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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: It is a marathon
week for WordPress News.
We're back with another live stream, this
time, joined by Noel talk of human made.
Noel, welcome to the WP Minute.
Noel: Appreciate it, Matt.
Matt: we all know the topic de jour.
earlier this morning, I went for, a run.
Well, I, I did a Peloton.
Good for you.
And then I went for a run
I'm not afraid to admit all
Noel: away from the WP Drama.
Matt: Yeah, and I'm not afraid to
admit that I jump on the peloton
every, every now and again for
the young kids in the crowd.
I know they're all making fun of
me by being on a stationary bike.
I'm sorry, I'm not doing
Brad Williams CrossFit.
But, I came back and I was like, man,
I, you know, lots of people are getting,
you know, rightfully so, very emotional
about what's happened with the WP Engine
out of V Automatic stuff and with Matt.
But I'm not hearing, Solutions, I'm
hearing like emotional hopes and dreams
and a lot of like we should do this.
We should remove that Wouldn't
wouldn't it be great to have
like freedom and WordPress?
But I'm not hearing how we get there and
I'm not presenting a how we get there
because I don't know either But maybe we
can like hash some of this stuff out on
today's live stream got questions Drop
them in the, in the, in the question
box, wherever you're watching this video
before we get too deep into that stuff.
Noel, what have you been up
to with human made these days?
Noel: so I, I have a bit of
a mix of, work these days.
so I, I guess many people do
know that I am, majority of my
time I'm out in Ukraine, where
I do various humanitarian work.
And then I've also evolved that
to beyond humanitarian work.
and yeah, it's been a, it's an amazing
journey in terms of, I guess, continuing
the WordPress ethos in many ways.
because WordPress is open source.
It's, it's benefited
humanity in many ways.
and then you try to extend
that in other fields.
but what's been, I guess,
amazing out here is that
yes, it's war, it's humanitarian crisis.
And surprisingly, WordPress has also
been a big part of the response here.
many of the thousands of new charities
that popped up are built on WordPress.
Be it for prosthetic limbs, humanitarian
goods, FPV drones, high risk
evacuations, non profit media, and more.
And it's, you know, it's powerful to
know that the software you work on
and that everybody on that, everybody
else works on here too, has such an
impact, it's software of humanity
and it's a privilege to be a part of.
And that's why, despite, you know,
the WP drama, I think it's amazing
to be, you To be in the presence of
contributors and community who keep going.
And even, you know, today shipped
the first iteration of WordPress 6.
7 and WordPress humanity,
this planet needs this kind of
software at a fundamental level.
Matt: Yeah.
That last part is.
is very important.
It's something that is, that I 100
percent agree with because it goes
beyond, and I think this stuff gets
lost a lot in, in the discussion
of how WordPress is being made.
Like, we get into these little
narrow, viewports of, oh, this is a
blogging tool versus this is a web
design tool versus this is a CMS.
I mean, I see it as some of these
points that you've just described, or
like, This is software that impacts
humanity at At various levels that
aren't just the freelancer building
hers, you know, web design business or
you know, the school educate, the, the,
the higher ed system that needs a 3000,
you know, college CMS installation.
Like this is for like humans.
We need to get words out.
We need to get structure content out
for these hotspots that are happening.
Might only be there for a month,
six months, a year, but these are
things that are very, very important.
And, Yeah, I see WordPress as
far beyond the viewports of
freelancer or CMS kind of thing.
what other, and you have, so you have
human made and you have Altus, right?
Let's frame what Altus is
for the discussion today.
Cause we will obviously
be talking about WP.
Noel: Yeah, a hundred percent.
so human made and Altus
both serve the enterprise.
We try to give enterprise the best
WordPress experience possible.
that is as simple as it is, you
know, and, and I think everything
we've built out over the years, since
2011 and beyond really, has served
enterprise and, you know, even when
we departed the VIP program back then,
it was because, you know, we didn't
really see all the features we wanted.
we wanted to try it ourselves also.
And, you know, that gave us a really
unique perspective that, you know,
Compliments than the other players
that are also doing enterprise.
And all of that is kind of coming
together, where we now have to
scale consortium, which is multiple,
enterprise agencies coming together.
so really just, you know, despite, the,
the challenges you see in the economy
today and, a lot of competition, a lot
of ad spend, a lot of stimulus checks
going to, you know, these headless
composable CMSs and all the, all this
other stuff where, you know, trying to
provide, Just a great service platform,
outcomes for enterprises across the globe.
