fidzu : WordPress

Version 5.3.6 of the Akismet plugin for WordPress is now available. This update contains the following improvements:

• We've improved how the "Mark as Spam" and "Not Spam" API requests work, making them more useful for improving accuracy.
• The styles for the much‑beloved Akismet widget have been modernized.

To upgrade, visit the Updates page of your WordPress dashboard and follow the instructions. If you need to download the plugin zip file directly, links to all versions are available in the WordPress plugins directory.

04 Feb 2025 9:11pm GMT

In this episode, Katie and Adam discuss feature creep in product development with guest Bryce Adams. They address balancing new features with core integrity and engaging customer support effectively.

04 Feb 2025 4:28pm GMT

In this episode, Emma and Adam discuss marketing strategies across business stages, emphasizing the importance of owned, earned, and paid media, audience understanding, and confident branding.

03 Feb 2025 1:54pm GMT

As Gutenberg Times celebrates its 7th anniversary, we discovered an amazing coincidence: Bob Dunn, better known as BobWP, launched the DoTheWoo network in the exact same week back in 2018. Today, Bob and I take you behind the scenes to share the origin stories of our WordPress journeys, explore how key ideas took shape, and reveal the unexpected lessons we learned along the way.Today, Bob Dunn is the host, and I am Bob's guest.

Show Notes / Transcript

• Editor: Sandy Reed
• Logo: Mark Uraine
• Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack

Show Notes

• Do The Woo
• Reflections on Gutenberg Times and Do the Woo with Birgit and BobWP
• Bobwp.com
• About us > Why Gutenberg Times

Stay in Touch

Transcript

**BobWP:**

Well, I'm here with one of my favorite people in the WordPress world. Well, actually outside WordPress. You may know her from Gutenberg Times. How are you doing today?

**Birgit:**

Well, hey, Bob. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, well, I remember that we did some luncheon in Torino, and there was outside the workroom, we were talking about so many other things. Yeah, well, I'm really glad that we can do the show together.

**BobWP:**

Yeah. So I happen to see, and I don't know if you had mentioned it somewhere or something, and I saw that you were coming up on seven years or something like that. And I thought, well, I wonder when that is. And it was in January, the same as what we've just celebrated. So I thought, wow. Then we can say 14 years combined. It sounds even more impressive.

**Birgit:**

Well, and if you do it times three, seven times three, it's 21. That's WordPress celebration. Yes, it's the 21st.

**BobWP:**

So I just thought we'd get on here and talk a little bit about, I don't want to go into the whole journey, but some of the things maybe we've learned or whatever along the way. And I always wonder when somebody comes up with something, is it more or less a name that comes across in your brain, you think, oh, you just think of this and you wonder what I could do with that? Or is it a concept you have? I want to start this. I want to know which way you did it, and if it was what you wanted to do first-the concept of the idea-and then how did you come up with the name? Was it easy to come up with?

**Birgit:**

Well, yeah. So I started at the end of June 2017 to curate news about this new thing that everybody hated-kind of the block editor. And I said, it can't be that everybody hates it, but it's really amazing and it's going to be changing WordPress so much. And I saw it at WordCamp Europe in Paris, and it was kind of a really great-it wasn't a live demonstration; it was just kind of a video showing how you do blocks and how you can add 'em to a post and all that. It was very early on. I think the first Gutenberg commit on GitHub was just in February, four months earlier. So it wasn't really, but it was absolutely fascinating to me. And I wanted to learn what other people do with it, what the plugin developers-if they are interested in it-what they're talking about, what the developers are talking about, and where this is going and what the new features are. And I was really trying it out and seeing what's coming up, and I wanted other people to know about it.

So I put a Storyfy out. I dunno if some of you might remember Storyfy. That's kind of a curation tool where you can embed things like posts and pictures and have just a running list of things. And that was very easy to do. And just when they published a blog post or showed off one of the little things that they found cool about the block editor or where a new feature was showcased, I just put it into the Storyfy. And there was up until probably October of 2017, and then I heard the news: Adobe had bought Storyfy and announced that they would end its life in May of 2018.

I said, well, I'm not going to wait that long. I need to put it on a website. Well, I'm a web developer. There was this fun thing, WordPress; I should use that. It's kind of the first one of many lessons I learned: that you have to put it on your own grounds and not do it on rented land.

So I thought about it, and then I also had some requests from users in the space that they would like to have a newsletter-like an email newsletter that comes every week or something like that-because they cannot always go to a page. It's just something new, typical publishing problems that people are not coming to your website to see what's new. You need to pull 'em over there. And so that was kind of the thing that came together.

