there is one called pages.
And I see some of them in there.
I see a business homepage,
a coming soon page.
So
Matt: got
Brian: they're, they're in there
Matt: yes.
It's pages.
I was, as I did not see that.
Um,
Brian: because they're,
they're basically, they're not,
they're not technically templates.
They're starter patterns, like they're
patterns to start you off on a page,
but they're not templates like.
Matt: Got it.
Yeah.
So that makes sense.
Um, design wise, this is what I
said in my video and I'll link up.
Uh, my video on YouTube
that I did earlier today.
It's a nice theme, I, I
have no problems with it.
It's not particularly a starting
point, I think, for most businesses.
is subjective, of course.
but I see this design and I think
photography, Art, you know, digital media.
If you're doing like video and like
production and stuff like that, like
that's where I say, or just blog, like
you just want a nice clean looking blog.
I think it's good for that, but like,
if I'm going to stamp this as a, kind
of WordPress theme is this I'm going
photography, art, digital media.
That's how I see this.
What's your
Brian: I would say like a magazine
is like, it's like a magazine theme.
Like it looks like a fashion or
art blog or something like that.
It's so it's a little more opinionated
in that sense, you know, than 2023,
which really did feel like, I don't
know, just generic in a good way.
Like generic in a, it could
be a small business site.
It could be something like that.
Um, The other thing I was actually
thinking, I just talked to, I think you
mentioned Mike Kallister who has Holly WP.
I don't know if you've used
his, but his theme is protein.
Like has a way where when you're in
a page, you go like, you're going
to add a block, but you can actually
add his pattern library and it opens
this pattern library and it's like.
Categorized and very visual.
And you can see everything
at different screen sizes.
And it's, you know, do
you want a full page?
Do you want all this stuff?
And it's, I really hope that one day
they'll look at what is happening in
places like that and see, Oh, wow.
Patterns are maybe need
a little more attention.
Like people really more easier way
to get to these patterns, to see
patterns, to see full page patterns.
Cause yeah, a lot of this stuff,
it's like, it's there, but
it's kind of, kind of hidden.
It's kind of hard to find.
Matt: yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
Um, I've haven't used all in a while.
I obviously looked at it
when it first came out.
Um, though I do, I do if I ever have
time want to redo the WP minute.
Um, Just for the sake of just trying
something new really, uh, is nothing
really wrong with my cadence theme.
It's not the best looking thing, but
I'm not a designer, nor do I have time.
And all he is on the top of my list,
um, to maybe check out, uh, that, and I
know generate press it's coming out with
some of their new, um, functionality.
Uh, I don't know about their themes, uh,
but, uh, yeah, all he would definitely
be on the top of my charts for.
A big media site.
Here's the issue.
This is not against you,
but you mentioned it.
Uh, Magazine theme.
And, and I actually
Brian: Yes.
So, uh, Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, All right.
Um, Okay.
Let's take a break.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh,
Matt: sponsorship packages.
I have memberships that people can sign up
for, uh, maybe get into courses in 2025.
Um, like, I require a lot from my theme,
which is largely why I'm just like, it's
hamstrung and I don't do anything with it.
Uh, but like a media site, a magazine
site, it's always just one thing.
It's like, here's the homepage.
This homepage looks like a magazine,
therefore it's a magazine theme.
But I think the business of.
magazine or a digital thing requires
so much more, designed and styled
for somebody like me to use it.
And I would pay.
400 for a theme,
10, whatever that is, 10, eight times what
the average single site license costs,
um, to, to have a complete theme with all
the business things I need probably pipe
dream, but, um, From a media perspective,
I think, and maybe everyone, like, I
think everyone needs a newsletter page.
I think anyone who's doing anything
online, trying to make a difference,
uh, and get their brand out there,
they're going to have YouTube channel,
they're going to have all this stuff
and it's going to go beyond these
theme companies need to go beyond
like designing that homepage and
say, that's the, that's what makes
this, that's what defines this theme.
Like, I think we're going
to need more in the future,
Brian: Yeah, it's funny because that's
what I was just talking about with Mike,
which is this idea that patterns really
are going to be like the new currency
of WordPress sites and WordPress themes
because, um, You know, even if you go
off and pay for something, like you
said, there's so many things you like.
I need a pricing table.
I need a, uh, landing page.
I need a splash page for
a coming soon section.
I need a newsletter signup.
I need all these.
Different things.
I need to compare services.
I need checklists and feature comparisons.
Like there's a lot of really common
things that people put on websites.
And this one is very much, you know,
a magazine theme is very much for.
Publishing content, but not for.
