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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.
I'm sure.
We're all glad that year
of WordPress is behind us.
WordCamp us 2024 marked The
start of a transformative era
for the culture of ward pressers.
A situation that thrust the
community and the greater ecosystem.
Into a tailspin with widespread
uncertainty and instability
across various sectors.
As of this writing, we're still
unsure how the lawsuit between
Matt Mullenweg Automattic and
WP engine will fully play out.
While we witnessed the dust
settle and find our new normal.
Here are the ways I think WordPress
will change over the year 2025.
Number one.
Automatic continues to
rip off the band-aid.
I think we can all agree that
since the inception of Gutenberg
there hasn't been a major, wow.
Moment for WordPress.
Usability has improved some cool concepts
have shipped, but nothing showstopping
has graced our WP admin dashboards.
It's a two-sided coin.
Really.
A stable tool for publishing.
Yeah.
Buzzworthy or exciting for
the outside world, including
our closed source competitors.
No.
Automatic needs to stay relevant charm
investors and keep building cool stuff.
That's hard enough for
any product company.
Let alone an open source product company.
It boils down to marketing and awareness,
which WordPress has always struggled with.
Even if Gutenberg was welcomed with
open arms, excitement for building with
blocks and using WordPress for your next
website project was still necessary.
I believe that for Matt and automatic
to steer the ship back to relevancy, he
needed to pull this entire operation back
under full control lines needed to be
drawn, and they certainly were in 2024.
I noticed a different
tone and body language.
Wouldn't I appeared on the WP product
talk earlier in 2024, the change was
coming back then did I think it was
going to be a scorched earth approached?
No, I didn't think that you wouldn't be
wrong if you argue that Mullenweg has
been trending in this direction for years.
But it seemed like 20, 24 was filled
with far too many distractions.
Uh, flailing tumbler
acquisition or spending tens
of millions on messenger apps.
What about WordPress?
I often ask myself.
I've predicted that in the future we'll
visit wordpress.org and find the best way
to experience WordPress is@wordpress.com
or by hosting WordPress powered by
Jetpack, and then somewhere far below
that you'll find in small text, click
here to download WordPress for free.
In the short term, ripping off the bandaid
to let the world know Mattson charges.
One step closer to that reality.
One step closer and fewer distractions
for Mullenweg, perhaps less
community involvement and much more
mothership and control in 2025.
Prediction number two.
Community becomes communities.
The WordPress community, as
we knew it is not coming back.
You're either for or against automatic
using the project or spinning up
your own fork, meaning us on X or
you've already quit the whole thing.
And you're riding off into
the sunset in a new CMS.
I'm still left.
Wondering what would Joseph ado.
There have been two public
opportunities for Mary Hubbard, the
new executive director of WordPress
to share her plans for the community.
Both appearances have left me
still searching for answers.
On a live stream with Mullen.
Hubbard mentioned not wanting
to be Joseph at two point.
Oh, totally understandable.
No one wants to be 2.0
of their predecessor.
However, the north star held
by the previous ed was shining
bright with the desire to Help
WordPress thrive a call to action.
We could all rally around.
And the state of the word
2024 Hubbard opened up with.
Well, I am deeply passionate about
defending and celebrating WordPress.
And this is where I believe the
community begins to fracture.
Is WordPress truly under
attack from external forces.
Specifically private equity or is
it just suffocating from within.
On paper P E consuming more
of WordPress's a good thing.
From what I've witnessed in the
traditional tech space, they don't care
much for community investment either.
The playbook is to grow the
asset, sell the asset and keep the
revolving door for the portfolio.
Moving.
However, I also don't agree with
Matt and automatic turning the
community into cannon fodder,
something that has done magnitudes
more damage than a fiscal quarter.
Then if Silverlake sold WP engine to Wix.
We the community could have been the
biggest advocates for mullenweg's
change, but instead we were tossed aside,
regardless of tenure or contribution.
This is why we'll see more
micro communities pop up
around WordPress through 2025.
People fall out of love with
WordPress as a quote place to be.
And WordPress just gets tossed
into the toolbox alongside things
like MailChimp or Google apps.
It has transformed from an open source
project backed by a global community
into a free website builder by automatic.
Over 2025, WordPress will go from
one big community to a decentralized
collection of users who care less
about the mission of WordPress and
more about building their websites.
Prediction number three.
Playground is the future for WordPress.
As sure as the iPhone gets
10% better year after year.
So does the software have WordPress?
So, yes, that's part of this prediction.
WordPress, the software does get better,
but probably not by all that much.
Playground, we'll start to set
an important stage for WordPress.
One that I think is needed for the
longterm survivability and interest.