Because it was all about Gutenberg, I kind of just thought about, okay, what are names of things? And Gutenberg Times came up. Somebody else at the same time had a Gutenberg Hub-that was Munir Kamal-and then there were other people out there. But I really liked the Gutenberg Times kind of name, and it was available. So I registered it in January of 2018, and that's how it came about. Then I migrated all the Storyfy updates into the site, and it took a while and I had some people to help me with that. And then I started the newsletter. It was actually pretty easy to kind of follow along because it was kind of that vision that I had.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, for sure. Mine was kind of erratic when I started focusing. I think I actually dabbled in WooCommerce when it first came out-2011 or something like that. I think it was 2011, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, so I was writing a lot of stuff about it. I actually found on my blog, when I was more into affiliates, people were more willing to buy and spend for their e-commerce site on the plugin. So I just started writing about it, and I did a podcast in 2014 for a little over a year called *The WordPress Breakdown*.

**Birgit:**

What?

**BobWP:**

*The WordPress Breakdown.* And I did it with kind of a twist on words. I was breaking down stuff, but then some of them had a WordPress breakdown.

**Birgit:**

Yeah, it's troubleshooting.

**BobWP:**

And what I did basically was I was just doing 15-20 minute podcasts with just myself. I was talking about plugins or themes and stuff like that-some of the stuff I came across. I did it for, like I said, about 13 or 14 months. And it was just becoming… I just felt like this is boring. I'm on there by myself. I'm talking about this stuff, and it's really stuff I'm already writing about, and I'm just kind of regurgitating it now through a microphone. And I thought, okay, I'm just going to quit it. I stopped it and I told myself that I wouldn't start something until I had a really good idea.

So in 2016, I thought of *Do the Woo*. I thought, okay, what's out there in the landscape? What would be good to talk about? And I thought, well, there's really nothing that focused on WooCommerce. And I knew the team there. I knew a lot about it. And so I thought, well, why don't I go ahead? I got the name. It was one of those things-I wanted something a little bit fun.

**Birgit:**

Yeah, definitely it is. But it's also that creation in there-*Do the Woo.* I really love it.

**BobWP:**

And so the name just came to me. So I contacted WooCommerce and I said, "I want to do this. Is it cool to have Woo in the name?" And so we kind of verbally agreed on it. And so I started that. And about three or four episodes into it, I thought, well, is there enough to talk about with just WooCommerce right now? So I actually changed it to *The WP eCommerce Show* and ran that for two to three years, did quite a bit with that. So I was talking about a lot of stuff, and it was a lot of Woo in it.

Then in 2018, I decided to kick *Do the Woo* back up in January, and I was actually doing both podcasts at the same time. And it just was becoming too much. So I said, I've got to drop one of these. And the WP eCommerce seemed like the one to drop. And so I just took off with *Do the Woo* again. And by episode-I was just saying on the episode before we started doing this one-I think it was episode five, I had Brad Williams come in as co-host because I realized I needed a co-host. It was more fun, whether we have a guest or not. And then it just kind of went from there.

And the interesting thing is, when I actually came up with the site itself, what, two, three years ago? Whenever. Because it was all done under BobWP.

**Birgit:**

There…

**BobWP:**

At that point, I wanted to get the domain, and *Do the Woo.io* was available. So I went back to Woo and I said, I wanted to buy this domain, but I'm stepping into another space here as far as having that in a domain. And so they said, "What was the agreement before?" And I can't remember who it was at Woo, but we made an agreement-basically a verbal agreement-and they were cool with it and everything. But then when, like I said, I got the domain, it became a little bit more of a legal thing. So I negotiated with their attorney. They came up with a contract and something that was an agreement of what I could or couldn't do, or should or shouldn't do, or something like that. And it was perfectly fine. It was great. So I signed that, and then I was able to use that for the domain.

**Birgit:**

It's quite the journey.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know me too well. My journeys are never nice, straight, narrow journeys with nothing happening.

**Birgit:**

Nice, quiet, but that's perfectly okay. You need to stay in the moment, and then all of a sudden creativity strikes.

It was, so in April of 2019, I started thinking… I had a podcast in the nonprofit space. So all my life before that was nonprofit space. I had just founded three years earlier a nonprofit technology company-a 501(c)(3)-to help nonprofits with technology because the social justice people are not equipped in doing technology. It's all self-taught, and they needed a little bit more strategic approach to it. And I was really helping, trying to help with that. And I had a show called *What's New in NP Tech*, with Ruth, a co-host, and Jim O'Reilly. And he had this wonderful radio voice as well, and he was very polished.

I'm more about talking off the cuff, starting sentences and never finishing them. And he was very polished. So it was a very good contrast. And I said, okay. And in 2018, he had to stop doing the podcast. And by 2019, I was missing that energy-that you have somebody to talk through things and what's new and what you want to kind of try out and what's the purpose of it, then why that and not that?

So I thought, okay, Gutenberg has a two-week release cycle, and every time there's so much in it beyond what's in the release post. In the release post, the release lead-whoever leads it-highlights six, four, or five things, but there's so much other stuff in there that might be good for developers or theme builders. So I talked with a design director from Automattic at that point, and asked if he would spend every two weeks, two and a half hours or something like that, on our changelog. We'd go through the changelog, highlight things that we want to talk about that are very important, and talk about more than the six things that are highlighted in the release post.

