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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: Hey, Mike, welcome to the program.
Mike: Hi Matt, thanks for having me.
Matt: We're gonna talk about,
all things jetpack creator suite.
You're also the.
I said sweet.
I threw on the word sweet.
It's not sweet.
It's just Jetpack Creator.
I don't know why I threw on the word
sweet there, but Jetpack Creator
recently announced in a blog post.
I'll link that up in the
show notes on November 6th.
Take your content to the next
level with Jetpack Creator.
What's that all about?
We're going to talk about it.
You're also the co founder of, No BS
CRM, which was acquired by Automatic,
which was folded into the CRM
solution that Jetpack has in it today.
Mike: Yep, so it just became
the CRM solution of Jetpack.
So Jetpack didn't have a CRM
offering at the time, and we
wanted to fit it somewhere.
So, the original product name had a
swear name in, and a swear word in
even, and one of the conditions of
the acquisition was we don't have
swear names in automatic products.
So,
Matt: an automatic thing to do.
I mean, come on, let's keep it in there.
Mike: So it was, So, BS CRM, and
then we sort of Re branded it a
little bit to just ZBS because like
people could still understand like
the BS in it and then Decided to
either just re brand it under Jetpack
Matt: I know why you named it that,
because there's a lot of BS in CRM.
and, we can talk about that.
There's a lot of BS in In content
marketing in the creator space, right?
A lot of platforms out there.
Largely I'd say the fact that things
are so darn expensive when you
get into the, like, you know, the
enterprise space, which often dips
down to, to the average creator.
Perfect example would
be like HubSpot, right?
Where HubSpot is many, many
thousands or tens of thousands a
month for some brands out there.
they try to dip down
to the low end, right?
Where, hey, just spend a couple
hundred bucks for HubSpot.
And then you get in there and
not only was that expensive,
but there's so much stuff in it.
Do I need all this stuff?
And I assume, I never used your
product back in the day when
you first launched it, but I
assumed it was a more minimalistic
approach to CRM inside WordPress?
Mike: Yep, so that one started off on
the back of, so the co founder's dad
works in construction and he tried using
Salesforce at the time and it was just too
complicated and he just needed something
simple to send invoices to his, people
that he's putting roofs on houses to.
And so we just built something
very bare bones using custom post
types at the time to sort of get.
Easy to use for people that didn't
want to do a masters in CRM software.
And that was a similar theme that we had
across, like, we had a few testimonials
on the old YouTube channel of people
just saying it's really good to be able
to just use something integrated to my
website without needing to learn all of
this extra stuff and just pay a ton of,
like, money to, like, the big players.
Matt: I always wondered, the acquisition
of your product into Jetpack.
I always wondered, like,
why roll it into Jetpack?
Why not just leave it standalone?
It seemed like it could be
just a standalone product.
I mean, I know Jetpack has, like,
the modules these days and, or you
can modularize it and you can say,
I want this, I don't want that.
I always felt like it would have
been a great standalone product, just
like I feel video video press would
be an amazing standalone product
where I don't need anything else.
Even jetpack.
Just give it to me straight.
the video press.
I say the same thing for CRM.
What particular strategy?
I mean, I get it now.
I get the strategy, but what are
the, what are the thoughts of like
tying jetpack so closely to CRM?
Mike: So it's down to the
whole general strategy of the
individual plugins now in Jetpack.
So CRM was probably the first one.
We wanted to fit it under an automatic
brand, and Jetpack has a wider reach
of websites that are using Jetpack and
Connected and a number of business sites,
and it fits quite well to these sort of
smaller, probably even smaller than small
business, so you wouldn't Like if it's
a one man person trying to manage his,
create a business, and he wants to start
building a little bit more data around
the people, then it fits in quite well.
And so it sort of fitted into
that side of things, was the
sort of thinking around it.
Matt: Yeah.
Was your original product.
Is it SaaS based?
Mike: Now, it was always
a WordPress plugin, so
Matt: WordPress plugin data
stays right inside WordPress.
Mike: Yep.
Yep.
Which was quite popular in like
definitely in Germany, so around GDPR.
Like you, people want, wanted to
keep their own data and not just have
it sitting on the cloud somewhere.
So that was like one of the main
selling points of it at the time
was that people just could have the
data, download the data and not get
worried about it going outta business
and you're losing all your contacts.