Matt: Let's talk just briefly.
Again, we're gonna, we're gonna get to
the, to the, the topic of the day, but
let's talk about, the, the business
side of WordPress agencies for a moment.
I came back recently from WordCamp US.
I believe your business partner was there.
I think I saw him, going to the crowd.
A
Noel: lot of our team was there.
Matt: Yeah.
I didn't get a chance to chat with him.
but I've heard mixed things.
I ran an agency for a decade,
which was pretty good.
Nearly a decade ago at this
point, but, you know, running
an agency was tough, man.
It's, it's tough to run an agency.
I, you know, I feel like you're always
one paycheck away from bankruptcy, you
know, getting paid from the client.
and it's, it's, it's not an easy space.
It's a fun space, but
also not an easy space.
What's the temperature.
And you see, you're from
a different vantage point.
Like you have this global presence,
but what's the temperature of
agency space these days for, for
delivering WordPress projects.
Noel: Yeah, I'd say it's
a, it's a mix of factors.
I definitely spoke about this at,
WordCamp Asia in terms of just
the overall WordPress economy.
I, I guess my, my most recent
thought was the amount of.
Like the ratio of sponsor space in
terms of squared meters versus, you
know, the, the, the net new amount of
sites that are launched on WordPress
is, it's probably at an all time high or
all time low or anyway, just, there's,
it's just extremely competitive, in
the space now, like it's, you know, we
had our honeymoon phase, that was, you
know, it was really steep growth curve.
we've seen WordPress, market share, if
we can call it that, you know, Robin.
The mystical 43 percent plateau.
so, you know, regardless if you believe
in that number or not, it's, it's still,
you know, you're still following a
certain trend over years, which used to
be very steep and now it's quite flat.
there's a lot of competition.
There's a lot of pressure.
And, you know, we still believe that
WordPress is probably one of the
best solutions in enterprise today.
but there's a lot of work that's
needed around not only then selling
ourselves, but also selling.
Enterprise WordPress as a concept
from a product marketing perspective.
and then just the, the sort of
challenges we face in the economy.
you know, us was probably the fastest
to kind of come out of challenging times
and, and still that's not for sure.
Europe is somewhat behind and then
Asia is still lagging quite a bit.
so.
Yeah, it's a tough time to be in the game.
I feel like we're learning a lot.
we're having to adapt.
you know, we're having to pick up skill
sets that we didn't necessarily, or
that we took for granted maybe 10 years
ago, in terms of, you know, building
out a very comprehensive sales and
marketing team or commercial team.
and yeah, I'm very proud of, you
know, how far we've come in that
regard, but yeah, you're right.
It's, it's a, it's a tough environment,
but ultimately with a lot of the budgets,
enterprise budgets, maybe being, you
know, focused towards AI and other like
emerging technology, do companies really
want to hold on to large license costs
and large maintenance costs of proprietary
CMSs that do the same thing as WordPress?
you know, like these are the, the kind
of more macro things that I'd say we
hold on to and where we see a lot of
opportunity within the enterprise space.
Matt: And when you say there's a lot
of competition, I just want for clarity
sake, is it competition like there's
more WordPress agencies coming on board
and there's, it's harder to sell amongst
ourselves or are we getting external
pressures and competition from other
CMSs and platforms throughout the world?
Noel: Probably a bit of both, but I,
I'd probably look to how is WordPress
marketed to the rest of the world.
So Gartner and Forrester still don't.
They still haven't opened up
the category of WordPress.
They haven't, they don't
understand WordPress as a
open source piece of software.
They understand it or garden.
Yeah, they both understand it as
WordPress VIP, which makes it obviously
like quite challenging in that
regard for, the broader ecosystem.
but yeah, I, there's, there's still,
There's, there's been a massive
marketing push from the whole
composable headless kind of space.
And then some of these players
like Adobe and psych or creating
these more comprehensive suites
with personalization, AB testing,
customer journey orchestration.
so that it's, it feels like a
much larger product whereby CMS
is just a sub, subset of that.
And I guess, you know, a large
part of the economy went through.
Either this, you know, there's large
all in one suite and then got disrupted
by the headless composable ads and
players that came into the space.
