In this golden gate edition of WordPress Weekly, I was joined by Kim Parsell as well as Leland of ThemeLab.com to talk about the stories of the week. This episode was recorded at the same time WordCamp San Francisco was going on and I want to send out a special thanks to James Hicks of TheTechScoop.net for calling into the show from WordCamp San Francisco. James gave a detailed account as to what he was experiencing. His timing couldn’t have been better as James was on the line, Matt Mullenweg walked by and James was able to get Matt to hop on the phone to say hi. Hopefully, next weeks episode will feature a couple of guests who attended WordCamp San Francisco to provide us with a recap as to what took place their.
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This episode could have been sponsored by you. If you own a commercial plugin or theme that is GPL compatible or a service built around WordPress and are interested in advertising, check out the advertising information page.
Kurtis sent in the following question: What if you have so much content between Posts and Pages that you start to notice the site slowing down. Is there any way to resolve that or will I have to leave WordPress and find another alternative? Hosted through GoDaddy.
I responded that he should start using a caching plugin such as WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache. I also suggested hooking up W3 Total Cache to a CDN. Kim weighed in and mentioned that he should start with his plugins. Review all of them, remove the ones he doesn’t need.
If anyone else has suggestions for Kurtis, place them in the comments.
*To Kurtis* I have tried to respond to your email but I receive an email server error.
In this series wrap up, Jake and I talk about some of the sticking points from the previous three episodes. We discuss what we’ve learned and what we thought was useful information for those looking to start a business in anyone of the three areas that we covered. Among some of the topics of discussion were the low barriers to entry for theme and plugin authors, the costs of running a Software As A Service model, the majority of panelists not taking to the Freemimum model too well, and other tidbits of information. I hope you all enjoyed this series and if you could, please tell me anything you learned from this series in the comments.
Smashing Book Contest:
Week Three Winner - Carlos Frevert
Congratulations to all the winners.
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This episode did not have a sponsor. If you’re interested in advertising on WordPress Weekly, check out the Advertising information page to find out how.
In this episode of WordPress Weekly, Jake and I chatted with three commercial plugin authors. Two of which are in the middle of maintaining a successful business while the third was just getting started. The panel members consisted of Carl Hancock of Rocketgenius, Jonathan Davis of the Shopp e Commerce plugin and Ronald Huereca of Ajax Edit Comments. We went from the ground up in terms of questions regarding each persons business. Jake and I had large shoes to fill based on the feedback of the commercial themes round-table episode but I think we pulled it off. Thanks to everyone who showed up in the chat room during the show.
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This episode is also sponsored by EnvironmentsForHumans.com This is an organization that excels at getting experts together in a given topic and then exploring that topic from different angles. The next topic to be handled is the UX Web Summit on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT). This event will teach people how to improve their websites so that they are more responsive to visitors as well as making this more usable. If you’re interested in this summit, visit UXWebSummit.com
Related Links:
During this episode, we talked briefly about the topic of selling GPL licensed software. To put the issue to rest on whether folks are allowed to sell GPL software or not, please view this link which was passed along during the show. Selling Free Software
Smashing Book Giveaway Contest:
Congratulations to JeremyOLED for winning a copy of the Smashing Book courtesy of Jacob Goldman. If you want to put yourself in the running to win week two, here is what you need to do.
Help us publicize the special WordPress Weekly series on commercialization! Just follow @WPTavern and guest co-host @jakemgold on Twitter, and Tweet a message mentioning us both with a link to the most recent episode. We’ll randomly pick one of our favorite tweets right before the next show.
We’ll be giving a book away for each of the episodes (excluding wrap up). You can participate each week. Each contest starts at 2pm on Saturday with the show’s recording, and ends the following Friday evening. You may participate if you’re outside of the contiguous United States, but will be asked to cover shipping expenses.
Announcements:
Part 3 of this series will take place on April 17th with the Services Round-table featuring Joshua Strebel of Page.ly, Daniel Bachhuber – Formerly of CoPress, and Raanan Bar Cohen of Automattic
This episode was the first in a series discussing the commercialization of WordPress. Within this episode, we talked with three commercial theme authors who are in the midst of maintaining a successful business. Joining us on the round table was Jason Schuller of Press75/ThemeGarden.com, Brian Gardner of Studiopress, and Cory Miller of iThemes. Considering the commercial theme market will be red hot this year, this episode gives those new guys or aspiring commercial theme authors plenty of food for thought. Also, Matt Mullenweg made a surprise appearance near the end of the show to ask some questions he had to the members of the panel. Jacob Goldman did a great job asking some meaty questions that were really business focused and I feel that just about anyone who listens to this episode will be able to learn a thing or two about the business of commercial themes.
