WordPress Gutenberg: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly At The Beginning of 2025

Is Gutenberg a blessing or a curse? Explore this powerful tool’s good, bad, and ugly sides at the start of 2025.

Join us as we navigate the intriguing landscape of Gutenberg’s influence in early 2025. This video examines the positive strides in accessibility and education brought about by his innovations alongside the emerging ethical dilemmas and drawbacks. With a balanced perspective, we highlight this technological giant’s triumphs and tribulations. Click to watch and gain a comprehensive understanding of Gutenberg’s enduring legacy.

With Special Guest – Brian Gardner, Head of Community at WP Engine.

This Week Show’s Sponsors

LifterLMS: LifterLMS

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Omnisend: Omnisend

The Show’s Main Transcript

[00:00:06.630] – Jonathan Denwood

Welcome back, folks, to the WP Tonic Show. This is episode 954. In this show, we will discuss Gutenberg, the bad, the good, and the ugly at the beginning of 2025. We’ve got a great special guest. We’ve got Brian Garner, the new head of community at WP Engine. If you’re in the WordPress and professional communities, you will know Brian. Brian has almost, I think, over 20 years of experience in building products, in successful products in the WordPress space, and is a well-known designer.

[00:01:37.040] – Jonathan Denwood

We’re going to be discussing UX, usability, Gutenberg. It should be a great show. So, Brian, can you give us a quick intro, like a 10, 15-second intro? After the break, we will explore your experience and background more.

[00:01:56.170] – Brian Gardner

Absolutely. I am Brian Gardner. I am head of community at WP Engine. I was the founder of Studio Press and co-creator of the Genesis framework. I’ve been doing WordPress not quite 20, but 19 years.

[00:02:09.560] – Jonathan Denwood

So yeah, fair time. And I’ve got my great co-host, my patient co-host, Kurt. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?

[00:02:20.620] – Kurt von Ahnen

Yeah, Kurt von Ahnen. I own MananaNoMas. We focus primarily on membership and learning websites. We also work directly with WP-Tonic and the great folks at Lifter from us.

[00:02:31.370] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, that’s fantastic. As I said before, we will look into Gutenberg’s details in the first quarter of 2025. We will ask Brian some questions and try to get a profound understanding of where it is. But before we go into the meat and potatoes of this great show, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. Also, I want to point out that we’ve got a great list of fantastic plugins and special offers from the major sponsors. The list is of the best plugin services. It will save you a ton of time, the WordPress professional. You can find all these by going over to Wp-tonic. Com/deals, Wp-tonic. Com/deals. What more could you ask for my beloved WordPress WordPress professionals? Probably a lot more, but that’s all you’ll get on that page. I’ve made a career of disappointment. So, Brian, thanks for coming on the show. I’ve been looking forward to this discussion. So maybe you can give us a bit more detail. How did you get into the world of design, especially WordPress?

[00:04:10.070] – Brian Gardner

It’s an interesting question because maybe a year or so ago, I used to group design and WordPress into the same thing. For whatever reason, I just assimilated them together as if they were one. Because of just curiosities and stuff like that, I feel like I’m now starting to, in my head, split myself off as a WordPress person as well as a designer. I’m not a WordPress designer, but I like two different things. So WordPress is easy. That story I’ve told hundreds of times. In 2006, I was blogging at an architectural firm and just started playing around with WordPress. I taught myself CSS and HTML, which effectively meant I could customize a theme. I started selling or giving away free themes, doing freelance work with those themes, selling themes, selling a lot of themes, and then quitting my job. There are some highs and lows to all of those stories and specifics, but that’s the high level. From that point on, I created Studio Press. I think we launched the Genesis framework, merged it with CopyBlogger, and then sold it to WP Engine six or seven years ago. I can’t believe I’ve done that long, but here we are.

[00:05:33.430] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s fantastic. Over to you, Kurt.

[00:05:37.500] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, Brian, this is the first time I’ve met you; it’s great to meet you. We started in WordPress at about the same time. I started in 2004. I noticed it on X because I follow a lot of folks on X. I like Twitter.

[00:05:52.690] – Brian Gardner

It’s always Twitter.

[00:05:56.260] – Kurt von Ahnen

I see a lot of positive posts, things you post about, and the things you guys work with. I was paying attention to Cloud Fest and all those things. You’re a real supporter of or a fan of Gutenberg, but what do you see as its biggest strength? On the other hand, what are the weaknesses that are pulling it down?

[00:06:22.270] – Brian Gardner

Well, that question takes us to the rest of the hour. When The Vision was cast back in 5. 0, six, seven years ago, however long it’s been. I was a little bit skeptical about where it was going. I was a loner, and we competed with Wixom Squarespace that day. And that is one of the reasons why we sold Studio Press to WP Engine. And it’s funny to say it that way now because I’m now at WP Engine. So every once in a while, I’ll say, when we sold to me, or when I sold to we, this thing. I just wasn’t sure. Shortly after it shipped in its first iteration, I realized that a lot of what the promise of Gutenberg was effectively replacing Genesis and what we had envisioned Genesis in the child feeding system to do, which is to have a core set of code that you can opinionate, and this is where we bring back into the design conversation, the ability to customize the way things look on the front-end. And, of course, we had to do that through the theming system before Gutenberg and the block editor. And so I was entirely okay with that.

