October 2014 • Post Status

Matt Mullenweg’s 2014 State of the Word

“Oh, my name is Matt Mullenweg by the way. Nice to meet you.” After … Read more

Postmatic wants to revitalize your WordPress email, starting with comments

Postmatic is a new WordPress plugin that I think is quite promising. It’s aim is to eventually change the way you utilize WordPress email in many ways, but its comment functionality is what intrigued me immediately.

Postmatic currently allows users to subscribe to comments and posts by email; but what sets it apart is that it enables reply by email functionality as well. That’s something that has been high on my list of wants for a WordPress plugin for a long time, and I wanted it without switching to a third party system like Disqus.

All in all — aside from enabling replies by email — the current feature set is quite similar to Jetpack’s Subscriptions module. Postmatic has widgets for post subscriptions and will send subscribers new posts and allow them to get emailed comment notifications as well.

I asked Jason Lemieux, a co-founder of Postmatic, if they were considering a way to import from Jetpack or otherwise integrate with it, and they are. They’re working now to make it so that your old posts using Jetpack’s subscription module for comment notifications will still work, and your new posts will use Postmatic.

I had a pretty thorough conversation with Jason and got to see Postmatic in action. For a free plugin especially, the functionality is quite impressive. I tested subscribing to comments, replying by email, and opting into subscriptions, and it is all very smooth. Here’s a sample reply notification to my email.

Early May 2015 will be the first ever LoopConf, a WordPress conference that’s … Read more

5 years into business, Pagely is growing faster than ever

Pagely is celebrating their fifth year of business right now. They have just launched their newly designed website (note to early readers: it’s in process of launching at this moment, so some links may not work until later today) to reflect some of the ways they’ve changed over the years. They are also growing, rapidly.

The new website is a complete rebrand. They’ve tweaked their logo many times over the years, but they’ve completely changed it now. It’s much more modern and can be used in a variety of ways.

The new website is flat, geometric, modern, and as sassy as ever (like with their Investors page they are quite proud of). In all, the redesign attempts to showcase happy customers and what makes them different.

They are introducing brand ambassadors — a kind of super testimonial — that includes names you’ll surely recognize from the WordPress community.

Additionally, they are giving other managed hosts a bit of a sting with what they call #turnthepage, a dedicated page to highlight that they don’t charge for pageviews, something that most managed WordPress hosting companies do.

I’m going to take a leaf out of Chris Lema’s book right now to answer whether WordPress should be used for eCommerce: It depends.

There are camps of thought that think WordPress isn’t right for eCommerce, and there are people that think it’s the only way to go. Having worked with and used several different eCommerce platforms (both hosted and self-hosted), I’ve definitely developed the mindset that there are use cases for each. WordPress can be the right choice in a lot of circumstances, but not all.

Hosted vs. self-hosted

If you’re not sure about the major differences between hosted vs self hosted platforms, I recommend reading Patrick Rauland’s overview of the major differences. WordPress eCommerce usually falls under self-hosted eCommerce (I don’t count WordPress.com since it uses external eCommerce solutions). Forbes also recently wrote about this, though I don’t necessarily agree with their conclusions.

The typical viewpoint is that WordPress plugins like WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads are great for small stores or people that just want to quickly and easily sell a few items, while hosted platforms like Shopify and Bigcommerce are for “serious” stores.

This viewpoint is actually pretty backwards, not to mention the fact that the number of items is a poor way of determining which platform you should use.

Give each its due

Is WordPress the best platform on which to build apps? I don’t always think so, but it could be. Is it always a good choice for eCommerce? Nope. However, it’s the right one for lots of stores, and it’s the wrong one for lots of stores.

There are a few major strengths and weaknesses of both WordPress and hosted solutions. I’ve worked most with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and Shopify, but have tried lots of other eCommerce solutions for comparison. Some of the knocks against WordPress aren’t valid, but we should note that some are.

WordPress eCommerce weaknesses

Everyone loves to talk about how easy certain WordPress plugins are to use. When you compare WordPress plugins to something like Shopify, this just isn’t true. They may be easy to use for people that are familiar with WordPress, but not for the average user who wants to start selling online with no experience.

WordPress requires a domain name purchase, hosting setup, installation, plugin installation and setup, theme installation and setup, blah blah blah, you get the drift. With hosted solutions, you don’t worry about this (though solutions like Evermore — which was covered by Post Status when it launched — make this interesting). You pay your monthly bill, and you’re handed a store website – you just pick the name and get rolling. You can start adding products right away, and then you might get into changing your theme or other setup.

This post spends a lot of time analyzing and referencing two other blog posts. Excuse me for that, but also be sure to read both, as they are relevant for this post and also interesting in their own right.

Matt Mullenweg wrote a blog post called Five for the Future yesterday that advocates his belief that WordPress-centric companies should aim to utilize 5% of their company resources toward contributing back to the project.

He noted in the post that Automattic isn’t quite to this point, but that they are working on it, and describes why he believes it’s important. He closes with this:

It’s a big commitment, but I can’t think of a better long-term investment in the health of WordPress overall. I think it will look incredibly modest in hindsight. This ratio is probably the bare minimum for a sustainable ecosystem, avoiding the tragedy of the commons. I think the 5% rule is one that all open source projects and companies should follow, at least if they want to be vibrant a decade from now.

This was followed up by one of the co-founders of one of the very hosting companies Matt partially referenced in his post — WP Engine’s Ben Metcalfe — who responded with a blog post of his own: WordPress: What exactly do they get for their 5%?

I think I was immediately thrown off by Ben’s post title, but so many times throughout reading it I was shocked at how he made assumptions of Matt’s intentions or missed what I would call “the point”.

5% is not a decree

Obviously, Matt is not speaking from the mountaintop with a proclamation of law. This is his recommendation — one that he believes will reward the firms that strive for it.

I believe that the community has already shown us that those that invest into WordPress are rewarded from it. We improve our understanding of a foundational software of our careers, improve our skills, are more marketable, more attractive to employers, and create natural opportunities for developing industry relationships.

How should 5% of “people” be defined? I’m pretty sure Matt would agree that 5% of people or 5% of revenue toward people doesn’t really matter to him; yet Ben makes a continuous sticking point about the cost of — and need for — engineers.

Additionally, while Matt utilizes full-time employees, the same (or better) effect could be had with shared time from more employees.

I’m not big into absolutes, so it’s important to remember that while I’m advocating that Matt’s recommendation of 5% time, I think it’s simply a good recommendation. This is a free economy and companies can do what they want. But I think in the current and long term, contribution will be key to greater corporate success for those that choose to do so.

Matt Mullenweg’s 2014 State of the Word

Postmatic wants to revitalize your WordPress email, starting with comments

LoopConf: A new WordPress conference that’s only for developers

5 years into business, Pagely is growing faster than ever