**Birgit:**

And that was really fantastic to put it together. We had a certain rhythm to it; we had a certain outline. We also talked about what other people do in the space-if there was a great plugin coming along or a question from listeners. So that was really a great start. We started-I think the first, the zero episode-was in June 2019.

Since then, I've had a most regular biweekly kind of rhythm. Mark Re did about 40 episodes with me, and then he left Automattic-that was, I think, December 2020 or something like that, after a year of the pandemic kind of thing, or January. And then Greg Ziolkowski from Poland, who was also a Gutenberg developer, kind of came on for another 25 shows or 20 shows.

And then I started to rotate co-hosts, and that made it much more fun to think about what other people are doing in this space. Can I bring that into the show and still talk about the changelogs? Yeah. We had Tammie Lister and Fabian Kägy, Ryan Welcher, Nick Diego, or Peter Tasker. One show was actually also with Mathias Ventura when he had this new phase of the site editor to announce.

And with all the phases in Gutenberg, we always had something to talk about. And it was funny-this friend with whom I did the previous podcast, he's still a very good friend of mine-and he kind of had the question for me: "So you call it the Gutenberg Times, so when Gutenberg is done, what do you do then?"

And I said, well, once Gutenberg is merged to Core, wouldn't your site be completely obsolete? I said, no, I don't think so. There are a lot of other things that are going to come along. But it was really interesting to see how that, in other people's minds, kind of made it, okay, it's done now. But we all know it's not done.

In December 2018, it came into Core. And what are we now, 2025? And we are still working on phase three of the Gutenberg project. So it was kind of interesting to see.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, I think a lot of people, they think of not an end in sight, but they don't think of how to now twist it to this way or twist it to that way. Some people are very, I'm going to go to this point, and then this is the point I feel like there's nothing else to be said, at least from my perspective.

But you're like me. I mean, when I had Brad come on-I don't know how long it was just Brad and me-and then I had Jonathan Wold and Mendel Kurland from GoDaddy back then. They came on. So we started rotating because, again, like you said, it was fun. And then we were bringing in guests too.

And then just after a while, I started thinking, well, could I build on this? And the more I got into it, the less I wanted to be on the podcast. I just thought-because it started coming to the point where it was, yeah, we're talking about this and that and all these different things-but also I was seeing people that come on a podcast for the first time as a guest and, after, I mean, they were freaking out at the beginning. But then at the end, or later on, they said, "Wow, that was so much fun and stuff." And I thought, well, I'd like to get more other voices and have other people talk about stuff, and pick out hosts to have their own specialty and their own knowledge and stuff.

So it's been kind of crazy. Some people look at me like…

**Birgit:**

Yeah. When did you start with the network of shows? Was that two years ago? Three years?

**BobWP:**

Brad came on. Then, on January 9th, 2020, I brought Jonathan in, and Mendel came in. And then, I think it was January 30th, 2021, I brought Zach in, and Ronald joined. Then after that, I just kept thinking, how far can I take this?

And then, I think it was when I actually launched it as its own site. I had somebody design it. And then after about two years of that, I started doing some other stuff, and I thought, I want to make this more of a-I want to call it, I don't really know-a network, but a collection of shows with all these different people. So then I had to look at redesigning everything.

But yeah, it was just… for me, I mean, I'm at a point where I've got to kind of just deal with what I have here now. And all the hosts are volunteers, so they always know. We've had a few that have had to leave for one reason or another. They're getting busy with their business, and they just said, I don't have the bandwidth anymore. And I say…

**BobWP:**

Thank you for what you've done. And I have a hall of fame on my post page and stuff for those that were on before and moved on. So it's been very flexible with them, scheduling everything. Everybody's busy and stuff, so we just kind of deal with stuff. We get things all scheduled in for a year, but then we move things around and people have times they can't show up. Sometimes it's a little crazy, but they all seem to enjoy doing it, and I'm lucky for that.

**Birgit:**

Yeah, I have started rotating through. Well, I started to see, okay, the WordPress space is still a little bit more male-oriented, and I see it also in my audiences. Yeah, it's all 65% male, between 35 and older, or it's 80% on the podcast. I said, well, I guess I'm in a situation where I can actually also bring some more female voices, especially female engineer voices, to the space.

And it's a real joy for me to work with the engineers at Automattic, or other agencies, or other hosting companies. And I kind of want the person who comes on to not only be a one-time guest-if they want to, that's okay-but if they are on multiple times, they get their own routine for that. And it's much easier for them to say yes now than for the first time when they don't really know what to expect.

So I am really happy to have about 10 to 12 women engineers that kind of rotate through. Most of them are actually in the community. They're all very knowledgeable about the subject anyway, but then they've also put in the grind in theme development or plugin development.

So it's really interesting to see what they do, and they bring a different perspective to the whole thing. When I was having a conversation with Greg, who is on the development team, I said, well, I could bring the user questions. What were you thinking? And then he would explain it quite nicely, and I learned a lot when talking with the volunteers-what software development is actually about. It's… you have the architecture, but there's so much behind the scenes that you can't bring to the forefront. And if somebody says to content creators, it's just, "What? Just change?" If I hear somebody say, "Well, it's just an easy fix…" Yeah, that was kind of…

**BobWP:**

What?