[00:07:32.330] – Brian Gardner

I understood how it all worked and loved all of that. I mean, Genesis had a great run. But when I saw WordPress itself doing it, I was like, wow, it removed a layer of abstraction between how to do a thing and how you need to do code and compile all of that. And so when I saw where things were going, I was like, wow, this is cool because this allows you to use a singular theme to then opinionate the design. And so, Obviously, there’s a lot of stuff at play here. There are templates and theme JSON, which are new to how WordPress developers have created things historically. But when you understand how it works, and yes, some people will nitpick the fact that there’s not this control or that setting and whatnot. We can get to that later. But generally speaking, for WordPress now, compared to WordPress 5, 10, 15 years ago, the ability for someone to go into WordPress and create an experience, I think, is so much better. Again, there are some ups and downs and some things I still don’t love, but generally speaking, I’m a fan.

 

[00:08:39.680] – Kurt von Ahnen

I always liken it to… I almost think of the show Hoarders. If you’ve ever seen the show Hoarders, someone buys a brand new house and go, Oh, it’s a brand new house, and they never think, This will be a perfect house when I fill it with a dumpster full of stuff and die in it. But that happens over time. And as human beings, we forget how we’ve progressed. So in the opposite direction, I can think back to how confused I was when Gutenberg first came out, and I was struggling as a freelancer to figure out, do I stick with Classic Editor? Do I try this new Gutenberg thing? I looked at where we’re at now, and now it’s like, install WordPress, put in theme, load template, change headings, change a couple of pictures. Hey, here’s your starter website. I think we’ve come leaps and bounds. But to your point, there’s a lot of users, especially power users that are like, there’s so many things that aren’t where they should be after seven years. So, yeah, it’s a tough… What do you think is the biggest weakness? I don’t know. We really isolated a weakness. If we had to say, what’s the…

 

[00:09:42.040] – Kurt von Ahnen

Is it full site editing or is it So I’m also because I understand where most things are and how it all works.

 

[00:09:52.000] – Brian Gardner

I don’t mind. So let’s start with this. Let’s divide the fact that there is the block-based system. That exists just within the regular post and page editor. That can exist on its own. I think hybrid themes are an example of how to build and construct a page with blocks. Separate from that is the whole site editor thing, which is where basically the full site editing comes in. That’s a more complicated thing because then you’re talking about templates and template parts and patterns and things like that. So I think there’s two different things there. I think it’s easy for people to understand, Oh, I can build with blocks. That that’s one thing. But to then use the site editor to then build their site and change the way the entire site looks, that’s a different thing. I think the latter is the part where most people get hung up on. They don’t understand how things work or how things control, how it cascades throughout their entire thing. I think it’s biggest weakness is the fact that right now we sit in between both worlds. I love where the new site editor admin interface has gone. I love prototypes that we’ve seen, even back in the day, Sacks and Fletcher created a whole bunch of things, some assets.

 

[00:11:07.310] – Brian Gardner

I’m like, wow, this really looks like a new modernized version of WordPress. The problem is we’re halfway there. There’s part of that experience, and then there’s the traditional WP admin. And that’s where people feel like they’re bouncing between two worlds. And there’s little steps taken. Now, there’s a show template thing that’s coming in WordPress 6. 0. So when you go edit a page, you actually see your header and footer the way it visually looks on the front-end. So we’re getting there. But I think that’s where a lot of people are confused when they’re like, Well, how do I create a page? And how do I edit my template? And things like that. That’s the part I don’t love. I can navigate it because, like I said, I spend most of my day working through that. But that’s the part I think I would just love to see move faster.

 

[00:11:50.370] – Kurt von Ahnen

Nice. Jonathan?

 

[00:11:53.260] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, Brian. I’ve got mixed feelings because you talk to certain people in the WordPress professional community and you mention Gutenberg to them, and their face just drops, and they normally use a certain swear word when it comes around use in Gutenberg. And then you have a certain crowd that seem to just love the whole thing. I’m in the middle. Now, You got the argument, the development argument, around the decision to use React and use a JavaScript library. I don’t propose that we go into that particular argument, because I think it would be a waste of your experience to some degree. And then you got the argument about the extended period of time this whole process has taken, right? But I think, personally myself, I think when it comes to UX and usability design, I think what we have ended up at the beginning of 2025 with Gutenberg isn’t a terrible interface, but it isn’t a great interface, to be truthful about it. And some people in the WordPress professional community have said this has been caused by it trying to satisfy two completely different camps, the DIY user that might use Squarespace and Wix, and the professional WordPress user, the freelancer, the designer, the graphic designer, the agent, agency requirements.