So that was a good, and we, and
that's still the case today.
It's still all in your own
install, so you can take it
Matt: okay.
So even with Jetpack, it's not like
hosted at com or something like that.
That data still lives in the,
in the database of the website.
Mike: Correct, yep.
Matt: Oh, that's fantastic.
are you continuing to improve the CRM
product and launch new features for that?
Or is it more like publishing
and content creation as a whole?
Like we're about to get into with Jetpack.
Do you all still invest
in the CRM side of things?
Mike: Yep, yep, so there's
still work going on in the CRM.
There's been a lot of like,
bringing it in line with the
Jetpack look and feel as well.
So if you installed CRM before
version 6, you'd just get the black
and blues of the old, ZBS plugin.
Whereas now it's moving
more in line to fit in with
Matt: Literally and
figuratively the black and blue
Mike: Yeah
Matt: of Insta.
Mike: So turning it green making it a
bit more of a consistent view across all
of the jetpack products and then Leaning
into the creator side of things if you're
building You subscribe a list, then
you can then complement that with CRM.
That's sort of the longer term plan there
that like, if you try and remember, like
we had this conversation before about our
kids, we can make a little note about how
many boys I've got, what age they are.
And then when we talk again, you'd
be like, Oh, what were the code?
And you can just bring
it up nice and easy.
Matt: Maybe you can explain.
I don't want to put, I don't want
to put words into your mouth.
But, like I, I'm really friendly
with Jesse Friedman who is probably
now doing WP cloud project.
I know Jeff Galinsky, used to work for me.
He designs for jet pack.
I feel like You still have like
that entrepreneurial spirit in you.
Like I see your tweets.
I see the way that, you know, like when
you were talking about creator, is that
something that they like entrust you with?
Cause I feel like you might, you
feel a little bit different than the
average automatic employee, I guess.
So like you seem like more of like a
product guy, but you're out there like
talking about it with more marketing
speak my, is my compass correct with that?
Or, or.
Is it just like, Hey,
you can't help yourself.
This is the way you are.
Mike: I think it's just ingrained in me
in the, like, that's my passion is like.
The product vision and just as a sign
of your own business, you, you talk
about it, you're building public and
you try and get the word out more.
And I sort of carried that across other
Jetpack products that I've worked on.
So creator was me just using Jetpack more
noticing these areas and like, well, we
could package this and present it in a way
that, it displays the value of what's in
Jetpack that might be quite hard to find.
Matt: Yeah.
I, I'm going to keep burying the lead of
a jetpack creator for a few more moments.
Jetpack has always been something
that, obviously look, if you go
back 10 years, there was a lot
of bad sentiment around jetpack.
I think it slowly has.
You know, improved for, for the team,
for the company, for the product itself.
Like I think people are maybe less,
opinionated about jet pack these days.
Rightfully so.
I think the product, you know,
has become, In line with a lot of
hardcore WordPress user expectations.
For example, being able to uncheck
and check off things that we
don't want, you know, in the, in
the install bloat and speed and
performance was always the thing.
I think the team has done a little bit
better with that over the last few years.
I would say that the goal, my, my.
Hypothesis to the goal is Jetpack
looks at WordPress and says, this is
the best way to experience WordPress.
How far off am I from
that theory or hypothesis?
Mike: I think it gets closer every
day, the more that the team works
on like the performance plugin.
So Jetpack Boost is out there.
And because we're behind a performance
plugin, then we need to make sure
that Jetpack is also performant.
So we have the performance team, not
only looking at making websites faster,
but looking at like on the admin pages,
like what are we being as efficient as
we can be there and always like making
modules easy to turn off, to turn
on and just only use what you need.
Matt: because Jetpack does have
like so many things, right?
Stats, payment.
I mean, there's a million things
in there that you probably
know about way more than I do.
but.
I'll use Jetpack on a friend's site,
you know, a friend comes to me, here's
an example, I have a friend, actually
he's my barber, and he started a small,
like, little ice cream stand, and, it's
seasonal, so it's not open, you know,
year round, and I helped him build a
site, and I put Jetpack on it, because
one, he was using, like, affordable
hosting, we all know what that means,
so I use Jetpack for the CDN, you know,
for the images, For the stats, and for
the newsletter subscription, right?
So, you know, just subscribe
to the, to the, to the post.
