How Does WordPress Rebuild Community Trust In 2025
Discover the actionable strategies WordPress employs to rebuild community trust following challenges. Explore transparency initiatives and user-focused improvements.
With Special Guest Marcus Burnette, The Founder of “The WP World”
In this insightful show, we delve into the strategies WordPress is implementing to rebuild community trust as we enter 2025. From enhancing security measures to promoting transparent communication, we explore the initiatives that aim to strengthen user confidence. Discover how these efforts are shaping a more reliable and inclusive platform for all. Don’t miss out—watch the show to learn how WordPress is paving the way for a trustworthy future.
Marcus Burnette is a web designer and developer, amateur photographer, and podcast host. At Bluehost, he works as Senior Manager of Strategy and Customer Experience, helping to shape products and support that make life easier for WordPress agencies and freelancers. Marcus is deeply involved in the WordPress community through projects like The WP World, a hub for WordPress enthusiasts, and WP Agency Tracks, a podcast that shares stories from agency professionals. Passionate about building great websites and supporting those who do, he’s always looking for ways to strengthen the WordPress ecosystem and help others thrive.
This Week’s Sponsors
Kinta: Kinta
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Convesio: Convesio
The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:01.160] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the WP Tonic Show. This is episode 966. 666. The sign of the Devil. We’ve got a great guest with us. We’ve got Marcus Burnet with us. He’s well-known in the WordPress community and is a founder of the WordPress community-focused website, WP World. In this episode, we’ll be discussing all things WordPress and the WordPress community. Can trust be rebuilt in our damaged community? If it is damaged, maybe Marcus won’t agree with that. He would be wise not to be. But there we go. It should be a great show. So, Marcus, would you like to give us a quick 10-second intro? And then, when we delve into the central part of the show, we can explore your background in more detail.
[00:01:04.220] – Marcus Burnette
Sure. My name is Marcus Burnette, and I work with Buehost, a hosting company. I run a couple of teams that build WordPress websites for our customers internally. I’m also the creator of WP World, a site focused on connecting people in the WordPress world as it should be. And then more recently, I partnered with Michelle Frichet to create SponsorMe WP, which helps connect potential sponsors with contributors in the WordPress space. Significantly dialed into the community and all things community-related. And very sad to have missed out on being with some of those folks in person at EU, and looking forward to seeing some people at US.
[00:01:54.240] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, that’d be great. I’ve got my ever-patient co-host, Kurt. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers quickly?
[00:02:03.080] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, sure, Jonathan. My name is Kurt, Kurt von Ahnen. I own a small company called MananaNoMas. We focus on eLearning and membership sites. We also work directly with WP Tonic and the team at LifterLMS.
[00:02:14.680] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. Like I say, it’s going to be a great show. But before we go into the meat and potatoes, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. I’m coming back, folks. Before we delve into the central part of the interview, I would also like to point out that we’ve some great special offers from the show’s sponsors, as well as a list of the best WordPress technology, plugins, and services. All tested by WP Tonic’s team. It will save you a ton of time. All curated. Fantastic list of resources. You can find all these goodies by visiting WP-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. What more could my beloved WordPress professionals ask for? Probably a lot more, but that’s all you’re going to get on that page. They love it when I say that, Marcus. I get more remarks about that than anything. By English humor, I call it humor, Marcus. Some in the community think I’m a dickhead, but there we go. Marcus, so let’s delve into your background. How did you get into the world of web design development, and especially WordPress?
[00:03:39.020] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, absolutely. My passion for graphic design began in college, many years ago. I wanted to find a way to share the design work I was doing with others, and I felt that the best way to do that was to learn a little bit about web development, so I could post some things online. This was, I’m going to date myself a little bit, pre-Facebook, MySpace, Behance, Dribble, all of those things. So you had to build your piece.
[00:04:10.280] – Jonathan Denwood
It was the days of priority.
[00:04:12.650] – Marcus Burnette
It was the days of priority, building things with tables pre-CSS, all of that. However, I wanted to be able to share that, most specifically with my parents, who were trying to figure out how I was going to make a career out of graphic design at that time. So I wanted to show them what I was up to. Started to learn a little bit of web design, web development, and very quickly enjoyed seeing the fact that I could build something that I could then share this little string of text, a link, with somebody, and across the world, across the country, wherever they could see it. That just boggled my mind, and I wanted to keep doing that. So, I continued down that path, actually focusing more on web design than graphic design, while meshing the two as I went along, with a strong emphasis on UI and UX aspects of web design. And from there, I got a job out of college working at a small agency here in Orlando, where I’m located. I worked there for just over 10 years, building sites for clients, small to medium-sized businesses.
[00:05:29.580] – Jonathan Denwood
Can you It seemed too calm that you worked for a regional agency. When I gave up on that, I was like most people that done that for a while. I was a bit twitchy. I had a nervous twitch. You seemed very calm, actually, Marcus. I have a twitch, Jonathan.
[00:05:47.260] – Marcus Burnette
The twitch is still there. Yeah, no, I am a pretty calm person. I think that was one of the benefits that I brought to the agency that I worked for was I brought that level, a level head. But I just enjoyed working on a different project, a different industry, different clients every week. It gave me something different to look at new challenges to face. So I really enjoyed that. Did that for, like I And then just over 10 years, the agency ran into a little bit of turbulence financially. So ended up leaving there and joining Skyverge, which was a company that built Woocommerce plugins. Did that right at the beginning of 2020. As COVID hit, they had what my former manager would call catastrophic success as the world moved to online on e-commerce. And those plugins were all e-commerce plugins. So they came into a bit of success there, hired a few people. I was one of those people I joined as a support person there because I really wanted to help the agencies that I had just I wanted to be able to help enable more agencies to do more of the things that I was doing at the one agency.
[00:07:08.560] – Marcus Burnette
So join Skyverge. We got acquired by GoDaddy just a few months after I joined, and Nice. And then I moved over into field marketing because I came with a wealth of commerce knowledge that no one on the field marketing team had at that time. Godaddy was looking to launch a Woocommerce product, and I needed somebody at word camps out in the field, out in those places where the community is talking about what GoDaddy is doing in commerce. So it was a natural fit. I was able to make it out to lots of word camps that way and really join the community and really see what the community was all about. And that was what spawned the WP world was that community, is seeing how much everyone was giving to each in the community, how much everyone wanted to give back to the community. I wanted to find a way that I could give back as well. So the WP world was born there. And then late last year, I left and joined the Bluehost team. And that’s where I am now, working with Bluehost customers day to day, continuing to run the WP world.
