post status

In this episode of Post Status Draft, Cory is joined by James Farmer, CEO of Incsub, WPMU DEV, CampusPress, and Edublogs. James’ WordPress story goes all the way back to his launch of the first hosted WordPress multisite blogging platform — just a few days ahead of WordPress.com. Edublogs currently hosts millions of students’ and educators’ blogs. James talks about successes and failures, his views on Gutenberg, and how he stays competitive with Squarespace. Cory brings up the WordPress.org active install data question and gets James’ take on how he’d like to see it re-emerge with greater value for plugin businesses.

🙏 Sponsor: Pressable

Founded in 2010, Pressable is a world-class managed WordPress hosting provider built on the same data network as WordPress.com and WordPress VIP. With industry-leading performance, 24/7 expert support, a 100% uptime guarantee, and seamless integrations with WooCommerce and Jetpack, Pressable provides the tools you need to manage your WordPress websites and grow your business all in one place.

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• Incsub - WPMU DEV, CampusPress, & Edublogs
• WPMU DEV
• CampusPress: WordPress for Education | Websites & ePortfolios
• EduBlogs: Blogs & Websites For Education

🐦 You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:

• James Farmer (Founder, Incsub)
• Cory Miller (Editor, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

What's it like to enter this WordPress community media space, especially as the editor of a publication with many voices, personalities, and perspectives?

My friend and dialogue partner, Nyasha Green, is six months into her role as Editorial Director at MasterWP, so today we're talking about what that's been like for Ny, what she's learned, and how we look at the WordPress media space we both work in.

Unsurprisingly we talk about conflict, communication, personality, and the importance of in-person events. That brings up WCUS — a first for both of us — where we'll meet each other and a lot of people we've only known remotely. It also sounds like I might get roped into a karaoke duet. (Not if I can help it!)

👋 Your Hosts

• Dan Knauss, Editor for Post Status (Twitter)
• Nyasha Green, Editorial Director at MasterWP (Twitter)
• Olivia Bisset, Web Producer intern for Post Status (Twitter)

🙏 Sponsor: Elementor

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Every week Post Status Excerpt will bring you a conversation about important news and issues in the WordPress community and business ecosystem. 🎙️

You can listen to past episodes of The Excerpt, browse all our podcasts, and don’t forget to subscribe on Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or by RSS. 🎧

People don't realize how long ago "long ago" wasn't. We're not talking about two, three, four hundred years ago. My family always stressed working somewhere your employer respects you, because it wasn't that long ago they didn't have a choice.

Nyasha Green

We're rebooting Post Status Excerpt as a weekly chat between Nyasha Green and Dan Knauss (and guests—please join us!) about a few of the active topics and discussions in the WordPress community that we feel are most important. Big thanks to David Bisset in his former role as host and curator here, and also to our intern and post-production engineer, Olivia Bisset.

This week we're talking about pay transparency. Ny relates some personal experiences where an employer did not disclose pay or how employees were selected for raises. This leads us into a discussion of pay transparency in the hiring process — how it matters to everyone but especially job seekers who are black, indigenous, and other people of color. (Ny has written about this before, and Piccia Neri has been investigating the topic lately.) We also talk about how a lack of transparency can seem to emphasize an employer's distrust and an employee's disadvantaged position — and the effect that can have on a workplace culture.

Next, we talk about our own family histories which are touched — in living memory in Ny's case — by slavery and colonialism where work and dignity were extracted from some people by others with the power take their labor without compensation. Ny's great grandfather was born a slave in South Carolina in 1858 and lived until 1963. Dan's ancestors include German settlers in North Carolina who abandoned their earlier beliefs against slavery and began to practice it in the late 1700s. In the Americas and beyond, the past is much closer than we often assume, especially for BIPOC people. History only “bends toward justice” if people choose to bend it that way. It can also go the other way.

Finally, we close with how Allie Nimmons experienced a surprising level of hostility to a survey she presented to the WordPress community about the ways we contribute to the project and how we feel about it. There's the community we have now — and the community we need to become. How do we get there? What are the barriers? How can you help?

🔗 Mentioned in the Show:

• Piccia Neri started a discussion in Post Status Slack and on Twitter with a poll about job listings without salary ranges.
• Nyasha wrote an article for MasterWP, “Put your money where your mouth is: Why we need pay transparency in tech.”
• Nyasha's great grandfather, Jeff Doby was one of the Last Survivors of American Slavery.
• Historical trauma is carried across the generations in our genetics, according to researchers like Bessel van der Kolk, the author of books like The Body Keeps the Score.
• Allie Nimmons shared this contributor survey on Twitter and commented later on some of the hostile responses she got to the survey itself.

👋 Your Hosts

• Nyasha Green, Editorial Director at MasterWP (Twitter)
• Dan Knauss, Editor for Post Status (Twitter)

Every week Post Status Excerpt will bring you a conversation about important news and issues in the WordPress community and business ecosystem. 🎙️

You can listen to past episodes of The Excerpt, browse all our podcasts, and don’t forget to subscribe on Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or by RSS. 🎧

Cory leads the first Post Status Year-End Member Huddle — on Zoom. It’s a mix of news about the year ahead for Post Status members, discussion, a year-end exercise for you, and some laughs over the best ugly sweater contest.