And when he updates a post,
people will get the, the email
notification, and of course security.
So.
It would to me, it was like, man, I
don't want to mess with this website.
I never want him asking me any
questions about it because I'm
not going to be his support guy.
so I put jetpack, I certainly wasn't going
to give him like Google analytics and I
wasn't going to sign up for, whatever,
MailChimp account, like I wasn't going
to even like go to that route because
I didn't want to teach him, train him.
And I knew we would forget.
and jetpack was.
Was a good solution for that.
it's a interesting thing to say because
there's a lot of my friends, probably
your friends and colleagues too, who
build products that compete with Jetpack.
What I'm getting at here is Jetpack is
going to be one of those things where with
enough users might say, you know what?
Just use Jetpack, to solve that issue.
That might also impact.
The smaller product creator that's
out there who maybe is doing stats,
who is maybe doing a newsletter, who's
maybe doing a payment link as a product
owner, yourself, a product creator.
Do you think about that when you're,
when you're rolling out the products,
like how to integrate into the ecosystem?
is it the, you know, the most fit
products win at the end of the day?
Like, do you have an ear to the
ground of sort of the blue collar
product maker that's out there?
Mike: yeah, so I personally follow
quite a lot of indie makers and like
the product people and certainly in
the UK, there's very few of us in that
have done products and have Essentially
a few have taken to acquisition.
So and there's a lot of people building
different things So I think the fact
that automatic it might be in jetpack and
we're leaning into a certain direction
I think just helps with the healthy
competition of some of these smaller,
indie developers that can Even if they're
focused on the right thing if they like
know Directly down on a small area, they
can even execute better than a bigger
organization organization could do.
So I think it helps with, with that,
that the fact that so a company like
automatic is looking at the creative
space and offering tools to help
people grow newsletters that the other
newsletter plugins will be sort of taking
note and thinking, okay, I can take a
little share of this market as well.
Matt: I just recorded a news roundtable
for the WP minute plus podcast and We
were talking about let's say wordpress.
com versus jetpack versus
woo Express and woo.
com and like you had All of these
different pockets of like ways to
do things with WordPress all under
the umbrella of, of automatic and it
makes it pretty challenging, right?
So if somebody came to you at automatic
and they say, Hey, Mike, the goal
is to launch something for creators.
But you have to do it with just
like the tools you have right here.
Like we're not going to
give you wordpresscreator.
com.
No, no, no.
You're going to do this in the, in
the thick of all of these things,
the jetpack stack, the wordpress.
com stack.
I don't think it's fair.
I think it makes your job a little
bit more challenging because.
WordPress can do so many things
and WordPress and automatic itself
doesn't give like the tight funnel
lane on how to achieve that.
Like sell things with
your WordPress website.
It's massive WooCommerce.
Become a blogger.
It's the entirety of WordPress
and the ecosystem at wordpress.
com.
It's be a creator, like
maybe say ghost or beehive.
but those are real tight UIs
that do one specific thing.
We don't get that in the WordPress
world, or maybe it's just
slow baby steps to get there.
is Jetpack Creator that
initial step in that direction?
Mike: I think it's starting to
pull things together that way.
So if you try to use it today, the,
like I say, that type, somebody new
to it, wanting to create something,
there's a lot of different directions.
So if you're creating a course,
you, it's not just Jetpack Creator,
you'd need to look at something
like Sensei, Sensei on the side.
And so there's, like, if you wanted to run
a community, then it, you'd look at Again,
thinking of WordPress, things like a
buddy press alongside the type of things.
So the, it's sort of trying to
bring that together a little bit.
And, but those like definitely you,
UX flows of somebody coming in with a
specific like vertical that's, I think
that's still got a way to go, but I
think that it is starting to happen
more in like the word, the WordPress
community, like the Ollie WP theme.
That's been some good steps in life.
What, what is a theme
and what is a plugin?
And there's some other similar things
like that, that are leaning on the
Gutenberg side of things to say,
look, you can create this, but we're
going to make it a little bit easier.
Because I've got a number of friends
that like, maybe try and do something
with WordPress, and then they'll
just jump to another solution.
Because it's like, oh, this, I'm being
shown all these extra areas, like
that I'm not really interested in.
Matt: And maybe we'll see a future
where, when the admin gets redesigned.