[00:08:24.620] – Jonathan Denwood
Like I said- Bluehost, okay. You’re redeeming yourself, Marcus. There we go.
[00:08:33.960] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, that brings us to now. Like I said- I’m only kidding.
[00:08:36.880] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s my English human, Marcus. I’m sorry. I call it wit, but there we go. That’s fantastic. Over to you, Kurt.
[00:08:46.960] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, just bounce off of that. I remember when you launched the WP world, I mean, I’m not going to brag and say I was an early adopter, but I think I got in there pretty quick.
[00:08:57.660] – Marcus Burnette
Wonderful job. I appreciate that.
[00:09:00.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
And I just got to wonder, it sounds like you came to the community side of WordPress around the same time I did. As COVID was all ramped up and we went to the San Diego thing, I think San Diego might be where I met you the first time, San Diego or Phoenix. And I got really wrapped up in the community. As soon as I went to WordCamp US in San Diego, I was super fired up and then started working with the meetups in the inland Empire when I lived in California, volunteered at the Phoenix round. And then when I moved to Kansas, I started my own WordPress meetup here in Hutchinson. And so what is it you think that really wrapped you up into the community side of it? Because I’ve tried to explain it to people, and I fail at it. But you’ve gone the next level. You’re doing the sponsor me thing with Michelle. You’ve got the WP World. I mean, you’re running projects about community.
[00:10:00.000] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, I think… I mean, there was a little bit of timing and a little bit of necessity. I think it’s really strange. I know, I talk to a lot of people who just assume that I’ve been in the WordPress community for 10 years because of the WP world, because of some of the things I’ve done, the connections that I’ve made over the last few years. But it really has just been since COVID, the last few years. I started using WordPress back in, I want to say about 2015. I was still at that agency, and we were using Drupal to build sites at the time. Yeah, exactly.
[00:10:35.960] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s getting worse.
[00:10:38.920] – Marcus Burnette
Well, they decided to shift direction a little bit. And as an agency, we didn’t really agree with the direction they were going. We didn’t want to continue. The learning curve was steep enough to begin with, and they were adding to that learning curve and their move from the one version that we were on to the next. It was time to evaluate and see what the next option for us as an agency is. And so we actually landed on WordPress for a couple of reasons, but one of the major reasons was the community, the size of the community, and the number of plugins, the number of people surrounding the project and all of that, and then didn’t really utilize that for a solid five years. I mean, obviously the plugins and stuff, yeah, but didn’t really dive into the community. We picked it for the community community, knowing that it was there if we needed it, but then just put our heads down, built client sites, did the work that we were being asked to do, and didn’t really do a whole lot with the community. Then right as I was feeling like, Well, we need to reach out, I went to WordCamp, Orlando, which was in 2018 or 2019, something like that, because it was in my backyard.
[00:11:55.440] – Marcus Burnette
I was like, This is really cool. We should really get involved here. And then WordCamp shut down. And it was COVID hit and there was nothing, nowhere to go. And so out of necessity, you join the community online through things like post out of Slack and stuff and go Coming to some of the virtual, some of the word camps went virtual, like word camp US 2020 was all online. And you can do that to an extent. We all ended up with screen fatigue and burnout from being on Zoom all day, every day after a certain period of time. But at the beginning, we tried to be involved as much as possible. Things like was at Word Fest? That was an online conference that we could all join in. So I really just jumped into all of the different virtual places that I could out of necessity, for one, but also that accessibility really made it possible, where before working at a small agency, we had a hard time being able to send people to, let’s say, like WordCamp Europe or all of the camps that are in Spain and France and all of that. The huge community is there with lots of word camps happening.
[00:13:07.840] – Marcus Burnette
And so I went to a couple of word camp, Orlando’s because it was easy. But once everything went online, It was much more accessible. And so I was able to deep dive into the community a little bit more during that time. And then being on a field marketing team, obviously the the the the role there is to go to word camps and stuff. So I able to branch out and meet some more people in person at different events. But yeah, really, for all of its obvious downsides for COVID, I think it did really help that online community flourish at that time. And some of that is held on as we try to meet up with each other in person.
[00:13:55.960] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, let me jump in and just leapfrog us to 2025. Where do you think the community is at? And we’re halfway through 2025 already. I can’t believe the calendar flipped over and everything went off bricks. For real. But where do you think the WordPress community finds itself? If you took a snapshot now and you think about, Well, this is where I was in 2020. This is where I was in 2023. This is now 2025. How do you think the community is doing right now?
[00:14:24.960] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, and I think leapfrog is the perfect word, right? If we’re going to talk about to now because that jumps right over what I think is an obvious turning point at the end of WordCamp US 2024. I think we’re, as a community, chugging along doing our thing, and there was obvious disruption at the closing keynote of WordCamp US 2024. That obviously fractured a bit of the community, eroded some trust, and left the community trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces and what does that look like moving forward. I do think now, having been removed, like you said, flip the calendar. It’s already halfway through. We’re coming up on a year since that closing keynote now. I do feel like we’ve started to build some of that back up. There are sadly some key WordPressers in the community that left that we just don’t have with us now. But those of us that are here picking up the pieces, I think we’ve started to get back to a place where we’re having open communication about the things that we want to see going forward. And that’s where my focus has been, both through my job at Bluehost, but also through the WP world, is how do we not necessarily dwell on the past year, but how How do we move forward?
[00:16:01.000] – Marcus Burnette
What is it that the WordPress community needs moving forward? So even in thinking through, what do I do with the WP world? Where do I move with that? What is it that the community needs? That’s the lens that I’m looking at projects like the WP world through is, how do I create something that unites the community, that brings us back together? What are the things that we need? And I think there’s a lot of positivity. And I think it’s still a little bit of a roller coaster. There’s still the things that come up that make people question each other and other motives and stuff. But I think on the whole, there’s been a lot of positivity over the last 8, 10 months as we try to figure out, well, we’re all committed here to this project, to WordPress. It’s right in the name WP Tonic. We’re all in this together. How do How do we move forward together? How do we figure out what each other needs, how we can help each other continue to do the things that we’ve been doing, ultimately create great sites for our customers and help them be successful utilizing this platform.
[00:17:17.330] – Marcus Burnette
So like I said, as a snapshot, it is a leapfrog over 2024. That is definitely a turning point in the community, and it is different than it was in 2023, 2022, even 2020 with COVID. But I do think that the community is starting to come back together, starting to see how we can continue moving forward and do it. Things like the fair project manager piece, where the community is rallied together to figure out how we can create some stability in the system that we I love so that we can continue to move forward.