 

[00:14:02.480] – Jonathan Denwood

And because you’ve got two really diverse buckets, that’s why you have ended up. So I like your response to that third point, and And also, because of your experience, I thought you were the right person to have this discussion with. And I gave a list, because I know you’re going to be surprised, Brian, but I have a 30 years ago, I did an MA in Interactive Design at the London School of Print and Design. And these principles were imprinted into my psyche, two years in automation. And I think we maybe should go through some of these principles because I personally believe that’s why we’ve ended up with a interface that isn’t terrible, but could be a lot, lot better.

 

[00:15:04.990] – Brian Gardner

So I’m going to actually back us up here because this is something, it’s a little bit of a pet peeve of mine, and I think a lot of people use the word Gutenberg differently. So I want to clarify first out, because I think as we all know, Kurt, you in particular, because you’ve been around as well, we’ve all been around. Gutenberg is no longer the editor. Gutenberg is now the experimental plugin that is used to bring new features into, which is now WordPress. So we’re really talking about the WordPress block editor, the WordPress site editor. A lot of people, and I think the blame goes to the community for accepting when it first came out, it was called Gutenberg, the editor, but then they switched it to a plugin. So I think there’s some confusion there. That aside, I will speak to what you said. Yes, I believe the WordPress block insight editors are aimed at a more hobbyist or DIY user interface. However, as a person who co-built Genesis and somebody who understands the system of WordPress and the theming and all of that, I also feel that if understood and used properly, and I speak a lot about this to agencies within our partner program at WP Engine and so on, that if understood and built properly, Webdev Studio is a great example of a company that has taken a block theme, made it their own, and then used it to its full capacity of power, which is creating a pattern library and using that in a way that expedites their workflow.

 

[00:16:37.610] – Brian Gardner

I am a huge believer in that part of it, too. So that being said, I agree that it’s for hobbyists, but I also agree that it can be for freelancers, sophisticated agencies. But I also understand that there are some limitations, and that’s where I think from the high-end agency perspective, the adoption is low because it gets to a point where it’s like, we just can’t do it this way like we used to. Maybe we used ACF or another page builder or whatever. There are some limitations, so I’ll admit that. But I also want to cheer for the block and site editors to be used more than just people who are creating a hobby site.

 

[00:17:13.110] – Jonathan Denwood

So just as a slight introduction, you wouldn’t instinctively agree some well-known influencers in the WordPress professional space have said that Gutenberg, at the present moment, the code it produces and the way it manipulate that you can’t use classes and other modern CSS development elements it’s really quite substandard. You would not agree with that. Would that be fair?

 

[00:17:53.620] – Brian Gardner

I know who you’re talking about, and we actually were on the same show a while ago, and I just spoke to him literally three days ago to understand what he’s building. I think it’s easy to say it’s not doing this and that and whatever, but I also think the capabilities exist to do the things that people claim it can’t do. It won’t do everything. I feel like I’m talking in covert words here, but I think, yes, well, it’s not tailwind CSS, right? That’s That’s not what WordPress and the block editor is meant to be. It’s not that a system. But you have the ability to use classes in a way creatively that I think accomplish more than people give it credit for.

 

[00:18:43.660] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, because I think two of the third-party platforms that build on Gutenberg that I think do a good job is Cadence WP and Generate Press. I think, especially if you’re in the custom build theme design element, I think you can do a pretty good job with Generate Press. I think Cadence WP have done a good job in the lower medium market space, where you’re taking a theme and you’re adapting it. But I think with Generate Press, I think Those two are doing our own at WP tonic we use, we push cadence because it can cater for a very broad stream of different types of users that we’re catering for, Brian. Let’s move on to the UX. See, when I… Most of the projects that I’m looking at have been either they’re still using the classic editor or they’re using Cadence WP, and If I’m not actively developing it, developing something for my own use, and I go into Cadence after a couple of months, I’m a little bit lost. But as soon as I start using it, I can get up to speed. But I don’t think Gutenberg in UX terms is a great interface, and it starts with user-centricity.

 

[00:20:51.940] – Jonathan Denwood

That concept might be linked to it, trying to be usable for the DIY and also the professional market. So in the end, it’s not totally user friendly for either group. Is that making any sense, Brian?

 

[00:21:18.330] – Brian Gardner

It does, and I push back as much as I can. I have, even back to the Genesis days, we’ve always been purest WordPress people, right? I understand that businesses are built on proprietary interfaces and doing things that are basically hard to then undo because they think that’s the value that they bring to it. And what it does is, and it’s great because those existed before Gutenberg was introduced, the block insight editors have evolved. And so now what you have is you basically have systems that are proprietary interfaces that take over WordPress’s interface, which I think actually isn’t all that bad. And the problem is, I think now that WordPress has its own version of blocks and settings and controls, and the general sentiment is, Oh, there’s not a responsiveness for block. You hear that an argument. And so you’ve got people who are like, oh, well, let’s make media query breakpoints for every possible block under the sun. And I’m like, For a heading, you don’t need to have an interface that shows you eight different breakpoints. To use the argument of, Well, we provide this because WordPress doesn’t, is horrible because WordPress has baked into it responsive typography, fluid typography, which means you actually don’t need to have all of these controls which take up an enormous amount of screen real estate.