Business e commerce selling things and,
uh, you know, and especially if, if we're
going to lean into block themes, uh, there
needs to be, yeah, just maybe a better
approach to getting some of these in there
because you can take patterns from other
themes and stuff, but it's not super easy.
So maybe, you know, what if instead of
another core theme, they just Released
a whole set of business patterns, 2025
business pattern pack or something.
It's a plugin and it comes installed and
you can turn it off if you don't want
the patterns or something like that.
You know, things they could do
without redesigning re theming,
just give me the patterns and the
way WordPress works now, they'll,
they'll fit into my theme pretty well.
Like they'll look pretty good.
I don't actually need a whole new theme.
Matt: You know, it brings up the,
um, that age old debate of like,
do we need a new theme every year?
Uh, that was on my mind with 2025.
had a couple of comments.
I think maybe you and I talked about
this on another live stream or a podcast.
had a couple of questions come in on
YouTube and folks were like, Oh, do
I need to upgrade from 2024 to 2025?
Uh, and I think you and I chatted
a little bit about it in a DM.
I know that and then I started
to test it myself and my God,
it's, it's just not even possible.
Right.
So like, you know, in my, from the end
user perspective, I hear things like,
Oh, you can just copy paste patterns
from one WordPress site to the next.
Um, but sorely, like
it just does not work.
Work that seamlessly.
I ran a couple of demos, uh, locally
to just see what would happen if I
upgraded from 2024 to 2025 or copy
pasted patterns content from my 20.
It's just, it's not even happening.
It's not happening.
Don't even try it.
Uh, you know, at the end
of the day, and I wonder.
How many people actually think about
that when they see like the layman
person who's using WordPress looks at the
new update and they go, Oh, it's 2025.
Like, do they have to upgrade
in the back of their head?
Are they thinking they have to upgrade?
And if they do, are they just
like blowing their site up?
Um, because of that, I, you know,
I don't have the answer, but it's
just something I think about when
I see these new themes roll out.
Brian: Yeah.
And if there's like a push to be more,
they call it composable, where your
fonts are here, your colors are here,
your patterns are here, your templates
are here, and you can mix and match.
Like we're not there yet.
You should never change your theme unless
you are ready for like a weekend of work.
Like it's not a simple task.
Um, but yeah, that's why I think like.
I don't know that we need, I'm, I'm on
the team, like no more default themes
or figure out a way to break these
things apart a little bit more so
that I can get, I almost don't really
need a new design, but I would love
new types of content, new, different
things like that to, to bring it in,
but no, don't definitely don't change
your theme unless you, uh, want to lose
everything, but you can, um, go to a.
2024 site and copy paste patterns,
or you can go to the pattern browser.
You can, you can kind of move
stuff around, but you're not,
you're not going to get all the
same bells and whistles and stuff.
So it doesn't, it's not a perfect process.
That's what I'll say.
Matt: Yeah, uh, I'm
looking at the Figma file.
I'm just going to slow down just for
a second because I think we might be
dipping in and out of, uh, internet
connection in this descript rooms beta.
So I'll just give it a
second here to, uh, catch up.
Um, I'm looking at the Figma
project for 2025 and I'm seeing
these and this is what really got
me, uh, Thinking about liking 2025.
So I know if you're just
listening, you can't see this.
I'm not sharing it on video either,
but, um, there's a complex news blog
template section in the 2025 Figma file.
It was awesome.
Like this layout is what I was
thinking for, Like perfect for
a layout for the WP minute.
Like I was like, okay, I could, I could
get behind this kind of layout, but I
don't see this blog layout anywhere.
Um, not in that pages pattern
and certainly not in templates.
So I'm just curious if they maybe
left some of these behind there's
a label, uh, in the project Figma
project that says ready for dev.
I don't know if it's actually gonna get.
Developed, um, but they have personal
blog, which also says ready for dev.
So something tells me none of this
other stuff's getting developed, photo
blog and personal blog alternative.
But yeah, it's just weird that this one
just felt like maybe it just didn't get
everything it needed to get out the door.
Or just a bare minimum, I should say.
Brian: I know there was a lot
of call for support to build it.
So I, I don't know if they didn't finish
it or what, like you said, it's just in
some, it's just an interesting theme.
It's, It's, uh, you, I didn't even
know about the thing where you.
You can switch out the template of your
blog with that sidebar kind of drawer
that opens up and it says design.
I don't, you know, the sidebar,
it's like your header, your footer.
And then there's like this accordion
with all these other templates in there.
I had never seen that before.
Matt: Right.
Brian: I learned that from you on Twitter.