Because I'm not a developer,
so I have no idea, like, what
kind of effort this takes.
but when the admin gets redesigned,
maybe turned into blocks,
it might be easier to build.
An admin experience
that is more, you know.
Pinpoint to like what we want to do.
Oh, only show posts because listen,
anybody just, they're just here to make
blog posts or show products and pages.
Cause it's just a basic e commerce
site and never have a blog on
it or something to that effect.
And maybe WordPress can become
more modular because I'm using
a P2 instance for my WP minute.
some of my WP minute members
and like P2 is pretty cool.
It's still just WordPress like, like
it doesn't like, it's like, man,
you could compete against like a
slack or a teams with, with P2, but
no, it's still kind of just like
rough around the WordPress edges.
you know, which is not your fault,
but it's just like, there's so
many things that WordPress does
and automatics trying to solve it,
it can kind of make, you know, the
task a little bit more challenging.
Mike: Yeah, and P2 definitely, it's
got some cool features that I kind
of wish were available elsewhere.
So like the mention system and a lot
of the things there that are, it's
sort of like a good thing to start a
community, but then on the other side
of it, it's very more like workspaces.
So you create a workspace
as opposed to a community.
So it could be another angle that
P2 would fit would be if someone
wants to create a community.
So like the WP minute podcast.
Or like a post status that,
instead of being on slack, could
be running on something like P2.
Matt: If you're listening to this
mad, I'm using P two hook, hook us
up, Let's get, let's get things going.
All right.
Let's talk about, Jetpack creator.
Is it modules collected together?
I keep calling 'em modules.
They're, they're modules, right?
Is that what j, how Jetpack refers to 'em
Mike: Yeah, it does.
So it's sort of a little bit of blocks.
So I don't know if you've, when you
sort of start a new post in WordPress
and you press the little plus button in
the corner, if you type Jetpack, it'll
bring up a load of green colored blocks.
So that's all of the tools that
you can use to help create content.
So things like you can embed a.
A link to booking slots on your calendar.
You can do business hours.
There's the AI block that helps
you create content or edit content.
so there's a lot of tools in Jetpack
already that You can find if you know
what block you're looking for, but
if you if you don't you're sort of a
little bit in the wild so things like
a map box so if you want to show like
where your office location is, there's
a nice straightforward Jetpack block
that can do things like that for you.
And unless you go looking for it,
we don't really show it anywhere
in like the Jetpack settings pages.
So that's sort of like the first thing,
is making content a little bit easier
to create through blocks and patterns.
There's not really many patterns shipped
in Jetpack just yet, but there are
plenty of blocks and you can build them
with any sort of block based theme.
Matt: When somebody is subscribing to
creator, so I'm just looking at the site.
We're recording this during, a pretty
hefty 70 percent off now, black Friday
week, this is going to air a couple of
weeks after, the sale, but it's 19 a
month, for the first year build yearly.
I believe that's what it's going
to be without the discount.
Is that.
just these specific features in Jetpack,
or is there like a whole other sort
of creator plugin being installed?
Mike: And it just enables them,
the features that are in Jetpack.
So there's no plug in, stand
alone plug in for this yet.
It's all running from Jetpack
on that side of things.
as for the, so it'll be the first
year you get a 50 percent discount.
So it's showing,
Matt: bucks a month.
Mike: yeah, so 10 bucks a month once
the Black Friday discounts drop off.
but yeah, so it's, if you,
you can do a lot of it.
Pretty much all of it for free, with
just Jetpack, but the transaction
fees are a little bit higher.
If you were to use the donation block
and start accepting donations, then
there'd be a bit higher transaction
fee on top of the Stripe fees.
So there's nothing in Creator at
the moment that's really, that you
can't try for free in the free one.
There's a few, like things around
the creator network that are a
little bit different if you're a paid
subscriber or a free user and we can
talk about that a little bit more.
So, there's not new blocks that
we'll unlock if you subscribe.
Everything's already in Jetpack.
Matt: When you and the team set off to
build the sort of creator package Jetpack
and make this sort of creator offering,
is it sort of trying to compete with
some of the folks I mentioned before,
like a substack or a ghost, where
It is sort of one of these, turnkey
solutions that does one or two things
really good or, or do you see Jetpack
Creator competing with something else?
Mike: So there's a lot of
work being done on WordPress.
com around Competing with like the,
the substacks and Jetpack historically
has been you get the best of WordPress.
com on your self hosted site.