 

[00:22:49.980] – Brian Gardner

I’m not saying it’s perfect, but I also think a lot of these page builders have historically over-settinged if that’s even a word, you could do this, this, and this with every possible thing. I’m like, Well, how is that helpful to somebody who doesn’t even understand what a media query is? There’s that. That’s a little bit of a soapbox that I stand on.

 

[00:23:18.610] – Jonathan Denwood

As somebody that’s built interfaces, when it comes to the basic principles of consistency, hierarchy, context, user control, accessibility. I just aim usability. I just think there’s something missing It’s not terrible, as I said at the beginning of this conversation, but it’s just not a great interface. But I haven’t got your experience, and it’s been over 30 years ago when I did my MA. So I give it like, if we were going from zero to 10, I’ll give it a five, maybe a six. Is it just really extremely difficult to build a sectional UX interface? Is that just the reality? It’s extremely difficult thing to do.

 

[00:24:25.180] – Brian Gardner

I think it’s extremely difficult to do when you’re straddling between two different interfaces themselves. I talked about earlier, you’ve got the traditional WP admin, and then you’ve got this new site editor interface. And so you’ve got two different things. I think things become different. If you could fast forward or envision a full site editor experience as part of this is now how WordPress works altogether. I think all of a sudden you’re like, okay, things are now into place. But what feels sometimes disjointed, I’m like, well, if I’m in a site editor, this is how I change a thing. But if I’m in the page editor, there’s a different way to change the thing. That’s where I think people start getting tripped up. I mean, I would love to know Jonathan from you or whomever when people say, oh, it sucks because it doesn’t do this. Like, what exactly are you actually wanting it to do? Where does it fall short? Do you really get annoyed by the fact that there’s three little dots that are required to enable a setting. And those are the same people who say, well, there’s too many settings. Well, that’s why they’re buried within layers.

 

[00:25:27.520] – Brian Gardner

And again, work in progress. And I wish it was going way faster. Trust me, I’ll be the first person that says, I wish this was five years ago, because we’re already behind. Framer, Webflow. I mean, there’s newer things, newer existential threats than Wixom Squarespace. And those are way more no code. And arguably better interfaces, I don’t know. But I agree with you. I don’t think it’s a 10. I don’t think it’s a nine or an eight. I think we’re between a five and seven, depending on what date it is.

 

[00:26:00.650] – Jonathan Denwood

No, that’s why I wanted to ask you, because you got a lot more experience. You got a lot more knowledge than me. It’s all right to have an opinion. Everybody’s got a right to an opinion. Well, say that, it How extreme their opinions are, doesn’t it? But everybody normally has a right to opinion, but you got to have an opinion to get other people to agree to it. You got to have some experience and have some facts, haven’t you? Yeah. Well, I think that. Is it also linked, based on your experience, the people… Is it also linked that it’s a quasar open-source project. When you have developers working with UX designers, interface designers, is there anything to the argument you’re not going to end up… I don’t believe this. I’m just putting it as a devil’s advocate to you. I don’t believe what I’m pointing to you, but some people would say that because it’s open source, you will inevitably end up with a middling UX interface. I don’t believe that myself, but what do you think?

 

[00:27:27.160] – Brian Gardner

I think it’s less about that and more about when you have anything that powers 40% of the Internet, you’re going to have opinions that differ. I mean, 40% of the internet is a lot of people. That’s a food blogger all the way to NASA. There’s always going to be people who say it’s not doing this right or not doing that right. I don’t think it has much to do with whether it’s open source or closed source. Like even if Webflow or Shopify powers that much, you’re still going to have people who say this doesn’t do this for me properly or the way in which I want it to be. Yeah, I don’t know if that answers your question, but… Yeah.

 

[00:28:10.020] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I think we’ve had a good discussion for the first half. We’re going for our break, folks. We will be back in a few moments. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. Just want to point out, if If you’re looking for a great partner, great hosting partner, and you’re building a membership or community website, why don’t you look at what WP Tonic’s got offer? We offer the best technology, the best plugin suite, as part of our hosting packages. You can find more by going over to WP-Tonic. Com/partners. Wp-tonic. Com/partners. Over to you, Kurt.

 

[00:29:01.380] – Kurt von Ahnen

Hey, thanks, Jonathan.

 

[00:29:02.760] – Brian Gardner

Before I ask this particular question, I want to just say that I think I’m in the same ballpark as you on this, Brian, and it’s with the eLearning stuff that we do, I mean, I’ve tried Podia, Jabi, Moodle, most recently, just to see, Hey, has something changed?