Matt: Yep.
Brian: some of them are in there.
Matt: laugh, like you learn
something from me, Brian.
That's just, that's just not nice.
Uh, yeah.
I mean, there's always some,
some sort of surprise, uh, you
of this stuff, uh, zoom out is nice.
Uh, we talked about that for a second.
Zoom out's nice.
Um, on from 2025, anything else?
Interesting to you from for six seven.
Brian: Um, well, no, I mean, you
can upload photos from your iPhone.
I actually really liked that one.
don't know.
Do you use ever like.
WordPress on your phone or no?
Matt: I don't can't say I do.
Brian: Yeah, no.
Well, you can do that.
Um, no, it's, it's really a
lot of under the hood stuff.
There's really not like.
An exciting showcase thing, but I, you
know, there's some cool stuff that I
think will one day lead to something cool.
Matt: Yes for sure for sure
wordpress at six point seven.
That's that in a bag again.
You're probably listening to this a week
and a half ish From when it launched
so maybe some cool things happen since
hopefully we're not regretting this like
we have other pieces of content We've
published But let's talk Quick here about,
um, um, I've been using it recently uh,
something called cursor, uh, which I guess
is, uh, forked from VS code and, um, how
I was learning how to build these things,
uh, which you'll hear in another episode
with Mark Szymanski and I talk about,
but I was just throwing things at Claude.
in the web browser of Claude and just
like smashing my head against it.
Like, yeah, build this thing, do
this, this doesn't work, try it again.
I was just burning through
credits and I just felt like I
didn't know what I was doing.
I still don't, uh, but then I found
Cursor and it would allow me to do
the prompts to Claude through Cursor
without eating up my pro account.
Um, tokens.
And, uh, the beauty of all of this is
it brings me back to like when I first
started unlocking some of the magic
with custom post types and gravity
forms and WordPress and custom fields.
I'm like, Oh, shit, I can
build these cool things now.
And I'm having that same feeling
like building with cursor.
Um, again, I don't know what the code
is doing, but I'm learning a lot.
Like I'm learning API
endpoints, passing data.
Um, I'm learning a little
bit more about JavaScript.
Uh, you know, I'm learning about new
environments, uh, new coding, like
frameworks, front end frameworks,
like Svelte, uh, you know, using cloud
flare, like I'm in this whole, like
absorption mode of learning again.
And it feels kind of fun, but then it
also makes me appreciate everything
that's baked into WordPress.
As like a complete application.
Like, holy crap.
Uh, you know, there is a lot here.
Um, while I'm just like making one
massive file to make up an entire app.
Um, it's a, it's a, it's a weird, it's
a, it's an interesting time, uh, to be
the kind of like learning this stuff
and being able to have this, this power.
Um, you know, I don't know where
to lead me, but it's been fun.
Brian: I think that I, it's funny
cause I'm, I'm doing the exact
opposite thing, but I think we
should talk about this first.
And it's, I like, I really do think that
these AI tools, when it comes to like
coding, I think, first of all, coding
is the perfect thing for AI because it's
their language models that are pretty
different language, but they're But
they're machines and coding is like a
language written for machines and it's.
The best so far, what I've seen, the
best thing that AI can do is write code
and then explain it to you and teach
it to you, um, while you're writing it.
And so, you know, I think, I don't
think people should be, if you're
really into coding and that's
where you make your money, I don't
think you need to be worried.
I don't think Matt Madaris is going
to AI his way to replacing you, but
instead I do think you'll probably.
Matt: Brian.
Brian: Well, I mean, if you learn
all this stuff, then you learn it.
And that's the same, you know, whether
you learn it from a AI or not, uh,
that's, that that's irrelevant.
Um, but I do think like people's
ability to have an idea and have
that idea exist in the world.
Is going to be a lot faster.
I even had a call recently with a
person who hired a bunch of developers
to build a thing, the kind of
work that we used to do for years.
And then talked through it and was
kind of like, I think I could just
do this with a spreadsheet and AI and
not do, you know, not hire a bunch of
developers to, you know, take six months
and build me this complicated thing.
And then if it works and I make
a bunch of money, then I'll go
get the developers and they'll
turn it into the nicer thing.
But like idea to.
MVP, I think like that gap is like
going way down with these tools.
Matt: It also has me thinking, and
this is the scary part, and this is
where we could get in trouble again,
but that's what you and I like to do.
Um, you know, amidst all this stuff
in the WordPress community, it really
has me worried about, like, the
impact of the situation that we're in.
In other words, like,
yeah, we love WordPress.
