This episode of WordPress Weekly features an hour long interview with Automattic employee, Paul Kim. Paul is mostly in charge of user growth between WordPress.com and WordPress.org but also with some of the other projects that Automattic has under their belt. In this specific interview, I had Paul go over the same presentation that he did at WordCamp New York 2009 slide by slide that talked about what he learned as well as his experience working with Mozilla prior to Firefox 1.0 being released. In order to get the most out of this interview, I encourage you to view his presentation as you’re listening to the show which you can do here via Slideshare. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Kim about the differences and similarities between the FireFox project and WordPress, especially as it relates to the communities of both and their marketing methods.
Kudos goes out to Paul for doing the interview with me while performing daddy duty.
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This episode is also sponsored by EnvironmentsForHumans.com This is an organization that brings together expert speakers on a given topic exploring that topic from different angles. There will be a WordPress Workshop day on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 from 9AM – 5PM(CT) — covering setup of WordPress in the morning and then theming in the evening with Matt Harris and Stephanie Leary as well as looking to WordPress 3. More information can be found at CMSdays.com
Announcements:
In April, I’ll be doing a series of shows centered around the commercialization of WordPress. The first round table show will be about commercial themes. Send in your questions here.
Automattic CEO Toni Schneider will be presenting at the Freemium Summit taking place in San Francisco at the Mission Bay Conference Center on March 26th 2010. The price for admission is $449.00 which is a reality check to anyone who is used to attending a WordCamp. However, there will be a number of speakers from companies that are in the middle of capitalizing on the hybrid business model of free mixed with premium. Speakers such as Tom Conrad of Pandora, Phil Libin of Evernote, Lincoln Murphy of Sixteen Ventures, and Ben Chestnut of Mailchimp will be on hand.
Although I won’t be in attendance for this summit, I plan on doing something similar on my own through WordPress Weekly for the month of April. Each week will be dedicated to a specific commercialization aspect of WordPress. We’ll cover themes, plugins, services, and at the end of the month, have a wrap-up show. Jake Goldman, one of the organizers for WordCamp Boston will be joining me on these shows as a co-host. I’m currently in the middle of getting the round table of speakers set for each week. Keep an eye out on the WordPress Weekly category as when I have things set in stone, I’ll announce them there.
Congratulations to Alex also known as Viper007Bond, creator of Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin and major contributor to the oEmbed feature introduced in WordPress 2.9. Alex has been working for Automattic through contract work for a few months and today, he has announced that he’s become a full-time employee. Another piece of solid talent picked up by the company. I imagine if I ever had the chance to attend an Automattic retreat, my head would explode from all the geekiness in such close proximity.
For those that follow Ian Stewart on Twitter, you know that he recently quit his job. He continuously hinted to something bigger happening in his life. Today, we learn what that something is. Ian Stewart has become the newest member of the Automattic team.
Today marks the first day of my employment as a Theme Wrangler with Automattic and it feels great. I’m more than excited to finally let you know what I’ve been up to for the last little bit.
According to Ian, ThemeShaper.com will be the new location for the theme team being put together at Automattic. Also, all of the child themes that contained a price tag are now free for all. Considering Ian’s work in the community with his tutorials, his Thematic Framework and his mark that will be left on anyone using the new Twenty Ten theme when it’s released with WordPress 3.0, Ian definitely deserves this position. It’s the dream job for anyone who loves WordPress with a passion. Also, Ian has recently announced on Twitter the arrival of a newborn in the near future so it has to be comforting to know that he’ll have a kick ass job to support his family.
In his announcement, I find it interesting that he mentions a theme team. Could this be a hint that more theme designers will be hired in the near future? Also, will their work be tied strictly to WordPress.com or is this more for WordPress.org? The other question I have is if the position Ian has taken has anything to do with the Theme Czar role that has been published on the Automattic Jobs page for some time. Ian certainly fulfills the requirements.
In episode 80 of WordPress Weekly, I interviewed Raphael Mudge of AfterTheDeadline.com, the newest acquisition by Automattic. Raphael and I talked about how AtD works, his visions for the service, how it helps everyone who uses it become a better writer, the data he’s been able to collect thanks to WordPress.com and much more. If you are interested in learning some great details regarding the service, this episode is definitely for you.
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This episode of WordPress Weekly is sponsored by WebDevStudios.com. Check out their newly released BuddyPress plugin that enables new member moderation.
WordPress Tavern Listener Poll:
Last weeks poll question was: Would You Like To Hear An Interview With Anil Dash?
Out of a total of 46 votes, 37 of you said Yes while 9 of you said No.
Jeff – After The Deadline – After the Deadline helps you write better and spend less time editing. Click the proofread button in the visual or HTML editor toolbar to check spelling, style, and grammar.
Last Weeks WordPress Trivia Question:
What powers the WordPress.org website?
WordPress Trivia Answer:
Nothing. It’s a bunch of static HTML pages.
This Weeks Trivia Question
What is Raphaels favorite flavor of ice cream?