So Creator is essentially unlocking
all of the work that's been done
there for people that are just
hosting their own self hosted website.
So that's.
What it's competing with, so any
enhancements that are made to how fast
you get subscribers or where your site's
recommended across the WordPress reader,
there's a lot of, it's just enabling
that for people that are using Jetpack
that wouldn't be part of that otherwise.
Matt: I'm curious, do you all
have a definition for a creator?
Like a user, a customer avatar, you
know, back in my agency days, kind of
profile who somebody is, come up with
a fake name, what their interests are,
how they approach it, like, what, how
do you, how do you think of a creator?
What, what does she do with her website?
Mike: I think it covers a lot
of different people, so from
podcasters to even just like personal
trainers that are wanting to.
Take the business online.
There was a lot of it that happening
during COVID that the gyms had to shut.
So a lot of personal trainers would
go on and they'd start doing zooms.
So, or having like a 12 week
training program and just having
that ability to have a website
that can do that sort of stuff.
so there's a lot of different
angles you could go.
You could even go as far as like,
a cat rescue that wants to start.
Accepting donations, so they can set
all that up, without really, they can,
worrying too much about paying a lot
for hosting and anything like that, they
can get up, get Jetpack installed and
start setting up and accepting donations.
So there's a lot of different
angles you could look at, which is
the most used creator use case is
a completely different question.
So I think it depends.
Matt: Yeah,
Mike: It's targeting a lot of different
verticals that you could cover.
So the blogger, the YouTuber, that could
start putting content using something
like Videopress instead of YouTube.
But then YouTube does bring other benefits
to being on YouTube as you're well aware.
Matt: In this day and age, which, listen,
I am a still a diehard, blog, own your.
com, like have your website, build your
foundation, you know, obviously using
WordPress, but over the last few years,
which is still funny to say, because
it's really like over the last 20 years.
Marketers are always saying, like,
grow your email list, have an
email list, that kind of thing.
Is there a sense of, like, what
creators use more in terms of,
of what kind of content they're
creating with WordPress and Jetpack?
Is it still blogs?
Are you seeing a rise in
email newsletter, creation?
Like, what is that, that content
that's being created most?
Mike: That's a good question.
So I think it's my gut sort of saying
this people are still blogging a lot
and the more people that blog the more
people that want to blog and then the
the network effect sort of picks up that
the more people that are writing the more
people that can find things to follow so
it feels like with WordPress that like
taking E commerce to one side like people
are trying to do that and build their
own following because like it say you
do it on Twitter or X and then there's
a big platform risk there that if you
can't really get at your contacts or
they shut down whereas if you're building
something that you own and that I think
it's still people are trying to grow
lists and trying to Then monetize those
lists, and there's a lot of different
ways now that is easier in WordPress that
maybe wasn't as easy a few years ago.
So things like accepting paid subscribers,
so you could be growing a list, you
could have 10, 000 subscribers, and
then have specific content going
out just to people that are paying
you a certain amount per month to
be part of a community, for example.
So there's a lot of different things now,
and I think it all just comes to you.
There's a lot of different
ways to put content out there.
So whether it's a YouTube channel, a
Twitter account, a TikTok, but ideally
you want to get everything, you want
to get that person's email to then
either, depending on like your goal,
do you want to make money from your
email list or do you just want to have
an impact with the content you produce?
So, at the end of the day, you
just, you want that audience to
be able to feel good about what
you produce as a content creator.
And it's, it's not easy,
like, I think you've been
podcasting over 10 years now and
Matt: Mm hmm.
Mike: you need to be passionate for what
you do, like the thing on the underlying
thing with creator, like if you use
Jetpack, if you pay for the creator plan,
it's not going to fix the issue that you
need to be producing that good content
and consistently producing that content.
It just makes it easier
with the introduction of AI.
Maybe not make as many typing mistakes
or If you need a bit of help, like
getting the skeleton of a, an article
or some ideas for some new videos, then
you can use the AI to help with that.
But in the end, you still have to be
putting out that content consistently.
And because otherwise it's
sort of like, I always.
Liking it to turning on a TV channel
and then if there's no content you just
see that fuzzy Screen or the one with
the person holding the doll saying like
programs will resume shortly that no
one's going to Want to follow you if
you're just not producing the content
Matt: yeah.