I think a lot of us love the idea of
like open source and and being sort
of, uh, the north star for that, right?
Well, you know, hey, you
should use WordPress.
It's open source.
It's good.
It's good.
Uh, it's good to use open source.
It's good to spread that.
Um, and you know, you should vote, you
know, with the complexities of WordPress
and the challenges it has, you should
also vote because it is open source
and you control it, yada, yada, yada.
Um, but this stuff.
really gonna take away that excuse, um,
or that hurdle, where people are like,
you know what, I hear what you're saying
over there, I hear that you want me to
use WordPress, glad it's open source,
but I'm just gonna whip together this
thing with AI, you know, and I'm just
gonna, I'm gonna connect up to a Google
spreadsheet, and I'm just gonna, yeah,
I'm just gonna string along a couple
of proprietary sources, uh, to put this
thing together, I'm sorry, but at the end
of the day, I just need this thing done
like I don't need to wrestle with it just
because you want me to have this thing
that, uh, is is good for, uh, you know,
uh, for for the open source world, right?
And for humanity.
I don't know how we're going
to wrestle with that packaging.
Of that message, you know, moving forward.
Technically you can make arguments,
but I think from the layperson who has
this, this power in front of him, is
gonna be like, yeah, you know what?
I don't care if I have to pay five
bucks a month to Wix, and I just, I
make this AI script, and it shoots
off this database thing, and it stores
it in Wix, and it displays in Wix.
I can do it.
Uh, versus You know,
wrestling with WordPress.
No direct question there, but like, these
are the feelings I'm starting to see as
I get outside of the walls of WordPress.
And it only took me a week to
start to see like, oh shit, like,
this is what people are talking
about on this side of the fence.
Brian: I mean, I think two things.
One is I think, think about when like
Snapchat came out and it was like
the idea that you would post content
and it would delete after 24 hours.
And that was like this novel thing.
And now it's pretty common in social media
that you make content that disappears.
And I think.
This idea that everything you make
online has to be so permanent and
you want to own it is going to
just does feel like less and less.
You're like, no, I don't actually
don't really care if this is
going to be around in five years.
I just want to try to make something
and see what happens and see if I
could solve this immediate need and
make something cool and then move on.
And like, that is.
Solved by a lot of these tools.
And then I think the other thing
is if people hadn't watched it's
the word camp year, no Asia speech
from Noel talk, who talks all about
the future of WordPress and he
really harps on this idea that like.
What makes WordPress powerful is how
you integrate it with other things.
And we used to always have to
say, everything goes in WordPress.
I'm going to make my emails in here
and my customer database in here.
And I'm going to build everything
inside my WordPress site.
Whereas now what people
really want is integrations.
And they just like, I want a central
hub to connect this and this and this.
And if WordPress could still
be that, that would be amazing.
Cause it would be this
kind of piece you own.
That's at the heart of everything.
Um, but if it doesn't, then
yeah, I'm going to go pay.
20 bucks a month to like make.
com or something and kind of get
a database and everything else
that I needed from WordPress.
And it's going to have all the
integrations and it has a little AI
where I just say like, I want this to
do this and it'll just make it for me.
And yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's,
very different than I think the internet
expectations we all had 15 years ago.
Matt: WordPress as the operating system
of the web is what we were talking
about what we collective we mostly
Matt many years ago, and that was the
tagline that always stuck with me.
You know, bought, bought me into
this whole thing is like, yeah,
that sounds really interesting.
And again, this is like 15, 16, 17 years
ago when he was saying stuff like that.
And I was like, wow, I can really
see this really see WordPress as that
central hub to do all these things.
You know, and we're seeing it now,
like, um, yeah, whatever this big rush
to blue sky, uh, you know, whatever.
Whatever.
It's another social media thing, uh,
which is owned by the same guy who
started Twitter, um, and it's like,
when are humans going to learn, right?
Yeah, everything's great now, man.
Like, yeah, yeah, this algorithm's great.
There's no ads, there's nothing here.
Yeah.
there is,
know, and look what happened with Twitter.
Twitter wasn't like amazing,
um, before Elon got it.
Twitter wasn't, hadn't been
amazing since like the first
three years of its inception.
Um, you know, uh, so whatever, it's
just another social network, but it
also has me now going, fuck, and now
I have to watch and post over here.
I just want one place that
posts everywhere, uh, which is
literally, you know, people should
just be doing mastodon, right?
But people don't like it
because they're just like what?
Uh this technique technique techie geek
thing that I have to load up and there
is no algorithm to surface any content
There's nothing that drives me back to it
Uh, you know people will live and die by
this this engagement algorithm that all
these social media tools will eventually
have um, i'd love to be able to go to
wordpress and just be like Here's my post.