[00:18:03.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
Nice. I want to jump it back over to Jonathan so he can move us along.
[00:18:08.840] – Jonathan Denwood
The bit about the community, I’ll probably have my own views on I’m very torn about what you’ve outlined, Marcus. I do agree with a lot, but there’s a conflict in myself that I just want. But I’ll probably leave that to the beginning of the second half of the show. But what I like to cover is something interesting that you brought up, that you were part of this agency, a regional agency, and I used to work for a regional agency in Northern Nevada, and there are many regional agency between 20… The one I worked with was a rather large regional agency because it used to do a lot of for other agencies in the Bay Area. They had over 100 staff members. But a lot of these agencies are utilizing WordPress on multiple projects on a weekly basis, but they feel no necessity to be part of the professional WordPress community. What led you to actually think, because you said you worked for a regional agency for team, and then another one, and you felt that you and the agency would get benefit. I would say the bulk of agencies, regional agencies, between five and 25 people, the bulk of them don’t feel that need.
[00:19:50.460] – Jonathan Denwood
What drove you to think that there would be benefits? And in your own mind, what are the clear benefits for our agency, for the clear founder or the key people to be involved in the WordPress community, Marcus?
[00:20:09.180] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, that’s a good point. And that was very much my story, right? I definitely worked at that agency on WordPress projects for a good four or five years without ever stepping foot really inside the community, whether it’s online or in person. So it is an It’s an interesting question. And yeah, there are so many agencies out there that aren’t really, I don’t want to say part of the community, but part of the inner circle of the conversation.
[00:20:40.140] – Jonathan Denwood
I would say the bulk of agencies, PR, graphic, marketing, the bulk of them don’t even know that Moheg is the joint founder and automatic is a major part of the story. They don’t even care. They don’t even know. Would you say I was on the right track?
[00:21:10.760] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, absolutely. Totally fair. And yeah, that is what it looked like for me. I didn’t know all of that or care to know. And I will say to some degree, if WordPress is just a tool in your tool belt and you’re just trying to build some websites, I don’t know that any of that matters to you as as an agency. Now, obviously, we know on the tail end of WordCamp US 2024 that that stuff matters, that obviously conversations have been had since then surrounding automatic, surrounding Matt, and all of that, that would eventually come into play when you’re an agency and things are changing for you. For instance, moving to one release, one WordPress release per year. That’s come on the tail of that because of contribution hours going down and everything. If you’re an agency, you don’t really know necessarily why that happened. But all of a sudden you went from having three new releases of WordPress a year, three or four to to one. So obviously that affected you. Do you care? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you wonder why there’s only one new release. Maybe that erodes a little bit of trust for you.
[00:22:29.160] – Marcus Burnette
Maybe it’s That’s a good thing. Maybe you think WordPress is stable enough that it doesn’t need multiple releases a year. Whatever your opinion is on how you view the project, how you view things. But whether you know about what’s happening, post that keynote with contributions and automatic, it still affects you at the end of the day because you now only have one new release of WordPress every year. But for the most part, none of that really matters. What I think What I think drove me to wanting to be part of the community was I felt like I could chug along and I could find some new plugins and I could learn a few new things about WordPress. And over the course of 10, 15, 20 years, I’d have a good handle on it. I felt like being part of the community, showing up to a word camp in person or being more present with the community online would be a catalyst for learning new learning more about WordPress, more about the ecosystem, what’s available to me as a developer. Now, I’m coming at that point, coming from it as a developer, designer developer at the agency.
[00:23:43.600] – Marcus Burnette
And I felt like I was learning new things, but I didn’t have anybody really around me inside the agency that I could learn from about where I should focus my attention in learning new things in WordPress. And so being part of community was my way of increasing the speed at which I would learn new things about WordPress and the ecosystem. I would say probably the same benefit if you’re an agency owner You’re going to learn, sure, you can go about your business running it the way you want to run it. Maybe you’ll find a few other agency owners here, there that you can bounce some ideas off of. But being involved in the community, there are so many more that just openly sharing their business processes, offering how they run their agencies, the results that they’re getting for trying different things inside their agencies.
[00:24:39.960] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, it’s definitely a very difficult… I think I’m right. I can’t remember now, but I used to be forced to attend the Northern Nevada American Marketing Association meetings. I found them appalling. I literally had to have a shower after one. They’re very different to WordPress meetups in style.
[00:25:05.720] – Marcus Burnette
A lot of those end up being a one-upsmanship type of thing, too, where I’m just showing up here because I want to prove to you That I’m, I’ll show you how I’m better than you as your agency.
[00:25:18.280] – Jonathan Denwood
It put me off marketing, really. I’ve had to get over it and really become a marketer for my own business. But there was a mental block, but I’ve been forced into it, and I think I’ve become reasonably effective. But going to those meetings actually put me off because there are some of the most shallow people I’ve ever met in Chr. But I think WordPress… So I just want to put this before we go for a break because I’m trying to get the break time because we started a little bit later than normal. I’m not having to go. Kirk had some sound troubles, as everybody does occasionally. Is that what I wasn’t aware is, and I think there’s been various factors here, but I think the major one was COVID, is that the regional word camps were really important in attracting people into the WordPress professional community, and I think they’ve been really decimated. I think there was problems with burnout. I think running a statewide… Let’s say you were running the word camp for California, which was running Sacramento, or you were running the word camp for Florida. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work.
[00:26:54.020] – Jonathan Denwood
And I think people do it year after year, and they keep on doing it because they’ve invested so so much time in it. And COVID, they couldn’t do it, and it gave them a couple of years, and they think, I can’t go back to doing that. It was just taking up too much time. I wasn’t getting paid for it. It was just taking up. And I think the regional ones have been really hard hit. The other thing is, I like to get your input on that, if you think I’m correct. And the other factor is, I wasn’t aware that I think community is a rather vaciless word. It has some core meaning. But I noticed with regional, and especially Europe, WordCamp, there seems to be a WordPress professional class, as I call them, that gets sponsored to all these international WordCamps. Basically, they’re working for either the hosting companies, or they’re working for Automatic, or they’re a plugin shop, and they go to these because they’re selling to developers, basically. They’re selling hosting plugins, or they’re trying to attract WordPress talent, which is fair due. But I think the whole… I don’t actually know what the point I was trying to make there because I’m probably stating the obvious, but I think sometimes there isn’t really total honesty of why people are going to these work camps.