🙏 Sponsor: Pagely

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Awesome Motive Acquires Sandhills Development

Post Status CEO Cory Miller chats with Pippin Williamson, the Founder and Managing Director of Sandhills Development, about Awesome Motive's acquisition of his company. 

Pippin announced today that Awesome Motive has acquired his company — their whole team and plugin portfolio: Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, Sugar Calendar, WP Simple Pay, and the Payouts Service. Syed Balkhi, Founder and CEO of Awesome Motive, outlines the commercial plugins and notes the deal includes several free plugins as well. From Sandhills, Chris Klosowski, Andrew Munro, and Phil Derksen will be joining Awesome Motive as partners, and Chris will continue to lead Easy Digital Downloads. 

Pippin, however, intends to take a very long break from WordPress and software development.

Sitting down with Cory Miller for some reflection on the past and thoughts about the future in the WordPress space, Pippin offered advice to developers and product owners today. He also identified what he sees as the biggest threat emerging for WordPress today.

Key Takeaway: "The Biggest Threat We Have Today" 🦈

As both an opportunity and "a major threat" to "WordPress the platform" that comes from its openness, Pippin warns:

"We are getting to a point where WordPress is so big and there is so much money involved in the WordPress ecosystem that it is now very much in large companies' interests to create their own version of WordPress."

Pippin Williamson

Because "the WordPress experience is not consistent" between major hosting platforms — due to their attempts to improve their customer experience — Pippin is concerned end users won't be able to tell what is WordPress and what is the host.

Might that kind of platform balkanization carry over into the WordPress community, dividing developers, product businesses, and end users?

Pippin also referenced Kinsta COO Jon Penland's conversation with Anchor Hosting founder Austin Ginder back in June on Kinsta's Reverse Engineered podcast:

"...something that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last year, which is a move I see in the WordPress space in general, at the host level, and I’m not going to name any names because I don’t want to throw stones, but to pull in more and more tooling that’s not part of the Core. And, I just worry that we’re going to end up in a situation, a few years from now, where we have a whole lot of walled gardens, right? Where WordPress at host A is not the same thing as WordPress at host B and is not the same at WordPress at host C, because as you described, a WordPress provider might try to solve this problem as an on-ramp for their own customers."

Jon Penland

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• Cory Miller (Twitter)
• Pippin Williamson (Twitter)
• Pippin on the Sandhills Acquisition
• Syed Balkhi on Awesome Motive's Plans for Pippin's Plugins
• Acquisition Announcement at Easy Digital Downloads
• Jon Penland interviews Austin Ginder for Kinsta's Reverse Engineered podcast

🙏 Sponsor: Sandhills Development

No matter what you're working on with your WordPress website, Sandhills Development has a tool that can help you. Sell digital products with Easy Digital Downloads. Use AffiliateWP as your affiliate marketing solution. Sugar Calendar is event management made easy. And WP Simple Pay is a lightweight Stripe payments plugin. Craft superior experiences with the ingenuity of Sandhills’ plugins.

🎙️ Post Status Draft

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse past episodes and subscribe to our podcasts on  Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or get them by RSS. 🎙️

Chris Lema talks about the latest WordPress acquisition: LearnDash is joining Liquid Web. Will it become the leading LMS turnkey solution?

Post Status CEO Cory Miller chats with Chris Lema, Vice President of Products at Liquid Web, about Liquid Web's acquisition of LearnDash. LearnDash will join Liquid Web's StellarWP brand, and Chris will step in as the General Manager of LearnDash.

It's been a boom time in recent years for edutech companies. As the online learning leader in the WordPress space with their Learning Management System (LMS) plugin for WordPress — which comes with a whole ecosystem of addons and integrations — it's no surprise LearnDash would be attractive as a platform for a hosting company to acquire. Get an inside look at the latest big deal in WordPress acquisitions with Chris Lema.

"Everyone knows LearnDash as the leader of online learning in the WordPress ecosystem. We are excited to welcome them to the Liquid Web family as we continue to build our strength in the digital commerce ecosystem. LearnDash takes us deeper into the digital commerce space by offering online educators the best tools to create online courses, quizzes, and dynamic content with built-in marketing and ecommerce features. We believe in their brand, and we know that with our backing, they will continue to deliver the online solutions educators need."  — Chris Lema

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• Cory Miller (Twitter)
• Chris Lema (Twitter)
• LearnDash
• Liquid Web
• StellarWP

🙏 Sponsor: GoDaddy Pro

Manage your clients, websites, and tasks from a single dashboard with GoDaddy Pro. Perform security scans, backups, and remote updates to many sites on any host. Check up on site performance, monitor uptime and analytics, and then send reports to your clients. GoDaddy Pro is free — and designed to make your life better.