**Birgit:**

…what I had when I was running my agency. It was never just an easy fix.

**BobWP:**

Never.

**Birgit:**

It's always more. Yeah. So it's interesting to see and bring other voices in there.

**BobWP:**

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I know for me, the hosting has always been… I try to keep some kind of balance in some way, but I'm also asking-the person has to be willing to commit. Somebody. I've approached a lot of different people, and a lot of people just don't have the time to commit or they just don't. And also, it does take a certain comfort level to be a host. I mean, you want to be able to do it.

And if you're almost on the edge just going in as a guest-I mean, I give them the benefit of the doubt. Some of them have come in a little bit reluctant, and they ended up just loving doing it after a bit. So it's kind of… And yeah, it's good. All the different voices. I mean, I've had a lot of guests on. I swear that probably 65%, 70%, or maybe it's higher-I don't know-are first-time podcast guests. They've never been on. And sometimes I have to talk them into it a little bit, and often they're surprised how much they can talk when they don't think they can, and they get going.

**Birgit:**

Yeah, it really depends on the questions.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, for sure.

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**Birgit:**

I have found that everybody brings something to it, and even if they're missing knowledge, you can fill that in a conversation. It fills knowledge gaps for other people who are listening. And so I always have appreciation for things that don't go well because those are the most important moments when you learn things.

**BobWP:**

Yeah.

**Birgit:**

Exactly. And I never really had anything that didn't go well. Sometimes it was just… yeah, we had one the other day where we had 20… that's a horror story. If you have a rundown that's 29 pages because you have a changelog from three plugin releases because you had a holiday break.

**BobWP:**

Oh, geez.

**Birgit:**

Yeah. That is kind of the horror story where you say, okay, you need a special guest for that, who deals with that. And even then, you sometimes get lost. Am I on page 15 or 25? Where am I? Because you scroll so fast. Yeah, we cut that out and regrouped and then came back to it. So it's great.

**BobWP:**

I had somebody… a couple of times this happened. One of the guests didn't get recorded in the track. It just wasn't there. It looked like it was recording and everything. So when I went to play it back, they were out.

**BobWP:**

It looked like it was recording and everything. So when I went to play it back, they were out. And I believe one time, one of the hosts actually said, "Well, send me the episode, and I'll fill in those spots. I'll listen to it, and then I'll reply, and then I'll see what I asked next." And they did it, and it worked fine, but it was a nightmare for them. Then I had to go in and put everything in.

But I did have a guest once, and I felt so sorry for them. We don't do a lot of upfront questions on ours, and sometimes people will request it. And this plugin developer was really pretty nervous about being on. So I said, "Well, let me send you a few questions about what I'll talk about." Well, I could tell even when we started, it wasn't for them.

**Birgit:**

So brilliant.

**BobWP:**

And I always tell my guests, if you need to start over on something, it's recorded. So I'm not live. I can go in and edit. And this poor person actually had created the answers for all the questions and was reading them. But he was so nervous that when he was reading them, he kept stopping and saying, "Oh, I got to start over." And I could just feel his tenseness. And I wanted to say, if this isn't comfortable, but then I didn't want to. So we did it. I went in and did some editing, and it turned out fine, but I felt for him.

I thought, oh, I know that feeling when you think something might be easier for you or something, and you get in there and you just don't have it in you or something. And I don't blame them. There are a lot of people that just refuse to come on the podcast. They'll just say, "Ah, no, I can't do it." And I'm like, "Yeah, cool."

**Birgit:**

Yeah, I take that no very seriously because you don't want to… yeah. But the other part was the horror stories only start when I screw up.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, that's when I did.

**Birgit:**

So at the beginning, I think I missed the record button with my mouse, and we had to do the show again.

**BobWP:**

I had one of those.

**Birgit:**

I think everybody has. But I have a very good editor who goes through that. She's been a radio producer all her life, and she helps me with that. So now I just kind of record and record on QuickTime as a backup. So even if I screw up the Zoom recording… but now with Zoom, you actually get two tracks. And that's really helpful because sometimes we just talk over each other. It happens when you're in the moment and you want to-it's something you're excited about-then you talk over each other, and it's hard.

**BobWP:**

I have a few people that have been that stuck almost. And I'll shift tracks, then I shift them and stuff. And I did have the one that I forgot to record-it was when I was doing my other e-commerce podcast. And she ran this company that sold cosmetics, and she was in Ghana. And it was just-she had a Woo online store. That's why I brought her on. But she would give jobs to local women to go out because they would have to get the ingredients for it. So she provided jobs for a lot of the women there.

It was a fascinating story, and I finally was able to get her on. And the most embarrassing thing is when you find out in the middle-I looked down, I thought, wow, that record button isn't going. And I thought, now I have to tell her this right in the middle. Which is… I don't know what's worse: going through the whole thing and then saying, "Oh, sorry, it didn't record." So I kind of paused. I said, "Well, I have an interesting situation here. Obviously, I didn't push the record button." And she actually laughed, and she said, "Well, go ahead. We can do it again. Just send me your calendar again." And she was real cool about it, but my heart just sunk.