 

[00:29:20.010] – Kurt von Ahnen

Has it gotten better? Is WordPress still the choice to use? And I’ve looked at Fluent Community and Buddy Boss and all these things. So we have all these Obviously, I’m a Lifter LMS expert, so I primarily work in Lifter. I keep trying these things. I just tried Drupal two weeks ago, and I came right back to WordPress. I’m incredibly bullish that we have 43% of the Internet. It It seems to be the right choice. And it seems like even with the activities of the last couple of years, it seems like it’s still super stable. So if you agree with that, what do you think would be the biggest opportunity for WordPress as a whole, but also the professional community that tries to work or make a living at WordPress?

 

[00:30:08.960] – Brian Gardner

Wow, that’s a big question. That’s a big question.

 

[00:30:15.150] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I thought you were up to the difficult questions, Brian.

 

[00:30:19.740] – Brian Gardner

Yeah, the future of WordPress is just a question that’s just hard to answer in the sense of, again, And for, Kurt, we’ve been 20 years, two decades of our life have been hitched on this software, this ecosystem, this community. And so it would take almost an act of God to change that, at least from my perspective. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in looking into other things, mainly to see how they work, also to see if I’m missing something. I don’t want to be naive and be like, well, WordPress is the way no matter what, and then realize there’s a better experience or software to do a certain thing. But I will always defend WordPress first, always. That being said, I think it’s a weird time right now from a product perspective. I could speak to that because I have a small WordPress product that I sell It’s a WordPress theme called Powder. I think a lot of people, there’s a lot of people still that sit in the middle, and a lot of people who are still at the early side of adoption. And so I guess the biggest My biggest struggle in this as it relates to the future is, and Mike McAllister is doing a great job, Kevin Geary is starting to do a great job in the educational side of this new thing that we’re working with.

 

[00:31:41.210] – Brian Gardner

That is, I think, the biggest… It’s very easy to build a product, and it’s very difficult and time-consuming, and to be perfectly honest, not fun to educate people how to do a thing, unless you’re using that as your marketing, which I fail to do well. I think a lot of people understand its power. I have a handful of people who really see the vision, really understand how it works. The mask, though, is slow to adopt and uninterested. And so, called the Paris-Hilton effect, the things that five years ago were doing well are still doing well just because they’ve been the thing that’s been around in this new world, scare tactic marketing, which is, oh, don’t do this. It’s a weird space, and it’s really hard. I think Nitching, especially in WordPress, is always the great way to go. Creating Lifter is a good example. I mean, we saw this back in Gravity Forum started back in the day. Hey, we’re not going to build a theme company. We’re going to double down on a plugin or a functionality piece. I think that’s the part that will be its future or a part of the success of the future.

 

[00:32:53.130] – Brian Gardner

So I don’t know, I get frustrated because I’m a design guy. I’m a front-end guy. I love interface. I love creating systems that people can use. It’s still a very slow and painful process, much to my sugar, but that’s okay.

 

[00:33:09.040] – Kurt von Ahnen

To look at it from the other perspective, I see it from the agency side a lot. And what I see is this horribly fractured environment where there’s just so many opportunities or challenges to try different things. And when you can hone in on what your tech stack is and niche down, like you mentioned, niching, it seems like there could be success that way. But what I see in my involvement with Pulse Status and X, and I don’t know where my camera went, I’m back, into those things, is I see a real lack of confidence in people that run agencies. I’m not seeing confidence, and I think that comes from a lack of process. I don’t think there’s a ton, to your point of education, that says, Hey, we make this open source product, and we have all these tools, and you can build these really cool websites.

 

[00:33:58.140] – Brian Gardner

But I don’t think we really have a channel that says, If you want to grow a business that does this for other people, here’s some best practices and tools to use. Yeah, and that’s where Kevin Gary has stepped up. And of course, he’s got his own things he’s marketing and selling all the way from automatic CSS to Edge. He’s trying to serve the market of people who are sophisticated website builders, people who take it seriously, people who want to do it right. I don’t gravitate towards building for those people just because… Part of me is like with Webdev, they took powder, forked it, made it their own, then they don’t need me anymore. So there’s a built-in reliance. Now, I will say I’m very open and aware of the needs of agencies, because at WP Engine, we have a very deep and profound agency partner program. And so part of my day job is really listening to and addressing concerns of our agency partners and stuff like that. So I’m not uninformed or naive to the needs of these agencies. And to be perfectly honest, there’s a part of me that’s in a room full of designers, in a room full of developers, I’m a designer, however that thing goes.