And we've never had a very strong
product marketing position towards that.
So we, we, we interface with the
market where we can, but it's not that
enterprise WordPress is just receiving
inbound leads as much as it should.
Matt: Lots of times, we're, we're
wrapped, or at least, you know,
some of the conversations I have,
we're wrapped up in, Ah, we're
losing ground to Wix and Webflow.
Is that a thing in the enterprise?
Well, maybe not the Wix side of it.
I don't know, maybe with Wix Studio
you see it, but, Is Webflow a thing?
Is Framer a thing?
Like, when you're in the enterprise
space, Aside from the, we'll build
something for you with a headless, with
headless components, is there another
player in the ring who's more of a
nameplate that people can identify to?
Noel: I'd say it's quite fragmented
once you pass, you know, Acquia
slash Drupal and WordPress.
it also depends if, or are you, are
you competing for the primary CMS?
Are you competing for the secondary CMS?
And that's where I'd say, you know,
Webflow and Wix, Wix Enterprise, like
really nice page and well put together.
It's, it's good positioning.
HubSpot.
Pages or HubSpot CMS.
I'm not sure what it's called.
That's a very popular secondary CMS.
so there's a lot of players in there.
The more comprehensive, Hey, this, this
can be your primary web experience.
that's, that's a difficult conversation.
And also we haven't as an industry come
up with a very comprehensive Sort of list
or a marketplace that's very interoperable
with all the enterprise tech.
And sure, we have
integrations for Salesforce.
We have integrations here.
We can use APIs to connect to various
things, but we haven't productized
that marketplace layer, around
enterprise specifically to say,
here's your, you WordPress project.
a starter kit, that is on wordpress.
org or somewhere else.
Matt: I don't want to, skip over
the primary CMS versus secondary CMS
because I think it's important that
people understand this and, and help
me understand this because if I'm
thinking of it the way that, I am,
I want you to, to, to clarify it.
So when I was selling enterprise hosting
at Pagely, for example, many years ago,
WordPress was a secondary CMS because some
of the brands I was playing with, they
were like, Hey, we're a marketing team.
They won't let us touch
the big CMS over there.
We need something we can move
faster with and WordPress is
a great solution for that.
Therefore, that is the secondary CMS in
this massive enterprise that we have.
Is that a fair statement?
Secondary being like, ah, teams
can move faster with this?
Noel: Yeah, that's extremely fair.
it's the pragmatic cheap solution.
Hey, we don't have that much budget.
and it's, and it's been a great
marketing strategy for WordPress.
Get your foot in the door.
and then grow from there, you know,
try to either grow vertically up, you
know, in, in this particular department
where you are in enterprise or grow
horizontally because other teams here
about how this has worked and there's
ready and approved vendor and procurement.
so then you're able to grow from
there and we've, you know, certainly
made those experiences, but that is a
bottoms up approach to, which is a hacky
way because we're always low budget.
we, we don't have global spend that's,
you know, being used, for all agencies.
and that's very different than an Adobe
that will come in and maybe target
everyone, host dinners, invite you to the
conferences, and, you know, fair play.
There's, there's, there's nothing
wrong with all these things, but it
is a very impressive go to market
strategy then versus our more,
Scrappy, let's say, approach to things.
Matt: Sounds a little bit like the
sales team at WP Engine when I was
selling against them back in the day.
Pagely, you know, I've always looked
and we'll start to pivot over to
having the discussion about, of
course, the stuff happening this week.
Pagely, Bootstrap Company, of course
everyone, well not everyone, but I
guess folks who've been in the game
long enough know that Josh Strebel,
Sally Strebel, both started the company.
bootstrap, no outside investors,
we were very much against the
grain of, you know, the typical
big, hosting providers out there.
They eventually sold to, GoDaddy, but
I competed with WP Engine quite often,
you know, with clients, and it was
very, a very typical, enterprise sales,
that, that I was going up against.
They would come in, they would come,
big clients would tell me, Hey,
WP Engine's willing to fly out.
They're willing to demo to us.
they're going to undercut
your contract by 30, 40%.
these were things that, you know, a cash
strap business, not strap, but a bootstrap
business couldn't really compete with.
And WP Engine was, and
maybe still is these days.
It's been a while.
yeah, typical sales, enterprise sales.