**Birgit:**

Yeah, imagine no recording, especially when it was a good show and there was a good groove, and then all of a sudden I destroyed it. Oh, man.

**BobWP:**

It's interesting too because some people, when you were talking about somebody asking, "Well, what about when it goes into Core and the goal's over?" It sounds like you've been through a lot. I have been over the seven years. You flex with whatever works. It's like, okay, is this going to continue? Yeah, well, I can continue it.

And you've tried different hosts and you've found that sweet spot. So I think both of us-I was going to ask about, did they ever change for our sites during the seven years? And they probably did in the sense that, yeah, we shifted to this a bit and nothing real maybe. I know that when I moved it to its own domain and kind of focused more on the bigger group of hosts, that was probably a big shift. But it was in my brain for nine months. I was working on stuff.

**Birgit:**

Well, there wasn't really a big shift. So I think I changed the theme once, and it's definitely overdue for a new one because I'm still on a classic theme and I should go on a block theme because then you can do a lot more. But I just didn't have the time yet to migrate over.

**Birgit:**

But I think I'm also… up until 2021, in summer 2021, it was all a hobby kind of thing. I did it alongside my agency work, and it was up and down in terms of how much time I could spend there. During the pandemic, I had about six-well, four-months of burnout because I had so much work to do, and I didn't have a break. I had to take my break.

And the only thing that I did during that break was keeping up with Gutenberg, keeping the Weekend Edition going, and keeping the podcast going. But I wasn't doing any agency work. The developers and freelancers that I worked with-they were so good at taking over. I said, "I can't deal with it, and if I have to step in, I'll step in. But you know how we work." And they were all many years with me.

So it was between November 2020 and February 2021. I was only doing the Gutenberg Times, and I was really amazed to see how that always kept my excitement going. And there's a lot of personal stuff that got in the way afterward. So we moved to Sarasota; we sold the house in Naples, renovated the house. There was a lot of non-work and non-publishing kind of stuff getting in the way.

Then we organized our house in Sarasota, and after two years of not seeing our parents, we traveled to Europe in 2022. We met in Porto, and you were also moving. So I think we did this pretty much at the same time-moving back to Europe.

And I was really happy that I got a job at Automattic. And part of that job is keeping Gutenberg Times and the Gutenberg Changelog going as a Developer Advocate. So having that was a real blessing for myself and for me because I couldn't migrate my agency. I closed the agency when I knew I was going to Europe. And so keeping that going was really good. I'm very grateful for working with Automattic on that.

**BobWP:**

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that part of it. I mean, how that just seamlessly all worked, and you were able to bring that right into it. Yeah, that's cool. And I think the big change for me probably was when I went to the bigger network of shows and everything, and started bringing more people in.

And then at the same time, I was given the gift of a redesign of the site from the Special Projects team at Automattic. Matt gave that to me, which was phenomenal. For a few days, I was just thinking, is this really happening?

**Birgit:**

Is this real?

**BobWP:**

I mean, it took us quite a few months to put it together and stuff. And I have one funny story about the launch. We had kind of a soft launch because…

**Birgit:**

And?

**BobWP:**

I was at CloudFest, and I got a message that said, "Your site is live." And I'm like, oh, really? I had not planned for that.

And the ironic part of it-we got such a kick out of it-was my site prior to that had Beaver Builder on it. And I was hanging out with Robbie from Beaver Builder when I got the message, and I told him. And we took this picture. We were having a beer, celebrating and everything. But it was so funny-he just got a kick out of that. I basically removed Beaver Builder, and here he was celebrating with me and stuff. But Robbie's great.

**Birgit:**

The new websites…

**BobWP:**

But yeah, it still is amazing-the support and everything I get with that side of stuff. A couple of times I've really messed it up. I keep saying, maybe I should just let you do more things. I shouldn't be touching stuff.

**Birgit:**

You don't know where the boundaries are unless you kind of push past them. So yeah, what's your own knowledge-you want to kind of kick it a little bit.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, yeah. I poke around a bit to kind of understand. Some of the stuff is custom work, so I don't want to mess that up. But some of it's adding stuff. I've probably learned more about the block editor and everything than I ever thought I would be-just getting in to try to figure out, okay, this has to be a small change. And it's like, okay, an hour later… now what happened there?

**Birgit:**

Yeah, I was doing that actually on WordPress.org. I am part of the editor of the Developer Blog that launched in late 2022. And then I got the note from the Meta team that the Developer Blog now has a block theme, and I have access to it.

And then I said, "Oh, I can change the navigation." And I went in there, changed the navigation, and it kind of dropped the whole navigation and added all the navigation to the top-level navigation too. One is the overall WordPress.org, and then on the subsites, you have the own navigation. All of a sudden, my UI was jammed. So it took about two days to fix it. But I said, okay, I'm not going to touch that anymore.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, yeah. I've kind of learned now that I did screw something up recently again, and having them look at it… I even tried revisions, and it seemed like the more revisions I went back to, the worse it got. So it was like, okay, this is hopeless. I don't know where this stuff went, but it's not here anymore.