 

[00:35:12.480] – Brian Gardner

I’m generally more of a designer than I am a developer. It gets to the point where sophisticated agencies come in, and that’s above my pay grade. I don’t write in React and JavaScript and stuff like that. Part of me just shies away from those conversations because I’m like, You guys are way smarter than me. I can’t teach you anything. But what I can’t teach are hobbyists, how to use and build a site with the site editor, block editor. I can teach even people who are booming freelancers and say, Hey, you could take this in the same way you took Genesis back in the day and say, Hey, you could build a business around WordPress and your own theme. Let me teach you how to create your own theme so that you can then use to build sites first. And so that’s the area in which I serve. And so that’s the part I think I’m most bullish about because I realized the power all of this can have and the system that can be built for a freelancer, an agency, a small studio. It’s just frustrating because I don’t love to teach all that. And so I keep creating things into this void of people who are like, great, but how does it work?

 

[00:36:14.760] – Kurt von Ahnen

Perfect. Jonathan?

 

[00:36:17.260] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah. Have you got any thoughts why, why full-site editing hasn’t got the traction that people think when you look at the adaptation a full-site editing themes and the people that are really pushing those themes. I think it would be fair to say that it’s been a bit disappointing. Would you agree with that statement, first of all? If you got any insights about why we see this situation at the beginning of 2025?

 

[00:36:50.980] – Brian Gardner

I think that’s an understatement. I think I’m severely disappointed. I think, generally speaking, we’re all severely disappointed in the adoption. I I think WordPress to a fault has always been backward compatible. It’s easy to say, I’m not going to learn the new thing. I hear it’s not ready yet. I’ve been hearing that for years, even though it’s 90, 95% of the way there and arguably further ahead than it ever was. I think there are, like I said earlier, there are WordPress-based businesses, page builders, and so on, who make it easy for people to not adopt it. One, because they have the 5-10-year to 15-year, 10-year Beaver builder, Readings, Generate Press. I mean, all of these things that have been around, people know how they are used. I don’t love that they’re proprietarily interfaced, but that’s a different conversation. But I understand why. I get the reasoning behind the slow adoption, right? The community says it’s not ready, and these are so easy. And I mean, so many people still use… I mean, millions of people still use advanced custom fields. And so that in and of itself is a reason why the adoption of the block editor is slower than I think people want.

 

[00:38:01.330] – Brian Gardner

And I’m not advocating against advanced custom fields. I’m just saying that there are people who die on that hill, agencies who die. This is the only way I’ll ever build a WordPress, and that’s fantastic. I’m a firm believer that… I used to think there is the right way to WordPress. In my head, I’m like, my way is the right way. And then I realized that’s just rubbish, for lack of a better term. The right way to WordPress is whatever is the easiest way for you to use WordPress or build with it.

 

[00:38:28.320] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, that’s why I like discussing things with you because that’s my attitude as well. There are, I’m not going to name them, but there are certain people that you get the impression there’s my way or the highway, and I push against it because that is not my experience. Some of the disappointment of… I think you’ve outlined it really well, but do you think it’s also linked to some of the factors that we discussed in the first half of this interview about… Because if it was really a seven, eight, or nine interface UX experience, I think it’s speed of adoption, and especially people producing new themes, whatever you want to call them, starter theme, starter websites, whatever language you want to use would Because that’s a problem in itself. There’s such a diverse expression of what used to be clearly a theme. It’s now there’s a thousand different terms. But Would that adaptation be a lot quicker based on some of the things, or do you think that it’s important, but it’s not a main driver?

 

[00:39:55.110] – Brian Gardner

Trying to go back to where you started with the question.

 

[00:39:59.840] – Jonathan Denwood

You’re not the only guest that has had that problem, Brian.

 

[00:40:03.130] – Brian Gardner

It’s like you asked three different questions in the same question. I was trying to figure out which one to hit.

 

[00:40:08.110] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah. I apologize, Brian, but I do that all the time.

 

[00:40:14.380] – Brian Gardner

It’s hard for me to answer these types of questions because while I think for everyone, like I mentioned, we’re at a 5 to 7 out of 10. In my head, we’re actually at an 8 or 9. From my experience, it’s further ahead than I think It is for other people, just again, because I’m so versed in it. And apparently James in the comments… Wow, sorry, distracted. Like, wow, sorry, speechless. In a good way. Yeah, what was it? Let’s go back to the first part of your question, because that was the one I wanted to answer. My apologies.

 

[00:40:58.620] – Jonathan Denwood

No, it’s I know. Actually, I thought this might happen. So, yeah, because I think it just isn’t easy building a really good UX interface, especially if you are dominant in a particular market sector and you’re dealing with legacy code and legacy users’ attitudes. It’s not But I do think there’s also, and I think you touched upon this in the first half, there has been consequences that you’ve been talking about a process that’s taken over six years. And I think there’s been consequences that can be understandable. I’m not saying, Oh, that’s a desire. There might have been really good reasons why that, but there have been consequences. Would How do you agree with that?