🎙️ Post Status Draft

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse past episodes and subscribe to our podcasts on  Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, Simplecast, or get them by RSS. 🎙️

Change and a vision for the future at Post Status

In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, Cory Miller and David Bisset discuss the future of Post Status and Cory's full acquisition of it from its founder, Brian Krogsgard. Brian launched Post Status eight years ago. Today, Brian shared his announcement publicly, and Cory also outlined his plans for the future of Post Status.

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Cory Miller (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)
• Cory: Our Future Together
• Brian: A New Era for Post Status
• Introducting A New Chapter: An Interview With Cory Miller

🙏 Sponsor: Bluehost

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Announcement of LiquidWeb acquiring GiveWP sparks discussion: are all acquisitions good for WordPress?

In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, Cory Miller and David Bisset discuss the recent announcement of GiveWP and WP Business Reviews joining the Liquid Web Family of Brands. StellarWP will house all of Liquid Web’s software assets, including iThemes, The Events Calendar, Restrict Content Pro, and Kadence WP.

Also covered in this episode: David gets Cory's take on acquisitions in general for the WordPress space — what's the potential (good or bad), and how should the WordPress professional view the consolidation of their ecosystem under fewer, bigger companies?

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. ⚡

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

🔗 Mentioned in the show:

• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Cory Miller (Twitter)
• Post Status (Twitter)
• GiveWP Joins the Liquid Web Family of Brands
• Liquid Web Family of Brands Acquires Impress.org and Flagship Product GiveWP

🙏 Sponsor: GoDaddy Pro

Manage your clients, websites, and tasks from a single dashboard with GoDaddy Pro. Perform security scans, backups, and remote updates to many sites on any host. Check up on site performance, monitor uptime and analytics, and then send reports to your clients. GoDaddy Pro is free — and designed to make your life better.

In this episode of Post Status Draft, Brian Krogsgard talks with Beth Livingston, M. Ed. 

Today, Beth is an Online Course Creator and Educator at WP Roadmaps and Coaching. Previously, Beth worked in education and corporate IT management. When she joined the WordPress community, Beth saw a need that combined these two roles: project management education and training.

WordPress Designers and Developers from Freelancers to Agencies Face the Same Problems

While attending WordCamps, WordPress Meetups, and engaging in WordPress Facebook groups, Beth kept hearing the same questions:

• How do I get the client to give me the content?
• How can I control scope creep without angering my client?
• What does it take for my client to understand how much is involved in building a website?

Beth learned how to solve these problems during her many years as an IT Business Analyst, Instructional Designer, and Project Manager. For that reason, it was a logical step for her to help WordPress professionals by offering online courses and private coaching in project management.

Whether you are a developer, designer, or agency, if you manage WordPress projects, Beth can help.

Learn about the key principles of WordPress project management with Beth in this interview. She covers deep discovery, proper proposals and estimates, scope creep, and gold plating.

Project management is not a plugin or SaaS tool like Trello, Asana, or Wrike. It's a role and a task with a skillset you train to acquire.

🔗 Mentioned in the show

• Beth Livingston (@BethLivingstoNC, LinkedIn)
• https://wproadmaps.com/wordcamp/
• WP Roadmaps and Coaching
• WP Project Manager's Academy

👍 Sponsor: Sandhills Development

No matter what you’re working on with your WordPress website, Sandhills Development has a tool that can help you. Sell digital products with Easy Digital Downloads. Use AffiliateWP as your affiliate marketing solution. Sugar Calendar is event management made easy. And WP Simple Pay is a lightweight Stripe payments plugin. Craft superior experiences with the ingenuity of Sandhills’ plugins.

In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David Bisset and Cory Miller talk about some upcoming enhancements to the Post Status job board and Cory's experience with the current #gig channel in Post Status Slack.

Also covered: David talks about a Brian Krogsgard tweet rant on WordPress settings screens. David asks Cory if he thinks some old "wrinkles" in WordPress might eventually be harmful.

Every week Post Status Excerpt will brief you on important WordPress news relevant to the Post Status community — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash.⚡

🔗 Mentioned in the show

• David Bisset (Twitter)
• Cory Miller (Twitter)
• "Setting Screen" Conversation In Post Status Slack (Member Access Required)
• Brian Krogsgard tweet and one from David Bisset.
• Is the WordPress Comment System Still Relevant?

Sponsor: Wordfence

Wordfence protects over 4 million WordPress websites with a world-class firewall and malware scanner. It is the most popular security plugin available, protecting WordPress sites from spam, malware, and other threats through the real-time threat defense feed.

In this episode, I talk with Brian Krogsgard about how he started Post Status, deciding to take full time, getting members, making decisions, and of-course, the tools he used to built out the website! One of my favorite parts of the interview is around 7:20, where Brian talks about his method for researching his stories. Show Notes: 

• Post Status
• Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress (on copyright)
• WooCommerce
• MailChimp
• Slack
• WP Career Starter

Sponsored by: Creator Crew | SiteGround