**Birgit:**

And here goes a half a day of your life.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, yeah.

**Birgit:**

But that's web development. I think it has… yeah, it's always happened. Since when are you doing web pages? How far back is that going?

**BobWP:**

Oh, so actually I started doing… let's see, when did I first do? We still had our previous marketing and design business around in 2000-I dunno-2005, 2006, somewhere around there.

**BobWP:**

…somewhere around there. I started doing-well, actually, it might've been even earlier than that-doing little HTML sites. We were doing print design. We started in 1993, the business. And so I had to kind of kick and scream and be pushed into it. And I made these godawful HTML sites with… oh, was it Adobe-what was it called? It was one of the…

**Birgit:**

Was it Dreamweaver or was it FrontPage?

**BobWP:**

Dreamweaver, yeah.

**Birgit:**

Dreamweaver, yeah.

**BobWP:**

And I remember I made one of our first sites, and I had Flash on there. Oh, it was just horrifying-bouncing letters, dancing around, or some crazy thing. And then, 2008 or 2009-I think 2008 or 2009-I got into WordPress, started dabbling in playing around with the blogging stuff. And I went to iThemes and got one of their themes there, and we did our business site.

And it was like, wow, that took me one-hundredth of the time it took me to do any other site because it was… I mean, it actually looked good, and it would function well and stuff. So yeah, I did that till about 2014 or 2015, I think, when I finally quit designing. I was into content, and I knew what I wanted to focus on. I was tired of the design client side of things.

**Birgit:**

So what was your first?

**BobWP:**

Oh, yeah. Well, I don't want to say… this was 1996. Yeah, I did a German site. It was all HTML tables-kind of horrible. Well, it's still out there because it's a reference site for books and all kinds of things in Germany. But yeah, so that was in 1996. I started-that was as a citizen in Munich-and I learned about it, and I learned about HTML.

I found it so fascinating that you can put it up on the web and everybody can see it almost immediately. And that's such a different experience from printing, where you have to wait till it comes from the printer and then you need to distribute it. That was instant distribution, and I really loved it.

But then what I found was that all the neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers were all on the German part-they were all in America on servers-and there was nothing in Germany that holds against it, what really happened. And we were a group of two people, each one of us had our site and started a site about the Holocaust and all that information.

And mine was called *Shoah Project Internet.* And we collected information about the concentration camp in Dachau, before the concentration camp had their own website in 2000 or something like that. I connected with authors who had published poems and also some nonfiction about the wealth of Jews that was taken away by the government, and about the resistance in Germany.

It was all in German, but there was no equivalent otherwise from private citizens to actually put this out. That really made me… and then there was this big discussion-there was an exhibition, a traveling exhibition. There was this myth that the German army had nothing to do with the concentration camps, but that was a myth, and it wasn't true. And there was an exhibition that actually showed all the facts, and there was a big brouhaha and uproar.

And it was traveling, so everywhere I was kind of picking up the snippets from the online sites, from websites. So it was kind of an interesting…

**BobWP:**

I think I started using computers in the early 80s-or probably mid-80s. And I actually went to community college in the States in, I think, maybe the mid to late 80s. I took a year of computer programming, and I did learn-what was it?-BASIC, COBOL, Assembly…

**Birgit:**

Wow, yeah.

**BobWP:**

There was one other thing. And after a year, I remember we had this great guy from…

**Birgit:**

Fortran?

**BobWP:**

Yeah. Oh no, that was another one. Yeah, we had to dabble in all those in 12 months. And at the end of the 12 months, the instructor-he was great-he was a Brit, and he just had the craziest sense of humor. He said, "Well, now you've learned all this. It's all going to be obsolete by the time you step out this door."

And we were like, "What?" And I discovered after a year of that, that was not what I was going to become-a computer programmer, I thought. But it gave me the comfort level to use computers. I was really comfortable with that. So that was good. But yeah, crazy times.

So what's going to happen in the next year for you, do you think?

**Birgit:**

Well, the Weekend Edition is going to be quite interesting every time. And I see that in the community-that the block editor is more in the forefront more and more. And there's some great stuff coming out with Playground and with Studio to do staging sites and to just play around with WordPress.

So I know that Gutenberg-the Core contributors of Gutenberg-are still going to do the biweekly releases. So we are going to do maybe a monthly release podcast. And we'll invite a few more people from the space that work with Gutenberg. There is now also… quite a few people have adopted the block theme space quite a bit on multiple levels.

It's for enterprise levels, which started very early. But on the agency level, WebDevStudios, for instance-Jesse Palm was on the show recently, who had the starter theme that's a block theme for WebDevStudios-and they start every project with it.

So these kinds of things show me that there's quite another level of adoption happening about the Gutenberg project. And of course, I'm still hoping for a Google Docs-like real-time collaboration or async communication with comments.