And, Lots of money, involved on that
side of the spectrum and WP Engine
is nowhere near like the Adobes and
the Microsofts of the world that
will go out and sell this stuff.
My tweet this morning, how much
will it cost to clone and maintain
a community driven dot org mirror?
How do we get mass adoption?
Because don't forget, wordpress.
org is hand coded into the,
to the bowels of wordpress.
Which host will support it, right?
If all of a sudden there's the utopian
world and all of a sudden there's
another mirror out there that we can
use, will all the hosts support it?
in the world that we know these days.
And what's that long term sustainability?
WP Engine is seemingly
about to do it, right?
They've just said that, you know,
people can now update plugins.
How does their iteration evolve?
does it become a HubSpot style marketplace
and only available to WordPress Engine
sites or WP Engine sites long term?
Is it a true marketplace?
Like, what is it that WP Engine
is going to do with their mirror,
loosely speaking, How can we
get this WordPress independence?
Is it even possible with all the
stuff that people are asking for?
So I say all that, to hand the
mic over back to you and say, what
are your thoughts on a mirror?
The answer is yes.
Click.
Noel: After 40 questions.
Yeah.
I'd say there's so many ways to approach
this, because like the, the bottom up
approach in terms of, Hey, we just need
a mirror because, The mirror on the WP.
org is being blocked to us.
Like that's, that's one side of the story.
and that just doesn't
seem like the big play.
And when, when I tweeted my thread the
other day, it was really about the kind
of the top down approach to this, where
it's, it's not necessarily how you build
it, but why you build it, because doing
this properly isn't about a marketplace,
it's about power and power doesn't belong
to the person who forks the software.
But rather to those that forked the
community and a marketplace that does
this effectively and has the right,
let's say, has the right, marketplace
slash community around, extensions,
plugins, themes, Premium functionality,
potentially, giving people credibility
and authority for various work they do.
So you have profiles, that can
start leading into, premium
mechanics in terms of getting paid.
If you're various, if you have
pro, upgrades and things like that
available to you, because obviously
you're a lot closer to the customer.
a platform like that can lead to that.
can, can act as organic
acquisition, WP engine does spend
a lot of money on paid search.
so, you know, part of this can offset,
and this is not really only about,
WP engine in this regard, you know,
there's various players, even wordpress.
com, you know, created
their own marketplace.
They've, they've brought these pieces
in and they're able to create a better
customer journey for some of these
customers that only know wordpress.
com, instead of having to, you
know, faff around with going on.
org, how does this work
and how does that work?
This is kind of the challenge
with this whole ecosystem.
and then the sort of other, challenge
to all of this is even if you go
ahead and do all these things to what
end, are you trying to create a wp.
org, pure competitor, or are you trying
to service specific verticals, out there?
So if you go on Wix or you go
on Squarespace, Guaranteed to go
after hairdressers, anything with
booking appointments and all that.
Like they, they have crafted a journey
for that, that this is their strategic
goal, is to take on as much revenue
or as much share of the revenue
you generate on, on your websites
for your SMB, for your business,
so that they can be a part of that.
Now, likewise, Can you know, something
like WP engine do something like that too?
It's quite far for them.
They don't, they don't promote themselves
as going after any vertical or niche.
I guess the closest thing would be
flywheel, which goes after designers.
So potentially you have an MVP there
that has a lot of premium solutions,
that are just added on to, the, the
flywheel subscription every month,
potentially to taking on transactions
at some point, whatever that may be.
you could easily see a world, I
guess, come together like that.
But the question is, in my mind
is, are you trying, which customer
segment are you going after?
And you know, to what end, because what WP
Engine has achieved probably in my mind,
even with the 400 million, contribution or
not is they've probably done very well at
the customer journey of WordPress hosting.
and WordPress hosting, whatever that
may be, and maybe have even reduced
churn for the overall ecosystem by
providing a better experience there.
so
what, what comes next to, to what
end would you create a marketplace?
Is it to capitalize on the webmaster, the
web builder, or is it the business owner?
Matt: Yeah.
And I, I, I think many things have
come out of this event, which even
I didn't know, having been in this
space for many, many years, but
certainly like the, the, You know,
the toothpick holding up the whole
industry, which is, which is dot org.
It can quickly get pulled out and
really coming to light that Matt is
funding it and, and, and controlling it.