 

[00:42:03.020] – Brian Gardner

Yeah, and I think this speaks to where my bigger concern lies. I spend significant amount of time throughout my day and week and night and runs and showers thinking about all of this because it’s been so much of my DNA. I haven’t, Brian. I admit, I love it probably more than I should. We’ve spoken a lot about the adoption of the site editor, block editor, and all of these things within the WordPress space. My bigger fear about the speed in which this is getting to us, because I see the potential. I’ve always seen the potential. And I’m less concerned about whether or not somebody who’s still building with ACF will work their way towards this. I’m more concerned with people who don’t understand it and then go look at other platforms. Like I said, we don’t need to convince the people who are on ACF to continue to use WordPress to figure out the block editor and so on. I’m more concerned with the people who are, for whatever reason, saying, This is not for me. I’m going to start building sites in Webflow or Framer or whatever. That’s where I That’s where I have those moments where I’m like, I just wish this would just be the vision that I could see the consolidation of the WP admin site.

 

[00:43:25.990] – Brian Gardner

We could just get there quicker. That will stop the hemorrhaging of people who are just leaving WordPress altogether. That is my bigger concern because I believe in its future. I see it. A lot of people don’t. And that’s where part of my job at WP Engine is to inform people how WordPress is evolving and why it’s still important and stuff like that. But I also just don’t love seeing people leaving altogether. And that’s the bigger concern I see is, and of course, five years ago, that was less of a worry because there just weren’t competing platforms. Ai is part I have a conversation that we haven’t really talked about even. There’s so many parts of this that keep me up all day, at night. How do I do a thing? And that’s why I built Potter. I’m like, this is my way of, outside of, on my own terms, Creating something that will show people how new WordPress, or we internally joke, modern WordPress, can be used in… Anyway, sorry. We’ll ramble there.

 

[00:44:27.930] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, no. But this It’s an argument that there’s a group of people that I listen to through their podcasts, through their YouTube channels in the background, as I’m struggling to make a decent living in WordPress, right? And it’s been quite good to me, so I always be very supportive of it. And that’s one of the reasons why I still do this podcast, right? But there’s a There’s a whole batch in the YouTube influencer class, that around SEO and encouraging people to do niche blogging, to make a living. Because of the changes around AI, and they say, Well, you don’t really need a website now, and you don’t, at best, you just need a landing page, and this this and that and the other. And I just think they’re bonkers. I think it’s even more important to have a website in 2025 than ever to have a center and to have that website built on a technology that you have the most possible control over than using a SaaS-based platform. It’s even more important important. So what do you think about that? What I’ve just outlined?

 

[00:46:05.770] – Brian Gardner

This goes back to conversations we had when Copy Blogger was a thing. Back in that day, we were talking about content and digital share and cropping and owning your own content and stuff like that. And it’s interesting to see now my former partner, Brian Clark, now using platforms that are closed walled gardens and whatever, because I think the landscape has changed, right? They used to say content is king, and I still think that’s true. The content we produce and where we produce it is different nowadays than back in the day. I still believe everyone should have a website. Back in the day, we would write blog posts to get Google traffic to your website to then get email signups and so on. But now, and I’m a huge advocate, leveraging social media to bring people to your website to then capture information that you can own control is definitely the way to go. I think there are people who use social media as their website. In fact, several years ago, I started this little thing called Agent Engine, and I was going to try to go into the real estate market, and I talked to so many people who would say, I don’t need a website.

 

[00:47:14.450] – Brian Gardner

I have Facebook. I was like, Well, that’s a problem, because if that’s your sole property, that’s a problem. I’m a huge advocate of using and leveraging the… And I think that’s now with the Google AI, like the AI overviews and things like that, search traffic for everybody has gone down. And so you need to do things like, and sometimes they’re louder than I want them to be. But people, even in the WordPress space, who are successfully leveraging YouTube and live streaming and social media to drive people to their product or their signups, they will crush it. People like Kevin Geary, Mark Szemanzky, Matt Madero, these people who fill our streams are doing it because it’s working. But they’re still bringing people back to a website. Kevin still has edgewp. Com, where he’s using YouTube to bring people to that place, where then he can capture their email address, get them on a list, and so on. I think what we do with websites have changed. I love authenticity, and I love to write, but I don’t think people want the same type of content that was produced 5 or 10 years ago. People don’t need to hear about my bad day, and why it inspired a design I did.

 

[00:48:26.470] – Brian Gardner

The audience is less there.

 

[00:48:31.260] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, it’s a difficult one because it’s changed, isn’t it? I totally agree with you. But it’s so clear that you need to keep as much control as possible because you just become a commodity of other people’s platforms. But it’s hard to describe. I think you did a good job. Over to you, Kurt.

 

[00:49:02.570] – Kurt von Ahnen

I get the chance to change channels a little bit for you, Brian. And that is, let’s talk about WP Engine, you’re head of community now. What’s the major thing you’d like to achieve with that position and that role? And let’s keep it realistic over the next year, year and a half.