[00:28:48.320] – Jonathan Denwood
And there’s a self-denial of the commercial reality of these meetups. I like your response to the two points I’ve made.
[00:29:02.460] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, absolutely. I’ll take them individually. So the first part with the regional meetups being decimated, you’re spot on. I’ve talked to plenty of organizers. Those were a ton of work. There’s a different level of expectation for what one of those looks like versus a meetup. A WordPress meetup is pretty simple. You pick a place, you get together. If somebody has something that they want to share, they can share it. It’s fairly low stakes. A couple of hundred bucks for pizza, and everybody’s happy, everyone gets to hang out together. No big deal. But the regional word camps themselves bring a bit of a higher expectation for what that looks like. The problem is, is there are not always enough people to justify the amount of work that goes into those. Again, like you said, they’re paid. These are all volunteers that organize these word camps.
[00:30:04.230] – Jonathan Denwood
It tends to be one to two core individuals, and it just takes up too much time. Do you think there’s any way… Because unless this is, in my opinion, Unless this is improved, I really think it’s very damaging.
[00:30:22.700] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah. I mean, it’s the proving ground for the larger camps in some ways, but we don’t have that proving ground anymore. Like I said, the attendance, I think, is part of it, too. These organizers are working so hard to put together a camp that, in a lot of cases, is 100 to 200 people. I’ve come at this from the sponsor side, from working in the field marketing side of things. It’s hard to justify sponsoring the amount of money that they’re that’s needed. The money is not, like you said, it’s not going to the organizers, it’s going to the venue and everything else. Venue costs have gone up. That’s also a big reason why it’s become harder to put these regional events on. If you can’t get the sponsorship dollars, then you’re stressing about that as an organizer, you can’t get the venue that you want, so now you’re settling for a different venue. When the venue is not as nice as it has been in the past, then the attendance is lower, and it’s just this spiral to the bottom.
[00:31:32.320] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m not being rude here. I do blame how the foundation and it’s… I do blame Matt. It expecting, specifically, people that are running these regional word camps. The amount of work he must have been aware that they were putting in and having no mechanism to pay them and not really caring, I do place it on him personally for this.
[00:32:05.560] – Marcus Burnette
I don’t have all the answers to the internal workings of how the budget works for each of these camps, but I do know that it’s a lot of unpaid work. I think to your point, COVID had a lot to do with giving these organizers a break that maybe in some cases they didn’t know they needed. Then having had that break, realizing that it is just too much work to go back to. And so you end up with a whole bunch of organizers that take a step back. You don’t have a whole lot of people who want to jump in and take that on themselves, especially when the person who stepping out is saying, I’m stepping out because this is so much work and you don’t get paid for it. You’re doing it on top of your normal daily job hours. And yeah, it’s been really hard to relaunch those. I think that is where I hope that we can have more meetups to fill in that gap. And one of the core reasons why I started the WP world was so that we can see where people are in the WordPress space and see if there’s enough folks that might be interested in a particular town or city for a meetup here, a meetup there, or if there’s enough people in a WordPress camp.
[00:33:28.040] – Jonathan Denwood
I think also what happened last Last year has really finished off a lot of the traditional people that were running these. It was the last straw. It opened their eyes. The Kamara was… The curtains were drawn, and they could pull back and they saw how the whole thing was actually owned and run. I think it’s appalling how it was set up. I don’t expect you, but I’ve made it totally… I don’t go into personal attacks, but I find the whole thing to be appalling how it was set up and run, and it’s not good enough, as I’m concerned. It’s just not good enough. But that’s my opinion. I’m going to let you respond to the second part in the second half of the show, if you don’t mind, Marcus. We’re going to go for our middle break. We’ve had a fantastic discussion, I think. I’ve tried not to butt in too much, folks. I think I’ve controlled myself. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’ve had a great first half. Marcus has really put some great points to us, folks. It’s been a great discussion. Before we go into the second part of the show, I just want to point out, if you’re looking for a great hosting partner, why don’t you look at WP Tonic?
[00:34:59.030] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re a boutique hosting provider. We tend to specialize in membership and community-focused websites. What you get, you get the best hosting, Vulture Hosting, you get all the best WordPress technology as part of the hosting package. It’s not bootlegged. All the plugins that we provide as part of our packages have full licenses. Like I say, they’re not bootlegged, and you get full support. And we’re your partner, your backdoor partner, your white label partner. So if you’re taking a large project and you’re a bit concerned, you have backup with us. It’s a great package, folks, aimed at the WordPress professional. Go over to wp-tonic. Com/partners, wp-tonic. Com/partners, and find more about our partner packages. Let’s build something for Fantastic together. Right. So, Marcus, would you like to take the opportunity to respond to the second part point? I’m not sure if you really want to, because I’m not sure if I was just waffling, really. I just sense that sometimes there’s not enough honesty about why a lot of these people… I’m not having a real go at them. True. But You get this around the camp site, but they’re all there, really, a lot of them.
[00:36:37.460] – Jonathan Denwood
But there’s another crowd that are really there for very virtuous reasons because they really believe in open source. There’s a group from the beginnings of WordPress that really contributed, and they have contributed a lot of their time over the years because they really We believe in the principles of open source. And I think they have been misled a little bit as well. And their commitment to WordPress has been damaged by what happened last year as well. What do you think, Marcus?
[00:37:19.620] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, I agree and I disagree at the same time. I do think that… So word camps have been, for for better or for worse, have been labeled as these non-sales conferences. If you go to a lot of other conferences outside of the WordPress space, very clearly people are there looking to make sales connections and set up purchase orders and all of that. Wordcamp is not that a camp.
[00:37:52.060] – Jonathan Denwood
Is it? No, really.
[00:37:53.700] – Marcus Burnette
At least it’s not labeled that way. I do, however, think that the underlying virtuousness of wanting to support open source, wanting to support WordPress is still there. For example, if you look at the amount of money, I’ll just say Bluehost because that’s where I am now, the amount of money that Bluehost spends on a global sponsorship to sponsor all word camps across the year, and then also separately on word camp US, word camp Asia, word camp Europe, plus the amount of money spent on the booth for Bluehost and Yost, plus the dozen or so folks that are coming from all sorts of different places around the globe, flights, hotel rooms, all of that stuff. There’s no chance that Bluehost sells enough of anything at that conference, at all of those combined, to make up the money that is being spent there. So while Bluehost is obviously there as a sponsor, hoping to sell you on some hosting to make sure that you know that there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?
[00:39:04.100] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t see anything wrong with that at all.