There are some great experiments in the Gutenberg plugin that I want to dive into quite a bit as well. So we'll see what happens.

**Birgit:**

So we'll see what happens. Yeah, WordCamp Asia is going to be more of a research trip for me-to talk with the plugin developers and talk with some of the engineers and kind of see what's next for them. And I'm sure I'll find a few interview partners that I can make a show with in the space, because I already have. Some of them have left the space; some of them are coming back. So it's really interesting to see.

**BobWP:**

Very cool. Yeah, it's interesting because I think of… there was a point where I started adding some shows that were more WordPress-based. What I've found with some of these shows is, everything always comes back to WordPress or WooCommerce. And a lot of it-the similarities kind of weave in and out of all this stuff. It's good to be knowledgeable of other things, no matter what you're doing.

So I'm hoping we're going to be stepping more into videos. I've been talking about it-we're going to be doing more video with some of the shows, and we might do a little bit of live stuff here and there. I've kind of kicked and screamed into that, so that's another piece that's going to hopefully grow. I'll be trying to focus a little bit on that part of it-what I do with that and how I present it and all that stuff.

**Birgit:**

I have heard from quite a few people that there's a generation out there that doesn't read anymore. I know. They want to go on YouTube and be entertained or at least shown things. And of course, with software, if you want to teach somebody, you need to show it. That's very hard to do on the podcast.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, it is. Yeah. So who knows what? Maybe we should make this a tradition now-every January. We come in and catch up and see what we did, what we blew, everything-what broke and what didn't work.

**Birgit:**

I would love to do that. Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

**BobWP:**

We'll make it a January tradition. So anyway, we have WordCamp Asia coming up. Like you said, you and I will both be there. In fact, you're going to be joining-you'll be coming and co-hosting the table, doing the little booth, I believe, for an hour.

**Birgit:**

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Friday, I think.

**BobWP:**

If you haven't caught up with her, you haven't caught up with me. I'll post when she's going to be at the table, and that way you can tie her down because sometimes chasing people around… you know how that goes.

**Birgit:**

Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to WordCamp Asia. Also, I'll be at CloudFest this year for the first time, so I'm not going to be at the hackathon. But there are too many people from Automattic going already that actually have a project. And then WordCamp Constance-that's a camp with German speakers. So it's really going to be interesting.

**BobWP:**

So you'll be at the regular CloudFest event and stuff? Yeah, I know there's going to be a little bit more WordPress stuff going on, and that'll be fun. So yeah, we'll be seeing each other next month and the month after.

**Birgit:**

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I appreciate it. I'm really loving it.

**BobWP:**

Okay, well, we've said it enough times, but Gutenberg Times-and probably the URL is very easy and stuff-but do check that out. Is it *gutenbergtimes.com*?

**Birgit:**

Dot com. And yeah, you can also find me on the Twitters and on the Bluesky and the… I still call it Twitter.

**BobWP:**

Sorry.

**Birgit:**

…on the Bluesky and also on Mastodon. And of course on the WordPress Slack and WooCommerce Slack. So I'm everywhere.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, everywhere.

**Birgit:**

Well, thank you so much. It was wonderful chatting with you.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, well, thank you. Yeah, this was definitely a must-do show for January, so I appreciate everybody listening and…

**Birgit:**

Happy anniversary.

**BobWP:**

Yeah, happy anniversary. And come back next January for our second Nova. I'm sure you'll see Birgit more than-or sooner than-next January, for sure.

**Birgit:**

Well, thank you.

**BobWP:**

Well, take care. Bye-bye.

02 Feb 2025 2:50pm GMT

I had a great chat with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri on their podcast, My First Million.

02 Feb 2025 1:18am GMT

Howdy,

It's already February. 8.33% of 2025 is done. Phew. 91.67% to go. Most of my week I spent testing things. Maybe I jinxed it with my mind set, I didn't come across something really cool. I am excited about WordCamp Asia where I can browse this huge sponsor hall and go exploring all the cools things there.

What saved me a ton of time, this week, was using Claude AI. I used it to audit Playground blueprints in the Gallery. I pasted the description of the merged PR of modification on how blueprints work, then fed it code to rewrite using the new way. Doing this a few times, I created a tracking issue with the necessary changes to implement next week. I felt really lazy.

That was all off-set by trying to have Cursor AI write a block with some user input sections. It made great progress, but for some reason, it still doesn't work. Sometimes debugging the AI is even more tedious than looking at your own code.

This week, we have a few strategic posts and practical tips for you in this newsletter. Enjoy!

Yours, 💕
Birgit

Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

George Mamadashvili made Gutenberg 20.2 RC1 is available now for testing. Final release will be on February 5, 2025.

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Aaron Jorbin announced that WordPress 6.7.2 will be released soon. RC will be released on February 4 and final release will hit the WordPress site near you on February 11.