Smashing Book Contest:
Want to win a copy of the Smashing Book and a chance to participate in our wrap up episode on April 24th? Help us publicize the special WordPress Weekly series on commercialization! Just follow @WPTavern and guest co-host @jakemgold on Twitter, and Tweet a message mentioning us both with a link to the most recent episode. We’ll randomly pick one of our favorite tweets right before the next show.
We’ll be giving a book away for each of the episodes (excluding wrap up). You can participate each week. Each contest starts at 2pm on Saturday with the show’s recording, and ends the following Friday evening. You may participate if you’re outside of the contiguous United States, but will be asked to cover shipping expenses.
If we get over 500 participants in the contest, before the wrap up show, we’ll also give away one copy of Smashing WordPress to one participant after the last episode!
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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. While they recently had a WordPRess Workshop, the next event will be a UX Web Summit on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT). This event will teach people how to improve their websites so that they are more responsive to visitors as well as making this more usable. If you’re interested in this summit, visit UXWebSummit.com
Part 2 of this series will take place on April 10th with the Commercial Plugins roundtable features Carl Hancock of Gravityforms, Ronald Huereca of Ajax Edit Comments and Jonathan Davis of the Shopp plugin.
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.
Unfortunately, I had to cut off about 15 minutes of the show because of audio problems associated with my connection to talkshoe through X-Lite which is usually very stable. The first 15 minutes explained my week of webhosting hell as well as the weird random issues I’ve been encountering but I’ll go into more detail on those in a new post. However, I didn’t cut much out of the interview with Ronald. In thins interview, we get a better idea on how Ajax Edit Comments works, features that were included in the latest 4.0 release, why they decided to go with a price point of only $10.00 a year, various questions concerning the commercial nature of the business and much more. We also get information on a brand new book Ronald is working on that strictly focuses on using AJaX within WordPress. By the way, those who purchase a subscription to WP Ajax Edit comments before the book is released will receive a free copy.
*Special Coupon* – Ajax Edit Comments has already experienced the increase in price that was mentioned during the show. However, I’ve talked with Ronald and he has agreed to give WPTavern readers and WPWeekly listeners a special coupon code that is valid for 48 hours to get the plugin at the original price of $10.00 The coupon code is wptavern.
Also, Ronald has added a PDF preview of his upcoming book, the WP Ajaxa can be viewed here. The preview includes the first three chapters and a table of contents.
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Get the most out of your search engine optimization with the All In one SEO Pro plugin. This version removes donation and advertisement sections, ideal for developers and firms using the plugin on client sites. A support forum is also available for the Pro version. Visit wpplugins.com today and check out All in One SEO Pro. Limited time New Year sale of 40% off
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:
I’ll be interviewing Paul Kim of Automattic on Saturday, March 27th to talk about his experiences while working for Mozilla.
In this episode of WordPress Weekly, I spoke with Mike Cloutier who operates the RidgewayHerald.ca domain. The RidgewayHerald is a local online paper that specializes in local politics such as town hall meetings within the greater metro Ridgeway and Fort Erie areas of Canada. During our discussion, we talked about the state of the print industry and how it’s affected Mike, his reasons for using WordPress, his perspective as a first time user of the software, and last but not least, tips and tricks from the audience to help Mike with his site.
Ad Copy:
Get the most out of your search engine optimization with the All In one SEO Pro plugin. This version removes donation and advertisement sections, ideal for developers and firms using the plugin on client sites. A support forum is also available for the Pro version. Visit wpplugins.com today and check out All in One SEO Pro. Limited time New Year sale of 40% off.
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 March 31st from 9AM -5 PM Central Time. Learn how the pros set up a CMS and get practical advice on how to create and apply custom themes with less hassle. This is a virtual conference so click here to register for the event.
In the first Saturday edition of WordPress Weekly, I interviewed Michael Koenig who is VP Of Marketing for IntenseDebate as well as an evangelist. During this episode, Michael gave us the low down on what IntenseDebate was all about, how the service works, how it can be extended by end users, and how it is different than some of the other third party commenting services available. Another interesting part of the discussion centered around the fears involved with using a third party to handle comments and how IntenseDebate calms those fears with its synchronization feature.