Announcements:
Next week December 8th, there will be no-show. Instead, On December 15th, I’ll be interviewing Jacob Goldman of CMurrayConsulting to talk about his companies work involving WordPress.
It used to be that if you needed to find a WordPress consultant, you would need to visit the consultants page hosted on Automattic.com. Today, that is no longer necessary. Instead, all of that information and more can be found on CodePoet.com which is running on P2. Thanks to an email I received from a tipster, here is what the site is going to be used for:
Over time we plan on adding new features like consultant profiles, better search, promo badges, etc to help direct the ever increasing demand for WP consulting services. For search, we’re considering ranking results by contributions made to WordPress.org (i.e. the more plugins/themes/core & forum credits a firm has to their name, the higher they rank).
Not too long ago, I reported on the fact that WordPress.org sitewide profiles were in public use. If you’ve created your sitewide profile, you’ll know that there is an option that enables you to have your account show up in the consultants list. Between that option, CodePoet, consultant profiles and such, things are starting to look as if they are coming together, one puzzle piece at a time.
Monitoring the Twitter stream today, I discovered that Automattic has hired on a new Systems Wrangler in Stephane Daury. In his post, you can clearly read the excitement given off by this job opportunity. Hell, I’d be happy to. Stephane has a few WordPress plugins under his belt, WPhone being the one I recognize. While the job is a dream come true for Stephane, he realizes it won’t be easy.
Don’t get me wrong, although this assignment represents, to me, the professional chance of a lifetime, it will also be the most challenging by far, the scale of it all mind boggling. Nothing is won yet beyond the opportunity and everything is still left to be achieved. Needless to say, I will be doing my very best (and then some) to own the said challenge and prove Barry, Matt and others I am indeed the right guy for the job.
In this episode, David Peralty and a few others join me to talk about the news of the week. Most of the news stories deal with Automattic owned services such as IntenseDebate and Polldaddy rather than WordPress. One of the discussion points focused on why Gravatar has not yet made it mainstream. While the audio quality is not so great in this episode, I hope you’ll be able to listen through it for this particular conversation.
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This episode of WordPress Weekly is sponsored by WebDevStudios.com. WebDevStudios would like to announce the launch of their new project, WPClassroom.com! WPClassroom.com is dedicated to providing high quality professional WordPress training using the most powerful online training software powered by Cisco WebEx. Reserve your seat today at WPClassroom.com! By the way, use the coupon code wptavern when sigining up and that will take off $5.00 on the first class on September 9th.
Jeff – IRCLogs.wordpress.org – Enables you to see the log file for the bbPress, BuddyPress development, WordPress development, WordPress, and WPMU IRC channels. The log file page also provides a nifty bar of options at the top where you can easily switch channel logs, view log files from the past few months, or perform a search. So if you can’t catch those WordPress developer chats on Thursdays, this is the place to go to read the log file of the meeting.
What is the name of the new part time employee Automattic recently hired? (by the way, John is full time)
WordPress Trivia Answer:
John Godley
This Weeks Trivia Question
In a recent interview, Matt was asked if he were to start another project, along the same lines as WordPress but had nothing to do with blogging, what would it be?
Announcements:
On Thursday August 27th at 2PM Eastern Daylight Time, we’ll be interviewing Adii of WooThemes. The special date and time is due to Adiis geographic location.
Thanks to Viper007bond on Twitter, I was notified of a new redesign for Gravatar.com. Seems as though most sites under the Automattic umbrella are getting a refresh these days. The new design definitely provides more information than its counterpart along with links to developer resources on the front page. Also, there is a large screencast video produced by Michael Pick which explains what the service is all about.
Gravatar gets a new look
Gravatar is not a complex site so this simple front page sums up the site quite well. What do you think?
Matt Thomas last night announced on Twitter that WordPress.com would be live testing a new design.
We’re running a live redesign on http://wordpress.com this week, if you’re into that sort of thing. I think it’s gonna be pretty swanky.
Upon checking it out, I gotta say that it’s strikingly different than the design it replaces. It’s visual, has more images, and still manages to keep that clean look that is a staple for Automattic.
There are a few minor issues I have with the design. The first is that I think the right sidebar looks a bit clunky with images on the right and the top one on the left. Also, the spacing between the text and images varies and makes it look weird. The other concern I found was with the text color #888888. I think it’s too light and should be bumped up a shade or two darker. While the Sign Up Now button looks great with the orange gradient, the solid orange sign up now link does not mesh well with the background color. It seems too bright.
This episode of WordPress Weekly features an hour long interview with Automattic employee, Paul Kim. Paul is mostly in charge of user growth between WordPress.com and WordPress.org but also with some of the other projects that Automattic has under their belt. In this specific interview, I had Paul go over the same presentation that he did at WordCamp New York 2009 slide by slide that talked about what he learned as well as his experience working with Mozilla prior to Firefox 1.0 being released. In order to get the most out of this interview, I encourage you to view his presentation as you’re listening to the show which you can do here via Slideshare. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Kim about the differences and similarities between the FireFox project and WordPress, especially as it relates to the communities of both and their marketing methods. 