[00:39:06.700] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, especially if you’re very clearly labeled a sponsor, you’re there, you’ve spent money to be there and set up a booth, and you get to talk to people about what you do. There’s a whole Exhibit Hall, that is, at least at the larger camps, the whole Exhibit Hall that’s dedicated to you walking around talking to people who are clearly looking to sell something while they’re there. Now, whether the sale is direct or Direct is, depends on the product, depends on the customer. But I will say that while it’s clear that all of those companies are hoping to make a sale, no amount of sales will provide the ROI that an accountant at one of those companies is hoping for when they look at how much money is being spent on the sponsorship, the booth, the people, and all of that. So I do think that there is a bit of We’re spending this money because we want this money to be part of the WordPress ecosystem. We want to fuel the ecosystem. We’re sending these people because we want people to make connections with other hosting companies, with other product companies, with agencies, We want people to have that community connection so that when you’re an agency and you’re like, Well, my hosting company just doubled their prices.
[00:40:26.160] – Marcus Burnette
What’s my next option? Oh, well, I went to a word camp and I talked to these three hosting companies. Let me reach out to them and see what we can do. A lot of it is long play. But I do think, yes, there are some sales happening, but I do think that the underlying virtuousness is still there When you think about the amount of money being spent versus the amount of potential money in sales, I don’t think that they’re anywhere near each other.
[00:40:53.160] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, my position on this, and I’m not saying I’m right, I’m just going to put you, is that I think some of the major sponsors have been spending too much money on the national and international word camps. Obviously, Asia- They’re the only ones that are left. Well, yeah, but I think you could put argument about Asia because it’s a growing market, and I think a lot of the growth in WordPress, you could say, is in the Asia area. But But in general, I think what is more important, and I think we touched it in the first half, is somehow regenerating the regional word camps, because I think a lot of the influence and growth for the hosting, for the major plugin shops, it’s difficult because some of the major plugin shops are now not based in North America. They are in the Indian subcontinent or in Asia, they’re based, and they’re not really interested in sponsoring because the economics, basically, to some degree. But I found, as an example, there’s some major IT, SAS, and if they’re based in the Indian subcontinent, they don’t really sponsor, really, events. Zoo is an example of this. It’s a $2 billion SaaS company, but they don’t sponsor anything.
[00:42:47.880] – Jonathan Denwood
But I really think the host, and I’m not picking on Bluehost at all, is that I really think the major hosting companies really want to look at working together on the regional and really spreading more money online at creators. I would say that because I am a creator myself. But I do honestly believe that more money for WordPress, YouTube, podcasting, whatever, because I think more people are influenced online. So I personally think too much money goes on the international. I’m not too sure about really what is the purpose of WordPress US, really, to be quite truthful with you. I’m not too sure of its purpose anymore. Would you like to respond?
[00:43:50.340] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, I’m not sure. I think it’s much like it has been in the past. I think the major word camps, the flagship word camps, are a hangout. I know that some work has been done to try and get more of the… To bring in more speakers from outside the WordPress space to garner some more interest in some of the sessions and stuff. But if you listen to anybody talk about what their favorite part of WordCamp are, it’s the hallway track. It’s getting to spend some time with other people in WordPress, whether you’re an agency looking for other agencies to bounce ideas off of or a plugin company looking for agencies or freelancers that may be interested in your plugins. Like you said, those deals, that back and forth of business chatter is happening, even though word camps aren’t labeled It’s not that way, but it’s happening through the lens of networking and community.
[00:45:05.900] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I’m not saying… Obviously, going somewhere in Europe, if you’re working for a major hosting company and taking a flight to Porto in Portugal or Bar in Switzerland and putting it against your business expenses, who wouldn’t take it up? I’m not having a go at those people because I’ll be a hypocrite because if I was in their position, I’d probably do It’s exactly the same. But I think it’s just a balance because I think the regionals have been hammered, absolutely hammered. I think there’s consequences there, non-term consequences about them being hammered. It’s not really been talked about, and that’s why I thought this would be a great discussion. Sorry, go on.
[00:45:53.940] – Marcus Burnette
I don’t know what the end-all-be-all answer is for reviving the regional camps. I know that some conversations have been had between a lot of the usual larger sponsors, a lot of hosting companies. I know that some conversations have been had there to try to figure out what that looks like. I know the sponsors haven’t felt like they’ve gotten much out of sponsoring those events, which has led them to pull back on sponsorship. That pullback on sponsorship is what’s led organizers to be burnt out and all of that. So something needs to be changed in the way that sponsors get some ROI in return, whether that’s… There’s been discussions about the sponsors getting attendee lists so that they can send an email to- Well, I think it comes…
[00:46:47.320] – Jonathan Denwood
I personally think it comes from a foundation that has an actual budget, that has income that’s coming into it, which then it can directly sponsor people to do these regionals, and it’s all linked together, Markus.
[00:47:03.890] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, and that’s what the global sponsorship is meant to be. I don’t know if the global sponsorship is not charging enough. Maybe the global sponsorship needs to be a higher amount so that there’s enough funding there. Maybe there needs to be more than four global sponsors so that the funding is there. I mean, it all, again, ties back to the sponsors not feeling like they are getting enough from spending that I mean, a global sponsorship is 150K. If you’re going to drop that money, you want to have… Again, there’s the altruistic side that you want to support the WordPress ecosystem, and that’s great. But Somebody somewhere in that company is going to ask you if you’re getting something back for that 150K besides having a logo on a bunch of websites for word camps. And so there needs to be something tangible that sponsors are getting in return that helps them feel like that’s a worthwhile price tag to pay to keep these to keep these regional camps going. And then I don’t know, maybe the maybe Maybe the expectation for what a regional camp is needs to be lowered a little bit to be closer to a meetup or something.
[00:48:23.220] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s a combination of factors, isn’t it, Mark?
[00:48:25.000] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah. So that organizers don’t get burnt out by just the thought of trying to where venue and sign that.
[00:48:32.480] – Jonathan Denwood
A lot of them, the aspirations were growing from the people attending, and they were comparing them. They were trying to become almost like WordPress US or WordPress Europe. It was just getting out of hand, wasn’t it?
[00:48:52.760] – Marcus Burnette
Wordcamp Phoenix is just about at a level at one point where it could have been a national camp. But I don’t know, I think maybe the expectation of what that looks like needs to come down. So it is a larger meetup, essentially. And sponsors get a little bit back in return. Sponsors can spend a few bucks on this larger meetup, basically. And we can all get together and do the same things that we’ve been doing. It doesn’t need to be the world’s fanciest hotel ballroom that we’re meeting in or whatever the case is. And I think some efforts have been made to try to work that out. But again, we’re working with a small pool of people who are interested in organizing because the last wave of organizers have been burnt out and have all but left. People that are sticking around.