The turn out for the show was much better than what I’ve been seeing on Tuesday evenings which I’m pretty happy to see. Also during this interview, I accepted a challenge from Michael. The challenge was to install the IntenseDebate plugin and use the service for at least one week. Starting March 8th, the comment form on WPTavern.com will be powered by IntenseDebate until March 15th. After the challenge is over with, I’ll write a review and also solicit feedback from those who submitted comments on the site within this time frame.
Ad Copy:
Get the most out of your search engine optimization with the All In one SEO Pro plugin. This version removes donation and advertisement sections, ideal for developers and firms using the plugin on client sites. A support forum is also available for the Pro version. Visit wpplugins.com today and check out All in One SEO Pro. Limited time New Year sale of 40% off
Announcements:
On March 13th, I’ll be interviewing Mike Cloutier to talk about his use of WordPress for RidgewayHerald.ca and we’ll also talk about the state of the print industry as he sees it.
This was like having two episodes in one. During the first 20 minutes of the show, Hal Stern and Brad Williams gave me the 411 on their upcoming WordPress book, Professional WordPress. This book was written to take people directly into the core code of WordPress to figure out how it works and to explain how the internals of WordPress such as filters, hooks, and functions come together. The second part of the show featured an interview with Brad Williams of WebDevStudios.com where we discussed his consulting business built around an open source project. We also talked about some of the key differences in Joomla and Drupal compared to WordPress. Last but not least, we talked about their recently released plugin, CollabPress which may be one of the first plugins to really bring functioning task management into WordPress.
Ad Copy:
Get the most out of your search engine optimization with the All In one SEO Pro plugin. This version removes donation and advertisement sections, ideal for developers and firms using the plugin on client sites. A support forum is also available for the Pro version. Visit wpplugins.com today and check out All in One SEO Pro. Limited time New Year sale of 40% off
What a pleasant surprise this show turned out to be. I started the show solo but about 10 minutes into the recording, a familiar voice called into the show. You might know him as Matt Mullenweg. Kim Parsell also joined me to talk about WordPress. We discussed a number of stories that occurred during the week but since Matt was on the line, I went into rapid fire mode discussing all sorts of things such as the road map for bbPress, the WordPress store and its possible role with the foundation, ideas on the best way to provide feedback on a problem, the most difficult aspect of managing the WordPress project, a bit about the default theme, why he won’t be attending as many WordCamps this year and just a ton of other stuff. Really want to thank Matt for dropping by on a night where I was prepared to go solo.
Ad Copy:
Get the most out of your search engine optimization with All In one SEO Pro. This version removes donation and advertisement sections, ideal for developers and firms using the plugin on client sites. A support forum is also available for the Pro version. Visit wpplugins.com today and check out All in One SEO Pro. Limited time New Year sale of 40% off
WPWeekly Episode 95 – Commercial Plugins
By Jeffro on April 11, 2010
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This episode is also sponsored by EnvironmentsForHumans.com This is an organization that excels at getting experts together in a given topic and then exploring that topic from different angles. The next topic to be handled is the UX Web Summit on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT). This event will teach people how to improve their websites so that they are more responsive to visitors as well as making this more usable. If you’re interested in this summit, visit UXWebSummit.com
Related Links:
During this episode, we talked briefly about the topic of selling GPL licensed software. To put the issue to rest on whether folks are allowed to sell GPL software or not, please view this link which was passed along during the show. Selling Free Software
Smashing Book Giveaway Contest:
Congratulations to JeremyOLED for winning a copy of the Smashing Book courtesy of Jacob Goldman. If you want to put yourself in the running to win week two, here is what you need to do.
Help us publicize the special WordPress Weekly series on commercialization! Just follow @WPTavern and guest co-host @jakemgold on Twitter, and Tweet a message mentioning us both with a link to the most recent episode. We’ll randomly pick one of our favorite tweets right before the next show.
We’ll be giving a book away for each of the episodes (excluding wrap up). You can participate each week. Each contest starts at 2pm on Saturday with the show’s recording, and ends the following Friday evening. You may participate if you’re outside of the contiguous United States, but will be asked to cover shipping expenses.
Announcements:
Part 3 of this series will take place on April 17th with the Services Round-table featuring Joshua Strebel of Page.ly, Daniel Bachhuber – Formerly of CoPress, and Raanan Bar Cohen of Automattic
WPWeekly Meta:
Next Episode: Saturday, April 17th 2P.M. EST
Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe
Length Of Episode: 2 Hours 28 Minutes
Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode95.mp3
Listen To Episode #95:
Posted in WordPress Weekly | Tagged ajaxeditcomments, commercial, gravityforms, Plugins, shopp, talkcast, wpweekly | 4 Responses