Mike: And it's it is hard to
do it's hard to do consistently
if it's not your main 95
Matt: so there is definitely a,
desire, you know, a lot of people
look at becoming a creator, right?
yeah, becoming a YouTuber, right?
If you focus on, and I come
from a unique angle, right?
Because I've, I've I've been podcasting
for over a decade, never stopped.
Well, I mean, I stopped, but I switched
from season to season or whatever,
but I haven't, I haven't quit the,
the medium, my YouTube channel
just crossed 15, 000 subscribers.
And I worked in the audio industry, my
last role for two and a half years at
a podcast hosting company that actually
automatic, had some seed investment in.
And I had, I talked to a lot of
podcasters that were like, Hey.
I want to make money
with my podcast, right?
They just thought they could just publish
the podcast and money would appear.
which is sort of like what YouTube has
granted upon creators for many years.
Like you get to a certain threshold,
you get to a certain amount of views.
And if it's a quality audience, you're
making, X amount of dollars per month.
It could be hundreds of dollars
per month, thousands of dollars
a month, many multiples of that.
If you're like crazy, like pop
culture, YouTube created with
millions of subscribers, but you
hit the nail on the head is that you
can't give up creating this content.
And there are not many other platforms
other than YouTube that actually, air
quotes, guarantees payments to creators.
In other words, Instagram's
not paying me to do anything.
Twitter doesn't, although they have
a program that I think you can get
sponsored dollars from, but it's like a
top secret program or something like that.
Or you have to have
like this massive reach.
Jetpack has, through wordpress.
com, Blaze?
Is that a way?
To monetize, through Jetpack Creator.
Mike: Blaze is promoting
your content, so it's, yeah.
So, the other way around is Word Ads.
So you can, again, through a creator
that unlocks the Word Ads network,
so you can start showing ads on
your content through, a number of ad
partners that partner with WordPress.
So that's a way to monetize
the traffic to your website.
So it's just, it's not quite a
Google AdSense, but it's similar.
So you'll see similar types of adverts
popping up on your So we've got a
travel blog that I've enabled word
ads on and things like loveholidays.
com is popping up at the bottom of those.
Content, I don't get a ton of traffic
to that travel blog because we've
unfortunately stopped traveling since
having boys So it's sort of like again,
we're not producing that content.
We're not doing like those influencer
marketing where you're standing on
the edge of a waterfall and, like
walking down into the pool, like
not wearing very many clothes.
So like we don't do that sort of stuff,
so we're not getting that type of, hardly
any traffic to that site, but if we were
producing more and more content, then that
is one way to monetize the, the traffic
that you're having to your website.
Matt: it's a challenging thing, right?
And it's something that
I think is going away.
I mean, I've seen my ad dollars from
YouTube, get cut in half, get cut in half
again, get cut in half again, you know?
And it's just like, wow,
this is a tough game.
There's a lot of people who aspire
to do these types of things.
And, you know, even with Tools
like you're providing and YouTube.
I'm still a big believer and you're going
to have to Understand that if you're
if you're looking to make any kind of
substantial amount of money through
content creation That you have to look
at it objectively as a business you have
to approach it as a business and you
have to think like a business where Half
your time is spent creating content.
The other half is going to be
doing like direct sales, and
partnerships and sponsorships.
It's what I've done with the WP
minute again, unless you are.
Half naked jumping into a pool off
the, off of skyscraper, then most
people aren't going to, going to
click that, that YouTube video.
If it's just an average video,
then you're going to, you're
going to see less traffic.
If you're not posting, you're
going to see less traffic.
If you're not recording audio,
you're going to see less traffic.
And it's a lot of work.
Yeah, I don't have a direct
question there, but the
creator space is challenging.
the money doesn't just show up.
Like you have to put in the
work for this stuff to, to,
to become a business for you.
Mike: Yep, I agree with that.
So it's, for the people that
are starting out, like I said
earlier, it's not the magic pill.
It's not the diet pill that you're
going to lose 20 pounds overnight.
You have to be creating that content
and just sort of like, whether you're
also tweeting at the same time,
or you do like a video version or
a podcast version that's then on.
The various, podcast apps that
is getting every little bit
of content you've produced.
It's sort of like, how can you
repurpose that and amplify that?
So there's, again, I'm, I'm keep sort of
leaning to different areas of Jetpack.