 

[00:49:21.380] – Brian Gardner

Yeah, my role at WP Engine really hasn’t changed since I joined. I mean, really, it was originally to advocate for WordPress. It was the intersection, as I told Heather, our CEO. I’m like, I want to intersect three parts of my life that I love: people, design, and WordPress. If I can have a job that does that, great. And so I first came on as a developer advocate, which made total sense. We brought crossed over into the company to use that as an educational theme so that we could speak the good word of WordPress and to the people who we want to reach. And of course, design played a role. Over the years, my role has evolved. And so recently, earlier this year, I became head of community, which really is doing the same thing, which is just an organized way of facilitating the ongoing promotion and sponsorship of people who are doing good work with WordPress. So a lot of my duties now are still continuing to talk to and network. We have a weekly call on Friday called Build Mode, where members of the community come in. We talk about WordPress, the business of WordPress candidly, how things that are going on affect our businesses and so on.

 

[00:50:30.470] – Brian Gardner

And so the people have always mattered to me, always mattered to me, and they always will. And so when it was presented like, Hey, let’s change the title and bring you into a space where you can do that better. We’re sponsoring events, we’re hosting other things. And so, yeah, so looking at the question, powder is a fork of frost. Frost is the internal theme that WP Engine owns, and powder is my personal side project. That is something I do on the side, up at night, on the weekends. It is my way of doing WordPress products. So that is my own personal project.

 

[00:51:16.920] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, thanks for clarifying it. I’m going to throw the next question over to Kirk because you’re going to have to go in a second, Kirk, aren’t you? You’ve got enough of time.

 

[00:51:26.400] – Kurt von Ahnen

I do. I got the other show. But let’s say that you had an HDR Wells, you had a TARDIS of your own, and you could travel back in time to the beginning of your career. If you could do that, what advice would you give yourself?

 

[00:51:46.140] – Jonathan Denwood

And you can’t say not come on this show.

[00:51:48.570] – Brian Gardner

I’ve been on this show several times. I can’t say that. I honestly don’t know, and this is going to sound cheesy, and I admit that, but I am pleased with my path. I’m happy with the fact that I still, and to this day, feel as bullish about WordPress as I did almost 20 years ago. I’m still working from home. I work for a great company. I don’t want to be an entrepreneur right now, even though I have a side project. I had that time. It was a great run. I had a great partner team. We had an acquisition. There’s no part of my journey that I wish was different because I’m content. I’m very content with my life. I just turned 50. I moved across the country. I’m starting the back half of my life. I don’t know. I don’t know if I would change much. And it sounds like a cop-out. It sounds like a cheesy question, but it’s true.

[00:52:52.900] – Kurt von Ahnen

We have the same haircut and the same trends. You’re starting to freak me out, Brian. I just moved my family across the country.

[00:52:59.630] – Brian Gardner

Where are you now?

[00:53:00.880] – Kurt von Ahnen

We’re in Kansas.

[00:53:02.000] – Brian Gardner

Kansas. Okay. Well, there’s no place like home, right? My wife is an avid Wizard of Oz fan. It was part of our wedding theme so that I couldn’t resist that one. But yeah, life’s good right now. I’m happy.

[00:53:17.780] – Jonathan Denwood

We’re going to end the podcast. Can you stay on for another 10 minutes, or do you have to disappear?

[00:53:24.800] – Brian Gardner

I have a hard stop at the top of the hour, so I have six minutes to…

[00:53:28.550] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, we call it a day. Yeah, that’s understandable. So we’re going to end the podcast show, folks. So, Brian, what’s the best way for people to learn more about you and what you’re up to?

[00:53:39.250] – Brian Gardner

Given what we just said, Brian Gardner.com, go to my website, where I can capture your email address. I’m not good enough at the content. Sorry, tongue-in-cheek there. My website is a work in progress. I move powder over to it to keep it all in one place. I’m very active on Twitter/ex@begardener. LinkedIn is a great a great way to connect with me. Those are my two personal business platforms of choice, including LinkedIn. And so if you go to briedentgardner.com, scroll down to the footer; I’ve got some social links there. That’s probably the best way to connect me because I put those there strategically.

[00:54:16.760] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s fantastic. And we appreciate you coming to the show, Brian, and sharing your knowledge.

[00:54:21.550] – Brian Gardner

Thank you for the advice.

[00:54:22.770] – Jonathan Denwood

Kurt. What’s the best way for people to learn more about you and what you’re up to?

[00:54:27.270] – Kurt von Ahnen

Anything Manana Nomas leads to me. So nomas. Com for business, Manana Nomas on X, Facebook, and YouTube. If you want to connect personally, the best place to do that is LinkedIn because I’m the only Kurt von Ahnen on LinkedIn, and it makes it easy to find.

[00:54:45.680] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, we’re going to end the show now, folks. We’ll see you with another great guest next week, or it’s probably our roundtable show. We’ve got a great panel. We’ll be discussing the WordPress news and tech news of the month. We’ll see you next week, folks. Bye..

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