You can either look at that as
altruistic and be able to like spend
all this money, but we just don't
know what is involved there, like
what that infrastructure looks like.
I saw somebody that was
Actively cloning it.
I saw a tweet fly by where they
were at like 600 gigs of like X
amount of percentage cloned and just
the sheer size of this repo, never
mind the traffic hitting it, like
the costs are pretty staggering.
I'd imagine for just a one year
of maintenance, let alone like
sustaining it infinitely, you have a
thought on like what The size of that
infrastructure and what that would
run, somebody to independently No idea.
That's not my world.
Yeah.
Obviously,
Noel: I think it is, it
is extremely expensive.
And, you know, Matt did share some
numbers and, you know, props, obviously,
to him to, for maintaining all that.
But, I'm, I'm assuming that if you want
to achieve some sort of, if your ambition
is towards Wix and the square spaces
of this world, then this investment
may make sense for, a new fall to go
daddy, WP engine, whoever that may be.
you know, we've, we've already
moved on from the C panel hosting or
before it was just the FTP hosting.
Then we had the C panel hosting.
Now we have to sort of managed
where you have a nice UI, you have
staging, you have all these things.
and now we really need more solutions
than tools because we're just kind of
there and this whole note, no code.
Movement is obviously working for
a company like Wix that is able
to push over a billion in revenue.
Matt: The, you know, I think
I talked about this in my live
stream yesterday with Mark.
There had to be something that
Matt saw at WP Engine happening.
That caused this and it was either
he's literally telling the truth
and saying man I've been asking for
years about this commercial deal.
It's a whole other discussion.
That was that wasn't something I knew was
actively happening Yeah, I mean we all
Noel: found out.
Matt: Yeah, we kind of all found out
about that That's like another discussion
whether or not you agree with that model
or not So it was either like he was
literally chasing these these guys for
four years and he just you know Yeah,
he's just like, I'm going to just put you
on blast at the biggest event on the U.
S.
side of things.
And, I don't care what happens.
It was either that or maybe he knew
they were going to do something like
a cloned repo and create their own
marketplace and he didn't like that.
Or they were going IPO and he was
like, there's no way you're doing
IPO without me doing it first, so
I'm going to put you on blast here.
There had to be something happening there.
Years ago, I, I theorized that,
HubSpot would buy WP Engine.
I I thought the HubSpot would
be a great, oh, she liked
Noel: that idea.
Matt: acquisition for, for WP Engine.
I thought that's where they were gonna go.
but I, I can imagine a world where if
out of all the hosts, I think somebody
who's gonna create that HubSpot
Marketplace style, it would be WP Engine.
And that is pretty scary, I think,
like, because I think that kind of
thinker at, the enterprise software
space, they're not thinking about data
portability and moving your site around.
They're going to launch a
marketplace and it's going to be
vendor lock in for their stuff.
And I think maybe Matt thrust
this on to us a little bit faster.
Like, this could be something
bad that we don't realize now.
We're all cheering for WP
Engine to, like, save the day.
And then, like, a year from now, we
might be like, Holy shit, they built
a marketplace that people can't leave.
Or get software from if they
went to GoDaddy or another host.
That's my question.
Theory on this stuff any thoughts
on like what happens to these
marketplaces for players who
can support it like a WP engine
Noel: Again, it comes
back to the audience.
Like what would I be a
user of this marketplace?
Maybe not Maybe I'd still be using WP
org and maybe a lot of other people
would I think it's the expression of
WordPress here in a way that's not
necessarily WordPress anymore Tumblr
is a very good example of that, right?
Like it's social platform
built on WordPress.
it doesn't compete with anything you
are or I do on a day to day basis.
and I think that's amazing.
so if the, you know, if you really
go deep into a marketplace, you
probably really need to know what
your customer journeys are, who your
audiences are, what the outcomes are.
it's that that's, to me, that's
almost expanding the market as opposed
cannibalizing it, I'd say the more
altruistic side of, you know, this
discussion is, I wish that, you know,
coming back to the very beginning of
WordPress for humanity, everything,
I guess I wish that hyper profitable
companies would see this opportunity
or rather privilege, to be part of
something greater, to be involved in
the discussions, be thought leaders
themselves, because the world is just in
a challenging spot and, you Open source
projects like WordPress do their part
in supporting a better future for all.
and if WP engine would be a larger part of
this, I think it would be a net positive
regardless of, you know, where marketplace
aspirations go and what they end up doing.
it's, yeah, I, I don't know how
much of automatic jetpack competes
with WP engines, business stuff.