So with Jetpack social, then you
can write and it'll ping it out
to all of those networks of, like
Twitter used to be automatic, but
now there's just like a very quick.
One click share option that's came out
in the last, I think the last release of
Jetpack so that you can continue to You
write your content and then you can just
click and share it to Twitter And there's
Mastodon is another one that sort of
getting your content out in more places.
You're likely to get more people to
come and find your website and then
hopefully subscribe to a Newsletter or
to the particular blog post comments
or whatever else that you're producing
Matt: I want to wrap it up
with, one other question here.
So I'm looking again,
looking at the pricing page.
There's a, for creator, there's
a 2 percent transaction fee.
Is that going on?
Where does that, where
does that come into play?
The 2 percent transaction fee.
Mike: So that's only if you make a
transaction through any of the blocks
that, so if you have a paid subscriber
and they pay you, say a hundred
dollars, then that 2 percent of that
would only happen if that payment
is made, but then there's the, the
strike processing fees on top of that.
So that, that's the difference
there is that you could get started.
Building an audience and then when you
come to monetize it later down the line,
you can then make the decision of is it
worth me upgrading to lower that fee I'm
a happy saying I'm paying a little bit of
a higher fee while still using the things
Matt: That could be like a donation form
or like, you know, access this private
post but pay me 5 or something like that
Mike: Yeah, or downloadable content like
an e book you could put there behind like
the premium content block so you could say
start the content and then you have to pay
to download the ebook at the end of it.
Matt: Pay for payments probably
not put you on the hot seat a
little bit but for for payments.
Do you all ever talk about?
Bitcoin payments or anything like that.
Cryptocurrency payments.
There's a, there's a digital wallet
called get Albi, which is really
popular in the, in the podcasting space.
I hate to use the terms Bitcoin
and crypto because a lot of people
start freaking out about it, but get
Albi does make life pretty easy for
podcasters who are looking for, you
know, other means of monetization.
Mike: And I'm not sure
on that one with Bitcoin.
I think with it integrating with Stripe,
I think if Stripe is offering that as
a payment option, then you can just
lean into whatever Stripe offering
because it's, when you do choose to
set up a paid plan or set up a donation
form, you go through the Stripe.
Connect flow and so it's, whether
those options available in Stripe could
then come through into the website.
I don't think we've had much feedback
about people wanting to accept Bitcoin
just because of all the ups and downs
of like holding your cash in crypto
can be a little bit scary for most.
Matt: Yeah.
Yeah.
For the creator side, just to paint
the picture for podcasters, one of
the, there's a whole like another
sort of, almost similar to WordPress.
There's an open source RSS standard
called the, the, podcasting 2.
0, movement, and it's really just
enhancing RSS and the capabilities.
And one of that is payments through,
the lightning network, which is like
a smallest form of Bitcoin payments.
And, and the reason why it's so
effective is it because it doesn't
have to go through traditional means
of, merchant accounts like a stripe.
That's always taking
the 30 cents plus the 2.
9 percent because what they're doing
is they're micro, micro transactions.
Like you could be listening to a podcast
and just love that moment of the podcast
and give somebody 25 cents, right?
A quarter, a nickel, a dime, a dollar.
And all of that money goes to the creator
versus if you did it in traditional land,
you would lose like 50 percent of it and
people probably wouldn't even process
it because it would cost more money to
process it with these other outlets.
Right?
So that's a really popular solution.
Anyway, in the podcasting world,
it'd be interesting to see if that
ever made it to, to the WordPress
side, like micro transactions to
help creators like, like that, Mike
Stott, thanks for hanging out today.
I know you're, you're up late.
Mike: Indeed, I'm up late but,
like I said, the boys are in
bed and they've not woke up.
I was expecting them to, to hear the
baby cry on like halfway through the
Matt: yeah, I know those stresses.
I know those stresses all too well.
Mike, where else, where can folks go to
find you to say thanks for doing the show?
Mike: Sure, so you can follow
me, find me on Twitter at mike.
wp I do have a, a fledgling, a fledgling
word, a YouTube channel that I'm
starting to, Do more videos around
like the creator space and looking
at what some of the bigger websites
do for creators Not for creators,
but how they set up their content and
how if you were setting up your own
how you could do something similar
But that's just a personal passion.
, Matt: Mike, thanks for hanging out today.
thanks for doing the podcast.