It saves it as a blog, and then it
also goes out to all the freaking
platforms and posts to all of them.
And that's it.
And it leads it right back.
And, and we're kind of getting
that with like the Macon add-on.
But I need it to go across all
social media sites and I need the
experience of on my phone to just
be, I don't wanna log in, admin
dashboard, see it, navigate, click.
I just wanna do it.
Post it, send it,
save the post, and let's move.
Brian: I mean, I think blue sky
did come from Twitter originally.
It was a program in Twitter that he spun
out right before they got taken over.
And he, and he, and, uh, you
know, what's his name, Dorsey
doesn't even own it anymore.
It's like, you know, and it's a
little independent, but it is almost
actually the same as a mastodon.
It's the same where.
It's open source.
You can see all the code for it.
Um, your, you can always export
all of your content and data.
Cause you have full access to your handle.
You can take your username with
you, which you can't do in Mastodon.
Um, and it's federated,
so you can make your own.
Little standalone blue sky
and connect it with that.
So it's, it's kind of the same thing and
it's got a lot of those same principles.
And then yes, of course it has taken
money from big companies and including
automatic and other big companies.
Um, but there are people working on.
Doing for WordPress, what they did for
Macedon, you know, but doing it for blue
sky, like getting, figuring that out.
I've seen people already do.
They can post from WordPress to
blue sky and the next one will
be, I think, comments and stuff.
So I feel like all we really want
is RSS and comments to work together
and not have social media at all.
Like we all want that
golden era to come back.
We want social networks to work the same
way email works where I just can sign up
wherever I want and you sign up wherever
you want and we communicate and it works
and I don't care that I'm on Google and
you're not, you know, that's all we want.
Matt: Yeah.
I mean, and again, I still see it as
could be, be that cornerstone RSS, uh,
all your data, one place, everybody
just subscribe to your RSS feed.
RSS must continue to win.
This is why I'm so, uh, about it,
especially when it comes to podcasting.
And people are like, Oh,
yeah, Spotify's gonna do it.
Spotify didn't do it.
Now everyone's like, Oh,
YouTube's gonna do it.
Well, watch what you wish, because
YouTube killed, or Google killed their
podcast player on all Android devices.
So do you think they actually care?
Uh, you know, about podcasting and RSS?
No.
They just want you to go right
into YouTube and feed that machine.
Um, RSS man is, is the way if
everyone had an RSS feed, like
everyone can have a domain, all
your information would be there.
You'd, you'd know how many
subscribers you would have.
You just post your information,
everybody would get it.
Uh, and the social sites just, you know,
destroy it, but I'm willing to try.
willing to try blue sky,
uh, kicking and screaming.
Brian: I mean, I, there's two reasons I've
really struggled with Mastodon and one is
the technology and the user experience.
And I've even tried the fancy apps
and I just, I don't know, it's hard.
I don't feel like I, it doesn't
feel as snappy as something like
Twitter, but I think the other thing
too, is they all start growing their
own culture based on when they got.
Big and popular.
And so I think there's a definite
culture that happened when Mastodon
really like hit that last stride
and it has a certain vibe to it.
And I think blue sky is
right now hitting that.
And I really hope it's not like just
a reactive political vibe, but it
actually is just like a, it needs
to be more than that because that's
kind of what Mastodon felt like.
And then it was like, well, if
we're all just here, because we're
against an idea and not here to.
Constructively, you know,
that's not as helpful.
So if you're going to try blue sky,
come in constructive and like, make
something that people are excited for.
Not just mad about something else.
Matt: hundred,
Brian: take.
Uh,
Matt: WordPress 6.7 2025 theme.
We can zoom out now.
It's fun, it's exciting.
ai, uh, social media sites.
What a grab bag, uh, today, Brian, what
are, what are you up to, uh, these days?
What are you working on?
What can you tell folks?
Remember, this is gonna go out
in about a week and a half,
Brian: hopefully by then I have a bunch of
interviews I've been doing with WordPress
developers, and we're talking about like
Gutenberg, full site editing, agency life.
Um, I've already been racking them up.
So hopefully by the time this comes out.
There will be one at least out or at
least scheduled and, and those will be on
YouTube like on a weekly semi weekly basis
Matt: uh, YouTube, uh, at, at Brian
Brian: records.
Yep.
Matt: Fantastic stuff.
Everybody else is the WP
minute, the WP minute.
com slash subscribes.
The number one way to stay connected.
We'll see you in the next episode.
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All right.