You know, WordPress VIP doesn't compete
with lower tier Bluehost things.
There's, there's just a lot of market
to go after, if things are done properly
and in many places, WordPress doesn't
necessarily need to be the end solution.
It can be a hybrid where it's
part of the solution, but it's not
necessarily the thing at the forefront.
Matt: Let's say somebody
launches a clone of WordPress.
org.
Yeah,
Noel: a pure clone, like going after us.
Matt: Yep, they're all coming after us.
from your perspective, what does it
take for that to even build momentum?
Is it, well, we just have to install this,
they have to get people to install this
plug in to activate their mirror, and that
would allow somebody to start installing
stuff from an independent source.
How does that momentum even happen?
If somebody is like,
nope, I'm going to do it.
I'm all in, I'm going to clone
three terabytes and I got plenty
of Bitcoin to power this thing
for the next couple of years.
how does momentum happen?
Like, how does that even pause?
How was it even possible
from your perspective?
Noel: I think you have to incentivize
the premium plugin developers by
giving them a higher commission.
I mean, that's, that's
probably what, what it is.
you saw that in crypto to a
certain extent where OpenSea was
like the big, NFT marketplace.
And then a number of marketplaces did
what was called a vampire attack by
essentially Because everything's visible.
You can see all the wallets and how
much they transacted with OpenSea.
So you could give them a
certain amount of tokens.
And if they did a certain level of
activity on their platform too, those
tokens would get released and all that.
And it was good money.
and it gave them enough time
to play around and potentially
like the new platform more.
so I, I think, you know, these
kind of hostile takeovers, which
is what you're asking about.
I, I think has to come down to.
Two things, money or attention.
And attention probably ultimately
leads to Still ego or money.
so it's going to be, it's going to
be pretty primal things, I think.
Matt: Yeah.
And, and attention is like one of the
hardest things that already exists in, in
the open source world of WordPress, right?
Like I've got this idea, I
opened up a ticket, where is
everybody to support this idea?
I have to, you know, to bake into
WordPress core or to bake into Gutenberg.
Like we already struggle with that
kind of backing and support, you
know, from a community driven.
Is it still a community
driven project in your eyes?
Noel: Yeah, absolutely.
I, I, I wouldn't see why not.
yeah, absolutely.
Matt: I said yesterday, I've said it
before, but I said, I said it again
yesterday, most recently, that I, I think
this other, this moment of ripping the
band aid off that Matt has done is clearly
making us say that if you're voting for
WordPress, you're also voting for Matt.
Unequivocally, like this
is, this is, he's in.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yes, like yeah, you're part of this
is with him so That moving forward.
I think we all have to realize
that fair statement your thoughts
Noel: Mmm Yeah, good question
Matt: You you can say
pass if you don't want to
Noel: know I like it's I I Think you know,
I think he's admitted himself that you
know, there may have been better ways to
communicate all this But ultimately, I,
like, I think his vision, throughout the
years and his perseverance and, you know,
saying, Hey, we're gonna give back a lot.
And, the amount of time that automatic
has contributed and amount of things
they've sort of pushed has been
a net positive for this growth.
Like, I don't, I don't think we'd be
in double digit numbers without him.
so.
credit where it's due.
you know, does that mean that it's
a pass on everything for the future?
Not necessarily.
I think it's, you know,
it should be a discussion.
I think, you know, we're at
the size where there's a lot of
smart minds inside the community.
you know, Yoast wrote about it.
He's, you know, clearly
has a lot of good ideas.
There was a project that Morton had
put together on WP Governance, that
was, you know, really, really good.
So there's a lot of ingredients
out there, I, I, I think that
bring us to the next level.
and being able to try and pull those
together in a way that is, is almost like
the, the, the new layer of community for
such a large project, I, I think would
be very beneficial to its longevity.
Matt: I'm going to highlight
two questions or two comments
that came through the chat.
Webologic says, I think
clarity is important.
It can't just be down to whether or
not you trigger Matt on an off day.
100%.
Nomad skateboarding.
People are confusing open
source with altruism.
Open source only means
the licensing on the code.
It doesn't mean community led
governing body or ownership.