[00:49:46.860] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s been very sad for them. It’s been a sad… I just wanted to discuss. I have lost track of the time here. No worries.
[00:49:55.670] – Marcus Burnette
It’s been a good conversation.
[00:49:56.800] – Jonathan Denwood
And my poor co-host has been extremely be patient. But I think you’ve got to go soon, Kirk. I think for some unfortunate reasons, I’ve taken up too much of the second half. Do you want to put the next question or do you really need to be off in the next couple of minutes, Kirk?
[00:50:16.400] – Kurt von Ahnen
I need to be off, but I think the way I phrase the question might help the conversation, and maybe I feel a little guilty for asking and leaving. But for me, the questions that we had planned on were focused on community growth a positive way. I do a lot of work in power sports. They did a root cause analysis in power sports to figure out why only old dudes buy motorcycles. They determined that the earlier they can get kids on bicycles, It’s going to take 15 years, but if we can get kids on bicycles in kindergarten, when they graduate high school, they’re going to buy a motorcycle. That’s just how that goes. If I take that idea from a root cause analysis perspective, and I think about a talk I did at the high school here a couple of months ago, I spoke to 60 kids that wanted to be in my room, that asked to come to the WordPress Agency Guys talk. Out of 60 kids, only two of them had heard the word WordPress before, and none of them had ever heard open source. One of our questions was, where does leadership play a role in developing a growing WordPress community?
[00:51:25.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
And I think it’s one thing to talk about word camps and meetups, because for people that are already in the fray. But how do we approach leadership and say, you need to do a root cause analysis and figure out where the future users of this platform are going to come from, and then how do we incubate that?
[00:51:45.780] – Jonathan Denwood
I think they’re great points now, Marcus. Are you available to continue the conversation for some bonus content, or do you have to clear off?
[00:51:55.260] – Marcus Burnette
No, I’m good. I can keep going.
[00:51:56.880] – Jonathan Denwood
Because I haven’t done a very great time with the management. We’re going to wrap up the podcast part of this show, folks, but we’re going to continue the discussion, the whole, and you’ll be able to watch the whole interview, plus the bonus part of the show on the WP YouTube channel, which has now got over 10,000 subscribers. I went over last month, and we love you to subscribe to that. We’re going to wrap up the podcast. So, Kurt, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and what you’re up to, Kurt.
[00:52:31.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
Manana Nomas always leads to me on the internet, Facebook, X, all those. And then Kurt Vonhannan on LinkedIn, I’m the only Kurt Vonhnen there, so it’s easy to find me.
[00:52:41.800] – Jonathan Denwood
I do appreciate your patience, Kurt, because I’ve done a terrible job on the time management of this show, which I normally do a better job, folks. Markus, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and your views on WordPress, Markus?
[00:52:57.300] – Marcus Burnette
Probably most active on X, Twitter, @MarcusDbernet, or of course on the wp. World. You can find me there as well.
[00:53:07.040] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes, and if you want to support the show, like I say, go over to the WPTonic YouTube channel, watch the bonus part of this show, and also subscribe to it. That’s a great way of supporting the podcast and what WP does in the independent media area of WordPress and SaaS. We will be back next week with another a great interview. Well, I think next week is our notorious monthly roundtable show, and we’ve got a great special guest, and Devon from Stella WP. He’s a great friend of the show, and we got the normal panel, which should be a great discussion. We see you next week, folks. Bye. Let’s go into the bonus content. I think Kirk was really I got on what his reflections is, and that’s why it’s self-serving, though. So I’ve got to be a bit careful here because I’m doing a podcast and I’m running YouTube, and I run my business. But I think companies like Squarespace, especially Squarespace, I’m not sure about Wix. I’m not sure they’re being so effective. But I know Squarespace does a lot of sponsorship on YouTube and online in general. And I think, well, it was the same problem because it was automatic.
[00:54:38.520] – Jonathan Denwood
They got a new YouTube Tsar, and they tried to get some media, but it didn’t seem very effective to me. But it’s a blaring. I think it can only come from the hosting companies myself. But I do think there’s something missing there. What’s your own thoughts about this, Marcus?
[00:55:07.520] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, I think the inclination, when you say the word leadership, is to jump straight to the top. And of course, I think that it’s important that the message that’s coming from the top is a good vision that makes sense and collaborative and all of that. But I also think that all of us, you, me, Kurt, the rest of the community that’s in that, let’s call it the inner circle, the people that are paying attention to what’s going on with Automatic and Matt and other hosting companies and other products, companies, and all of that. We’re all those leaders that need to be the ones reaching out to pull in that kid that needs to get on a bicycle. I’ve I’ve done my best to try to introduce some of what WordPress is and open source is to my daughters. I’ve also gone and spoken at a school to talk about WordPress and entrepreneurship, and that’s really figuring out what the right angle is. And I think entrepreneurship is the right lens for the generation that’s coming in behind us because they all want to work for themselves. They all want to be influencers and come up with whatever the thing is that’s going to make them a bunch of money so that they don’t have to work for someone else.
[00:56:36.640] – Marcus Burnette
Wordpress enables that. It’s not going to do the work for you. But if you learn open source and learn WordPress, you have a way of facilitating that. I think it falls on us, the people that are going to word camps, the people that are on the inside I’ll say people that are going to word camps are probably the people on the inside of WordPress. And then there are thousands of thousands of people that are using WordPress that aren’t going to word camps. They’re just using it as a tool in their tool belt, and that’s great. But I think it’s on us, the people who are looking to bring in the next wave of folks, the younger people. Like Kurt’s analysis, we got to get some people in younger that care about owning their own content, that care about having the know-how and the ability to create their own digital empire, as you will, and And open source and WordPress allows you to do all of that. Squarespace has done a good job of getting their own name out there by offering 10 % off to whoever will sign up for an affiliate link. That’s basically what it is.
[00:58:01.760] – Marcus Burnette
I mean, I don’t get the sense that most of these influencers that are selling me Squarespace care all that much about Squarespace. I know exactly.
[00:58:12.800] – Jonathan Denwood
I take your insights.
[00:58:14.060] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, they care all that much about… It’s totally different from how I feel about the WordPress community. If I’m listening to somebody from our community talk about WordPress, I definitely get the sense that they genuinely care about WordPress, care about the people in WordPress, care about open source.