Of the product.
To stay competitive, relevant
in easily accessible.
The playground will take the
center stage and here's why.
As I explored other software in 2024,
specifically other CMS apps, no other
website allowed me to try their software.
Hands-on in the browser.
Without installing registering
like WordPress camp.
Even if you argue that WordPress's
monolithic uses old technologies and
generally can't get out of its own way.
I don't see other tech stacks solving the
complete stack like WordPress does website
builder, theme layer, drag, and drop
design publishing, plugins, and ecosystem
of login infrastructure, et cetera.
It's a real light bulb moment.
When you put that power instantly into
the hands of someone looking to learn,
build, or publish online without friction.
Playground allows you to build out a
custom WordPress instance, save the
blueprint, and then theoretically,
deploy that to your hosting provider.
Most important of all it lets you learn
how the web and the software works.
All.
Thanks to doing it in the browser.
Most developers are already running their
own Docker variants for local development
with deployment workflows wired up so deep
that on their laptops, they forget which
directory their shell scripts are in.
But for the average user to
play with WordPress without risk
or cost is a tremendous boon.
In 2025, look for playground to
play a critical role in capturing
new users for the platform.
Prediction number four.
Automatic cuts the product fat.
Automatic has a lot of products.
Just look at the proportion of the
lineup that doesn't directly impact
WordPress simple note, long reads tumbler
CloudApp beeper pocket CAS day one.
The list does go on.
Yes, I'm sure that the case can be made
that it fits the automatic culture,
but how does it directly make WordPress
a better product or experience?
Well, the bandaid is still
being torn off this whole thing.
Now is the time for automatic
to get hyper-focused on the CMS.
Most of us have a vested interest in.
I predict Milan WEG will evaluate whether
or not he needs these accessory products.
The still Dawn, the
automatic footer badge.
If my predictions are correct, cutting
the distractions that automatic
makes the most business sense.
Matt has signaled to the community and
to investors that he's taking this 20
plus year old Project back under control.
The call from her focus was
heard and it's time to execute.
If we are to believe that automatic is
the sole defender of WordPress, then
all resources should go into defending.
Well, WordPress.
Make a better product and
double down on that effort.
Reassign the iOS and Android teams
within automatic to the studio
team bridge the studio native app
through the playground web based app.
Then tie playground into
wordpress.com or pressable hosting.
There's your flywheel.
An end-to-end WordPress design
development, education and
deployment workflow, but it
doesn't happen with all that extra
product overhead hanging around.
In 2025, automatic closes
out a lot of products.
They don't need in
doubles down on WordPress.
Fifth and final prediction.
AI threatens everything.
Okay.
Remember, I'm still trying
to make sense of this mess.
AI threatened WordPress and mullenweg's
John Connor came back to tell him if
you don't burn this whole thing down
now and take control, you're screwed.
And scene.
Having gone all in, on some AI
experimentation last year, I can
confidently say that building for the web
is changing rapidly right before our eyes.
Most AI building tools plugged into
WordPress are merely parlor tricks.
Once users start prompting chat GPT
to build the software they want.
And it's hosted in the
cloud, the landscape of web
development changes dramatically.
At that point, every piece
of software is under threat.
And so it was WordPress
has coveted 45% of the web.
And let's be clear.
That's not something I'm rooting for,
but it looks like the path that we're on.
It's not all doom and
gloom for WordPress though.
My time with AI has also given me a
new appreciation for the software.
Sure I can spin up a blog built
bespoke using whatever JS framework
chat, GPT, suggest that day.
But it's not sustainable and it's
not a way to develop software.
Even if you prompted your AI
overlord to build a WordPress
cologne, who's going to take care
of the bugs, the security patches, a
future iterations of cool features.
Not me, probably not.
You.
It was built.
You used it for a while and then it
landed in the digital trash heap.
When WordPress loses market share
to quote unknown AI apps and future
charts, it makes up for when somebody
chooses WordPress because humans
made it It's a complete package And
is being cared for by automatic.
AI isn't doing that for you.
Yet.
In 2025, look for automatic to release
its first version of building WordPress
with AI, whatever that ends up being hint.
It might also start with the playground.
Now is the best time to invest
in WordPress, the 2024 WordPress
timeline left us with a lot of
uncertainty, but I do believe now is
the best time for you to invest here.
There are many of us who still
wants to see WordPress thrive, even
if the hallways to the community
look a little different these days.
WordPress is still the foundation
of so many livelihoods giving back
to the project and challenging the
status quo will be at a premium.
Remaining extremely important.
And while you might have to get
comfortable with a new normal, those
who find fresh ways to invest here,
we'll see a return on their commitment.