I also completely agree with that.
Yeah, I'm really hoping I was really
hoping then yesterday I saw Matt and in
the WP builds live chat, but I was really
hoping out of this we we could get more
clarity on five for the future and what
contribution means and like how we can
play with that because I love the concept
from a slogan from a marketing perspective
and for like encouraging people look
5 percent of whatever it is you do.
Let's put it back into WordPress
and let's get this thing going.
Yeah.
But then I saw a man on a live stream
and he was, people were asking like,
so what does contribution means?
And he says, whatever's in your heart.
Well, shit.
Like I need a number,
man, 40 hours a week.
Yeah.
Like I need a number and I, and
I hope we can get to get back to
some clarity around that because
ultimately we need that direction.
So that we don't have this ambiguity
of like, am I going to piss you off?
Is this enough?
Are my do, am I doing the right thing?
Cause I think largely people won't mind
the whole five of the future thing.
It just needs more clarity moving forward.
Noel: Yeah, I agree with that.
And I'd say we're, we're still in
the midst of this automatic versus
WP engine saga and probably the
dust needs to settle there, before
we can have these, these more.
super detailed conversations
on what is exact?
What is this exactly?
What is that?
Because right now it feels very much
like a, you know, a football rivalry
going down on the weekend or something.
And you're kind of waiting for the off
season to be able to, you know, bring
all the pieces back together so that
you can once again, play another season,
but do so with rules that benefit all.
Matt: Yeah.
as we sort of, Wrap things up, trying to
do this in 40 to 45 minutes today, because
these conversations can go on forever.
folks, if you have questions, drop
them in the chat, whether about
this or, you know, human made and
the body of work that Noel and his
team have done throughout the years.
Go ahead and drop those
questions in the chat.
where do we go from here?
I think Another thing that comes
out of this is now all web hosts are
sort of like, Oh shit, I, I gotta
be careful of how I phrase WordPress
and or where's that license thing?
Like, how can I get that
so I don't get in trouble?
Like, what, what's the ramifications
for the web hosting industry you
think moving forward after this?
Are you waiting to see what happens
or do you think people are already
making, making decisions moving forward?
Noel: It must be, I mean, the hosts have
been so quiet throughout all of this.
So I, part of me wonders, are, are they,
you know, do they also have open questions
about what sort of what, what everything
means and where everything is going?
I really like the one blog, I forget
his name, who's always been posting the,
the sort of legal aspects of everything.
that's probably been my favorite posts
on everything, but just because he's
always clarified what means what, and
that's been extremely beneficial to me.
but yeah, it's, I, I, I don't like, I, I,
it comes back to clarity and I think the
hosts are absolutely looking for that.
and you know, wondering what
does this mean for them?
I'm guessing they're probably looking
at their own stuff, their own product
names and, you you know, doing a bit
of an internal audit, to see, you
know, have we misstepped anywhere?
we don't want to get caught out on this.
I, that would be my gut feeling.
but you know, every, the whole center
stage right now is occupied by WP
Engine who haven't said much themselves,
which is obviously quite interesting.
Matt: I have up on screen, another
great question that has come up through.
Us all kind of learning about this
licensing thing and, the 8 percent of
WP Engine's revenues, which is 30 to
40 ish million dollars a year, roughly.
And people are asking, well,
where does this money go?
And if it's going directly to
Automatic and not the foundation, how
much of that money's, is Automatic
putting back into WordPress?
My gut tells me a good portion of it.
but Automatic can,
Automatic does a lot more.
And I don't know how to phrase
this, but it's also like things
like this that was posted yesterday.
The future of the social
web is in good hands.
Social media in its current
form broke and chaotic.
A new organization is the Social
Web Foundation aims to change that.
and Automatic is, part of that, along
with a bunch of other, companies
and brands that are behind this.
So, I think when monies go into Automatic,
they're a good steward for the open web.
Quite a
Noel: best steward out of
all the large companies.
I mean, that's probably one
way to look at it, I'd say.
Matt: Yeah.
And it's hard against the backdrop
of stuff like this, right?
Because, you know, this stuff is
what impacts our, our branding, our
marketing of WordPress when it's like,
you know, you have these headlines of
Matt calling WP Engine, cancer to the
ecosystem, and then you're shutting down.
Shutting customers off who are
just like bystanders in this stuff.
