On the Web Publishing Tool Race
What if it’s not between open and closed but centralized and decentralized?
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An Operating System for the Web
What if WordPress, growing as an operating system for the web, spawns distributions and spins, like Linux? What do nine years of Jetpack teach us about Automattic and WordPress — the project and the dot-com? Rethinking how we think about SaaS, hosting, and the WordPress ecosystem…
Kudos to the Ghost team on…
Kudos to the Ghost team on the release of version 4.0. (The newest features added seem to pivot slightly toward memberships.) Founder John O’Nolan has an interesting Twitter thread with some personal reflections about the launch and eight years of software development with Ghost. 👻
Ghost 3.0, the open-source blogging platform…
Ghost 3.0, the open-source blogging platform founded by John O’Nolan, was released this week. The headline feature is a “new business model,” which aims to help writers use memberships and subscriptions to make a “sustainable living” as “independent publisher[s] in 2019.” Ben Thompson has an interview with John that provides some of the backstory and…
Rob Hope interviewed Ghost founder John O’Nolan…
Rob Hope interviewed Ghost founder John O’Nolan on the Yo! Podcast. Rob and John talk about Ghost as open-source publishing software as well as a platform that brings in revenue as a premium hosted SaaS business. 👻
It’s the fifth anniversary since Ghost…
It’s the fifth anniversary since Ghost appeared on KickStarter, and John O’Nolan shares some lessons he’s learned during that time. “Centralized wins on simplicity, and open source wins on flexibility” are two of them. Also, the least fun part of working on Ghost is dealing with Github.
Ghost reached it’s 1.0.0 milestone at the end…
Ghost reached it’s 1.0.0 milestone at the end of July. Ghost 1.0.0 is a major overhaul with an impressive list of features. Defaulting to MySQL, a new editor, and theme API changes were among the changes that stood out to me, as documented on their developer blog. This was a huge effort. Congratulations to the Ghost team….
Here’s an insightful interview with John…
Here’s an insightful interview with John O’Nolan on Indie Hackers about raising money and growing Ghost to $750k a year. Even if you don’t use Ghost, it’s a nice peak into how you can approach a business that is born out of frustration (John was a contributor to WordPress prior to starting Ghost): “Ghost has…
Time flies! Ghost is celebrating its 3…
Time flies! Ghost is celebrating its 3 year anniversary. John O’Nolan reports $600,000 in annual revenue and over a million downloads, with 9 people on staff. There are quite a few things I really dig about Ghost (the level of transparency high on that list) and I’m excited to see it grow and evolve in the…
Ghost is looking for beta testers…
Ghost is looking for beta testers for a new desktop app. They have a “developer build” that is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. I talked to John O’Nolan about this a while back, and he said that because of their API, creating the desktop app was relatively straight forward.
Loopconf highlights
I mooched off of Loopconf for two days straight, watching the live stream for free. I caught at least half of the sessions, and most of the speakers were terrific. I highly recommend you just peruse the Loopconf Youtube channel to find your favorites, but I’d also like to highlight some that really stood out to…
LoopConf: A new WordPress conference that’s only for developers
Early May 2015 will be the first ever LoopConf, a WordPress conference that’s geared solely toward developers. Ryan Sullivan, the owner of WP Site Care, is hosting the conference that is to be held in Las Vegas. LoopConf describes itself like this: LoopConf is the greatest conference ever created for WordPress developers. LoopConf came…
WordPress isn’t falling behind
When Tumblr first appeared, everyone wanted WordPress to begin emulating its features. Then came Medium and the same cry. Then Ghost launched and again the retort sounded that “WordPress is falling behind!” But is WordPress really lagging behind the pack? I would argue otherwise.
Ghost has launched to the public
I know it’s not the WordPress platform, but it should be of interest to WordPress people. Much of the buzz around Ghost centers around it being an alternative to WordPress for blogging. Well, Ghost’s source code is now public on Github and the platform is officially launched. Ars Technica also picked it up, which I…
WordPress podcasts to keep an eye on
The WordPress podcast landscape seems to be exploding. I’ve been keeping my queue filled for a while now with the shows available. Let’s talk about a few. The DradCast The DradCast is a carryover from WP Late Night, hosted by Sucuri CEO Dre Armeda and WebDevStudios co-founder Brad Williams. They are ridiculously experienced and well respected in…
How much are the big WordPress companies making?
It’s a question many of us have pondered. Just how much money do these “big” WordPress product companies make? WooThemes, Copyblogger (makers of StudioPress), Gravity Forms, WP Engine, Sucuri, and many more companies are clearly making significant revenues compared to one and two person businesses. But it’s rare you hear a business say specifically just…
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