[00:58:30.040] – Jonathan Denwood
I think it’s very diverse because there are some major YouTube influencers that do a lot of videos around WordPress, and they never… I’ve outreach to them to come on for interview, and they got absolutely no interest on coming on a… Because this is focused. I do two podcasts. I do one that’s more about promoting my business, but it’s aimed at the much broader WordPress user. And I do this podcast that’s aimed at the WordPress professional, right? And they’re not interested, really, because I have quite a large audience for a niche podcast.
[00:59:19.750] – Marcus Burnette
Sure.
[00:59:20.940] – Jonathan Denwood
But it’s nothing… Some of these were influencers that talk about a lot of WordPress on YouTube. I have a of a million, half a million subscribers, right? And they’re just not interested, and they just don’t see the benefit, right? But I think WordPress really hasn’t done enough to really get more younger influencers on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, to be talking about out WordPress.
[01:00:02.300] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, no, I totally agree. But I think that, again, I think it’s on us. I think it’s on us to find those folks, the people in our community. I don’t think it’s on one organization or one team. Ideally, there is a marketing team within WordPress that can handle some of that stuff. But again, you’re looking for budgets and stuff to handle that. It’s hard to provide an affiliate link to WordPress when WordPress is freely downloadable open source software.
[01:00:42.340] – Jonathan Denwood
I think we got to get creative. Really, that’s got to come from the leading hosting companies or leading companies that are making some decent money out of WordPress, really. I think if you had a foundation that had different forms of income streams, and that could be designed, they could play in the regional. But I think on the online, it really has to come from the major commercial entities. I just don’t think a very good job has been done.
[01:01:18.640] – Marcus Burnette
It gets fractured, though, because obviously those companies are looking for you to sign up for WordPress specifically on their platforms. If I’m Bluehost, I’m not likely to create a whole campaign about you creating a WordPress site wherever you can create a WordPress site. I’m likely going to tell you that the best place to get a WordPress site is at Bluehost. So it’s really more of a Bluehost.
[01:01:45.760] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, I’ve noticed with the major hosting, they tend to want to make their own content, where I think Squarespace, I think they’ve been quite looking for the right I’ve heard. Smart is that they’ve gone out to third-party influencers, but I do agree with your initial insight. A lot of these third-party don’t seem to have any commitment to Squarespace. I do agree with you there, but I think they’re being smarter than a lot of the hosting players and the other players, because I do include the major plugin They have just relied on getting developers and influencing them, in my opinion. So let’s move on to a couple of nice That’s a question. But I do also think leadership does play a role, and I think what happened last year I think things were going wrong because I think there was consequences around COVID. I think there was consequences about how, and this is just my opinion, about how Gutenberg had been totally mismanaged. Managed, and just a lot of burnout. Just a lot of burnout. And I think what happened at Word Camp US put the topping on the cake, really. Then you had what happened after and the pulling of the curtain, and you saw how the whole thing had been set up.
[01:03:44.060] – Jonathan Denwood
That was the end. That was the last straw for me.
[01:03:47.740] – Marcus Burnette
In some ways, it gave people permission who had been on the edge of feeling like they just needed one more reason to be able to back away from, like you said, the burnouts, gave them permission to step away and have a real reason to. Yeah, been rebuilding from there.
[01:04:10.900] – Jonathan Denwood
Let’s go on something. I’m a great user of AI. Obviously, this is a hole. We could have a hole show about how AI will change WordPress. I think it could be a great opportunity, or it could be the death of WordPress, and I haven’t got any idea about how it I actually hope, because I’m still committed to WordPress, because it’s been good to me, it’s how I’ve made a reasonable living over the last five or six years, trying to do my own thing, not working for agencies, because I got burnt out, Marcus. I actually took a year off because I got totally burnt out by it, and it ruined my marriage. It’s taking me six or eight years to really build I filled myself up financially. But that’s my own story. But I love AI, and it’s very useful. First of all, what do you think? Do you think it’s going to really damage or I see it could be a great, like gasoline on the fire. It could be another glory period for WordPress, actually, AI in a way. And also, are there any tools, anything you use AI tools that you specifically use that have been helpful?
[01:05:36.740] – Marcus Burnette
Absolutely. I tend to agree with you. I think, I don’t think it’ll be the death of WordPress. I think there will be a There are a number of use cases where somebody may have reached for WordPress in the past and will reach for something like Lovable or Replet to build a small mini site, mini app or something like that. I’ve had very little success with any of those tools building something larger than just a one-off tool. If it gets too complex, they tend to break something while fixing something else over and over again. And I just have to, I fight with it forever. I don’t think it’ll replace any reasonably, I’m not even complex, but any reasonably well-developed, well-designed WordPress website anytime soon. I do think that the tools will enable those that have already been contributing, and even a new wave of contributors, to be able to add to the project, one, a new wave of contributors that maybe couldn’t do some of it before that now have the access to being able to contribute. But then those that have already been contributing, pour some gasoline on the fire to help them do what they’ve already been doing, but at a much greater speed.
[01:07:06.560] – Marcus Burnette
So even for myself, I don’t consider myself a developer, but I’ve built all of the WP worlds and sponsored me WP with my own development knowledge in conjunction with some AI tools. The one that I use the most is ChatGPT. I’ve used it to help me build some plugins that I’ve used for websites when I just need some some one-off functionality or even just some code snippets to add to websites. Chatgpt does that really well. If I have some code that I need to modify, tossing that into ChatGPT does a really good job. That’s been my tool of choice for most things, AI. And then on top of that, I’ve built some things that utilize the OpenAI API, which OpenAI is what’s behind ChatGPT, using their APIs to build other things. One of the things I just gave my team yesterday was I use ChatGPT to build a browser extension that allows you to easily generate alt text for images that don’t have alt text. And so the ChatGPT actually helped build the plugin itself, and then it connects to the OpenAI API to send it the image and then get the alt text back.
[01:08:25.490] – Marcus Burnette
And so using, I probably would have I’ve been able to build that over the course of a couple of weeks with my limited developer knowledge, and I was able to put that together in a few hours, thanks to ChatGPT. So I think it’ll really, again, I wouldn’t use it to generate code that I didn’t know what it was doing at all and then just ship that into production. So I do think that some level of knowledge of what the tool is generating for you is still important so that you can review it and make sure that it’s not going to damage something. But I think it’ll really enhance those that already know what they’re doing to be able to do it faster and then to provide some inroads, some access to new contributions as well.