And this is the stuff that really
makes our job uplifting and
WordPress thriving difficult.
When I do see things like Automattic
is doing, aside from WordPress, that
are cool things for the open web.
So, will all the money go to WordPress?
I don't know.
I think a good chunk of it will.
But also, Automattic does some other
stuff where that money is going,
which is also benefiting, WordPress.
Yeah,
Noel: I guess the picture that some people
are painting that the money is needed to
fill some revenue gap that automatic has
because automatic is failing or whatever.
I don't believe that to be true.
could, could automatic do a better
job of listing their contributions or
breaking them out as a, as, as a sort
of role model for other companies?
probably, you know, like
it's, they do a lot.
And if you really broke that all
out, I, I think it, it would be.
It would not only be, quite a large
volume, but also very diverse activities.
So it's not necessarily just about
throwing money at one thing, but also
experimenting with different topics,
areas, experimenting with different
things, not always succeeding, and,
you know, as, as you say, I think
they're a good steward in that regard.
Matt: Yeah.
I was drafting a blog post.
People have been listening to this live
stream, heard me talk about this already.
This would be the last sort of thing we
chat about, but one of the things I'm not
going to publish it anymore because of all
this stuff, just cause I don't need the
stress and it's not going to add value.
but one of the things I was saying,
writing this blog post, what would
I do if I was running automatic?
This was pre any of this stuff months ago.
I started writing it and one of the
things I was saying was automatic is
just going to strip out everything
that is a distraction products
like simple note, which I love.
You don't need it anymore.
Pocketcast.
Love it.
Use it every single day as my podcast app.
Automatic shouldn't focus it on anymore.
Automatic should triple, quadruple
all the resources into WordPress.
That is the focus.
Not even Tumblr, man.
I mean, I love the idea
of Tumblr and WordPress.
Get it out of here.
Right?
Anything that isn't directly
WordPress, get it out.
We need the focus on WordPress.
You know, because they do so much.
And, I think hyper focus
is still gonna happen.
Maybe this is that slight direction
where we're gonna start to see
commercial land of WordPress focused,
excuse me, commercial land of
automatic hyper focused on, on revenues
and growth, for WordPress sake.
And I think that's this Band Aid moment.
Rip the Band Aid off moment for me anyway.
Any closing thoughts from you?
Noel: Yeah, I think you
have a good point there.
And I'd say that's pretty true of
any bull bear cycle where companies
get a bit bloated, do things
they don't necessarily need to.
I think I was listening to the verge
podcast over a year ago, maybe two years
ago, even where Matt was talking about
working on Tumblr and how it was one of
the most humbling experiences for him.
He learned a lot and I think, you
know, even if, even if Tumblr doesn't
necessarily belong in the automatic
portfolio, he still gets to bring
that wealth of experience back.
and I think that's extremely beneficial.
So, you know, same for us at Human Made.
You know, we, we experiment
with different things.
We, we try to go a bit too large
with the DXP sort of labels,
pull that back down to cloud.
you live and learn.
it, it's kind of the space.
You know, you're part of an expansionary
market, called WordPress, and then all
of a sudden, all of a sudden, you know,
it's 2020 or 2019, 2018, things are just
slowing down a little bit, in terms of
the growth curve and then Covid hits.
And that's really.
Put, you know, put a breaks on a
break on everything you come back and
work camps are half the attendance,
less, you know, in terms of global
attendance, global activity.
so I think it's a humbling experience
for all of us to, you know, see
what's in a portfolio, what makes
sense, how do we go to market?
because WordPress overall WordPress,
numbers can decline whilst
parts of the market can grow.
And that's, you know, absolutely
the approach that we take
with parts of enterprise.
Matt: Noel Talk from Human Made.
You can find him at HumanMade.
com.
Anywhere else folks can
find you to say thanks?
Noel: at Noel Talk is the
best place, personally.
mostly Instagram these days because
of, Doggy Rescue in Ukraine.
So, that's, that's where it is.
And then for the more
WordPress stuff, it's Twitter.
So I try to separate the two, a bit.
Matt: That's fantastic.
Everybody else, thanks for watching today.
Thanks for tuning in to WPMinute.
com.
The WPMinute.
com slash subscribe is the
number one way to stay connected.
We'll see you.
In the next video.
Noel: Appreciate it, Matt.