Opinion

  • Watch the State of the Woo! After You Give WooCommerce Your Name and Email Address

    Watch the State of the Woo! After You Give WooCommerce Your Name and Email Address

    If you didn’t watch the live stream or attend WooConf in-person, you’re in luck as videos from the event are starting to come online. The first talk highlights is the State of the Woo by Todd Wilkens, Head of WooCommerce. Wilkens shares stats, provides an overview of projects the team is working on, what to…

  • Results From the 2017 WordPress User Survey Are Not Guaranteed to Be Shared

    Results From the 2017 WordPress User Survey Are Not Guaranteed to Be Shared

    As November edges closer, the countdown to WordCamp US begins. One of the annual traditions that’s part of the event is the WordPress User Survey. The survey is used to gauge who and how people use WordPress. Although the survey says results will be presented at WordCamp US, that hasn’t been the case the last…

  • From Building WordPress Sites to Selling Plugins in One Year

    From Building WordPress Sites to Selling Plugins in One Year

    This is a guest post written by Katie Keith, co-founder of Barn2 Media. In this post, Keith shares the lessons she and her husband learned transitioning from client work to selling WordPress products in one year. If you’ve ever dreamed of quitting client work and earning passive income by selling WordPress themes and plugins, you’re…

  • Morten Rand-Hendriksen on What Gutenberg Means For the Future of WordPress

    Morten Rand-Hendriksen on What Gutenberg Means For the Future of WordPress

    As work continues on Gutenberg, members of the community are discussing its impacts on WordPress’ future. Morten Rand-Hendriksen considers Gutenberg to be a watershed moment, “This is a revolution,” he said. “This is a watershed moment for WordPress. This is entirely new and fundamentally different from how WordPress works and how we work with it…

  • WordPress.com’s Business Plan Gives Subscribers a Way to Tap into WordPress.org’s Third-party Ecosystem

    WordPress.com’s Business Plan Gives Subscribers a Way to Tap into WordPress.org’s Third-party Ecosystem

    Earlier this year, WordPress.com launched an experiment giving Business plan subscribers the ability to install third-party plugins and themes. Automattic concluded the experiment earlier this week and officially made the features part of the subscription plan. “With support for plugins and third-party themes, WordPress.com Business users will be able to connect their sites to great…

  • Popular WordPress Plugins Slow to Add Meta Box Support for Calypso

    Popular WordPress Plugins Slow to Add Meta Box Support for Calypso

    During the State of the Word at WordCamp US 2016, Matt Mullenweg announced that Calypso was plugin aware. Calypso is a REST API and React powered application for the desktop created by Automattic in 2015. Developers with plugins active on 1M sites or more received an email invitation from Andy Peatling to begin building support…

  • Why Gutenberg?

    Why Gutenberg?

    Random Thoughts on Gutenberg Gutenberg and Yoast SEO Improving WordPress Pt 4 – Where Gutenberg Lost Me (Open Letter to Core) A First Look at Gutenberg Editor for WordPress: Mixed Opinions Diving Into the New Gutenberg WordPress Editor (Pros and Cons) Gutenberg With A Screen Reader: Initial Thoughts And Reactions First Reactions to Gutenberg, the…

  • 10 Lessons Learned From Five Years of Selling WordPress Products

    10 Lessons Learned From Five Years of Selling WordPress Products

    This post was contributed by Rebecca Gill. Rebecca is the founder of Web Savvy Marketing, a web development, design, maintenance, and SEO consulting company based in Michigan and host of the SEO Bits podcast. Rebecca recently sold her Genesis Theme store to 9seeds, a store she managed and maintained for five years. In this post,…

  • Lifted, a WordPress Theme and Plugin Shop for the Marijuana Industry

    Lifted, a WordPress Theme and Plugin Shop for the Marijuana Industry

    Lifted is a new WordPress theme and plugin company founded by Drew Poland that caters to the marijuana industry. I reached out to Poland to learn more about his company, his pricing model, and get his perspective on this space in the WordPress ecosystem. Why did you decide to get into the marijuana industry with…

  • WordPress.com’s TV Commercials Are Confusing

    WordPress.com’s TV Commercials Are Confusing

    In Matt Mullenweg’s 2016 State of the Word, he announced the WordPress Growth Council. The council was created as a think-tank for individuals and organizations in the WordPress community to share ideas on how best to tell WordPress’ story to grow market share. The Growth Council serves as a collaborative means to combat the more than $300M in…

  • Headway Themes Appears to be Dying a Slow Death

    Headway Themes Appears to be Dying a Slow Death

    It’s been seven months since Grant and Clay Griffiths, founders of Headway Themes, apologized to customers for failing to communicate on a regular basis and provide adequate customer support. In the apology, the founders admit that the company was experiencing financial difficulties and noted that competition in the WordPress drag-and-drop page-builder space was tough. The…

  • New WordPress Plugin Shows Users Where a Plugin’s Settings Link Is Upon Activation

    New WordPress Plugin Shows Users Where a Plugin’s Settings Link Is Upon Activation

    A common frustration I’ve experienced in WordPress after installing a plugin is figuring out where the settings link is located. It can be a top-level menu item or tucked away in a sub-menu. Sometimes, the plugin doesn’t warrant a settings link. A new plugin called Show Plugin Menu Items on Activation created by Kellen Mace and Gary Kovar seeks…

  • New Userscript Restores Tabs to the WordPress Plugin Directory

    New Userscript Restores Tabs to the WordPress Plugin Directory

    One of the most common complaints about the WordPress plugin directory’s redesign is the use of read more links instead of tabs. Plugin authors and users contend that tabs make information more accessible. The redesign requires visitors to scroll a one-page design and click on various read more links to discover more information. There is…

  • WordPress Plugin Directory Redesign: Why So Many People Feel Their Feedback Was Ignored

    WordPress Plugin Directory Redesign: Why So Many People Feel Their Feedback Was Ignored

    Earlier this week, the WordPress plugin directory relaunched with a new design and an improved search algorithm. Feedback has been rolling in from Tavern readers and members of the Advanced WordPress Facebook group. The improvements to search has received a number of positive comments in addition to people requesting the ability to sort results. The…