[01:09:20.000] – Jonathan Denwood
Can I say a response? I think you’re spot on. But I think these are the two. I think you highlighted this. I just want to how my own thoughts have been maturing about this. Because I think you’ve outlined all the opportunities, but also if it’s not managed right, it could be some clear problems. Because I think for you, vibe coding, there are some major WordPress influences that are really pushing vibe coding and how to combine it with WordPress. One of them is a panelist on my monthly roundtable show, Spencer Forum. But in his own defense is that he’s got a history over the past 15 years of encouraging new people into WordPress design and development and offering training services, right? And Vibe is a tool, and it will enable people and that’s always been part of the energy of the WordPress community because it’s a vector that somebody can enter and start making money and then go up the food chain, basically.
[01:10:47.780] – Marcus Burnette
From a perspective of someone who’s always trying to learn something new, I am fully on board with people going that route to play with it, to find where the limitations are, too.
[01:11:00.000] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, there’s a point I was getting there. I was just going to be in a bin. But you’ve already seen it when it comes to the plugins, because the plugin team are just being swamped, right? Swamped by people that are knocking out plugins using this technology. But that could be an opportunity, not a problem, because I think if you’re going to sell a plugin, have a pro-version of it, there should be a directory online that promotes pro-version plugins that are If you have met certain criteria, audit, and have a yearly audit, and there should be a charge connected to that audit, and that money should go to the foundation, and that should be an income generator that pays for the increased team that has to do that audit and check in. And a person could go to a part of a website. If they want to use a free plugin, it’s not checked and it’s made. But if you want a checked properly audited for security, for standards, there’s another section and it’s got a tick and it’s been ordered it, and the foundation gets the income from that. So that’s how I can see a change in reality could be actually turned to the benefit of WordPress.
[01:12:44.100] – Jonathan Denwood
What do you think?
[01:12:46.060] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. It reminds me a little bit of the Apple app ecosystem and having to pay for a developer license to publish to the the app store. But it means that app has been vetted, that a team has looked through it. It’s secure, it’s maintainable long term, sustainable app and that thing. So, yeah, I think it follows a similar system to that and provides funding, like you said, maybe to the foundation. If that goes back into, I’m always going to look through that community lens because that’s who I am. But if that helps some of the funding to pay for organizers to create regional camps and stuff like that, then, yeah, I think that’d be a great deal.
[01:13:34.860] – Jonathan Denwood
Because at the present moment, it’s all volunteers. It all comes from…
[01:13:41.000] – Marcus Burnette
Or the plugin review team involved.
[01:13:42.960] – Jonathan Denwood
It isn’t with the form of new plugins that you can see the way you’ve come. It’s great, isn’t it? It’s great that you get all these new people. But if it’s not managed, the system is just going to break, isn’t it?
[01:13:57.360] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
[01:14:00.560] – Jonathan Denwood
On to the last question, and then we’ll wrap it up. I appreciate you agreeing to do this extra part. When it comes to your time machine, HD Wells or Doctor Who, I don’t know if you’re into Doctor Who at all. I’m English, even though I live in the United States. If you could go back to the start of your career and have a quick chat with yourself, what would be one insight you’d give yourself? What would you say to yourself? The only thing you can’t do is go back in time and say to them that they shouldn’t have come on this show. You can’t do that.
[01:14:40.880] – Marcus Burnette
I think this has gone well enough that I don’t need to do that. Yeah.
[01:14:45.540] – Jonathan Denwood
Go on.
[01:14:47.080] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah. There are a few things, I think, probably. However, I think one reason is that from early on, I was nervous about handling change. I think there have been numerous changes throughout my career that I’ve learned from, whether that’s transitioning from Drupal to WordPress, changing employers, or shifting from working in an office to working remotely. Throughout my career, I’ve experienced numerous changes, and I think I would go back and probably advise myself to embrace them. There’s so much to learn from in these changes, and I would encourage myself not to fear them, not to fear not knowing what the next step will be. You’ll learn it, you’ll figure it out along the way, and be willing to try new things and embrace that change. I think that’s for sure one of them. I suppose, based on our earlier conversation, that jumping into the community earlier would be another piece of advice I would give myself. I don’t know why I spent five years, half of the time that I’ve been using WordPress, not at all involved in the community whatsoever and waited for a global pandemic to join in with the rest of the WordPress community and learn all that I can learn about WordPress, about the ecosystem, about what’s available, about how How plugin companies work and do the things that they do and how other agencies besides the agency that I was at were working and handling things.
[01:16:41.800] – Jonathan Denwood
I think that even now, and I might be biased, WordPress remains an excellent choice for the agency environment. I know that on the agency front, there are now some platforms specifically aimed at that market. However, I still believe that WordPress remains the clear leader for the community, encompassing all the technology, for our agency. Would you agree?
[01:17:19.940] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, I would agree. However, I would add that, as great as the software is, I think it’s the people surrounding the software that make it truly unique from any other piece. Whether that’s Squarespace or Shopify, you don’t have the same connections or the same community of people who care so passionately. Additionally, there are a couple of others in the open-source space, as it seems to be more of an open-source phenomenon to have that community rally together. However, I genuinely believe that the WordPress community perceives the bigger threat, Mac, as being online, due to the way AI is evolving, which will also impact search.
[01:18:06.860] – Jonathan Denwood
There’s a view that businesses, individuals, and people in general don’t need a website, and I find it somewhat misguided. I find it crazy stuff myself. I believe the need for one’s property is becoming increasingly important, not less so. What do you reckon?
[01:18:31.160] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, I agree, and I don’t love the idea of putting my future in someone else’s hands that way. If you ask them, Why don’t you need a website? Well, I have YouTube and TikTok, and until they’re gone or they decide to charge you for them, or whatever they want to do because they can. You don’t own that content. You don’t own any of that. And so you’re at their beck and call. I genuinely believe that you must own your content and own your own space online, so that they can’t just pull it out from under you whenever they feel like it.
[01:19:12.320] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s great. So I’m going to wrap up. Once again, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and what you’re up to?
[01:19:19.580] – Marcus Burnette
Yeah, of course. Most active on Twitter, X. I’m at marcusdbernet, or you can find me on the WP World.
[01:19:29.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Hopefully, you’ll agree to come back on the show later this year or in the new year. I’ve enjoyed the conversation, Markus. Yeah, me too. Thank you. I think we’ve covered some great stuff. Like I say, folks, we will be back next week for our notorious roundtable show. We’ll see you soon. Bye.
[01:19:48.630] – Marcus Burnette
Bye-bye.
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