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

Darren Ethier and James Kemp from WooCommerce talk about Building WooCommerce in Public in the latest episode of DoThe Woo Network They explore WooCommerce's current state and future direction, with Darren highlighting his connection between Gutenberg and WooCommerce. They stress the importance of community and communication in development, discuss the significance of WordCamps, the need for key features, and WooCommerce's evolution for better experiences. They also mention how changes in WordPress affect WooCommerce's plans and the need for flexible, no-code solutions for developers. This conversation provides insights into WooCommerce's development approach and plans.

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On Learn.WordPress.org, Wes Theron published the lesson: Explore synced pattern overrides. It's part of the Intermediate WordPress User course and covers what's patterns are, and how you can maintain stylistic control while the content of a pattern.

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In his post, Create a Custom Author Page Ronnie Burt introduces you to multiple ways how you can make use of the Gravatar profile for your website. He also explains why spending a moment on the design of an author page is very important for a company blog. Then he walks you through the various method how you can use the user information stored on a self-hosted site can be used to expand on the normally neglected and thinly populated author information.

Upcoming events beyond WordCamps

Apart from WordCamps, additional conferences are on the schedule for this year.

February 24 - 28 2025 The 2nd Annual WP Publisher Success Week will take place. You can learn best practices from leading experts in the field of WordPress for publishers.

March 17 - 20, 2025 CloudFest, Europa Park, Rust, Germany. As Bob Dunn, DoTheWoo reports, there will be a WPZone and a WPDay.

April 23 - 26, 2025 PressConf a conference for WordPress professionals will take place in Tempe, Arizona, USA. Speakers are among others Mary Hubbard, Matias Ventura, Rich Tabor, and Tammie Lister.

September 25, 2025 LoopConf returns to London, UK as a conference for WordPress developers.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

In his latest blog post, Nick Diego wants theme developers to stop struggling with cumbersome theme.json files. He shares how he and his new buddy, Cursor AI succeeded in building a compiler/bundler to combine separate json file into an overall theme.json for a theme. Diego shares a video of the process and the final script, you can adopt for your workflow.

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Hendrik Lührsen found that WordPress themes are facing a crisis. The introduction of Full Site Editing (FSE) has brought about complexities that are causing challenges in the WordPress theme ecosystem. This situation appears to be related to the rapid evolution of WordPress technology, particularly the implementation of the site editor, which is impacting how themes are developed and used.

While calling it a crisis makes the post viable for the successful spread via outrage advertising economies, Lührsen is not wrong, lamenting about all the short-comings of block themes. His suggested paths to improve the situation can be walked by every theme developer building sites for clients on top of WordPress, except the discoverability of themes on the repository. A standardized onboarding process, was discussed among Themes team members. Turns out that the many, many use cases are not easily pulled into a cookie-cutter closed system. It's the nature of the 21-year legacy of WordPress. It also means, any developer can fill the gaps for their clients, and if they want to go the extra mile, share it all back to the community. WordPress is not a one-size fits all system. Flexibility and extensibility is a feature, not a bug.

---

In his YouTube video, David McCan looks into the current state of block themes, reviewing popular themes available in the WordPress repository, Then he looked under the hood to understand block themes. "I have a better understanding of block themes after going through this process." McCan wrote in the description. If you rather read a blog post reader than watch a video, got here to read McCan's thoughts

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In his post Transitioning to FSE: A low-risk, high-reward move for enterprises HumanMade's account director, Adam Jones, tells the story of how Human Made, "guided enterprise organizations through this process and seen the transformative benefits firsthand." Adapting to the site editor and block themes allows businesses to enhance digital capabilities with minimized risk through careful planning and testing. Key benefits include improved scalability, workflow, and reduced reliance on developers, making full-site editing a valuable investment in digital infrastructure. Also on that topic: The three competitive advantages of full-site-editing by senior account manage, Lorna Lim.

"Keeping up with Gutenberg - Index 2024"
A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

Riad Benguella, architect on the Gutenberg projects, explains in his latest post The anatomy of a CMS and why any web developer should attempt to build a CMS just once. The magic happens through four key parts: how content is stored, how it looks, how you edit it, and how it gets shown to the world. Whether you want to create a personal blog, an online store, or a company website, a good CMS adapts to your needs. Benguella took a detailed view into the various parts of the WordPress CMS: block rendering, style engine and the fields system. If you wish to know how it all fits together, grab your favorite beverage and start reading.

---

What's new in Playground

Check out this article by Ján Mikláš, Demo your Woo extension with WordPress Playground, where he breaks down how to set up WordPress Playground just for your needs. You'll find out how to tweak your blueprint.json file with settings and steps, plus how to create a custom landing page and hide those pesky WooCommerce onboarding screens.

Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg's master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don't hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

---

For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

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Featured Image: AI generated.

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Don't want to miss the next Weekend Edition?

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01 Feb 2025 1:26am GMT

In this episode of On WPCommunity, BobWP announces the conclusion of his regular Friday share posts on the blog due to time constraints and his new plans. He explains that after WordCamp Asia in February, a new newsletter will be launched alongside the release of version 5.0 of their site. The newsletter will feature actionable […]

31 Jan 2025 1:30pm GMT

In the latest Scaling Enterprise podcast episode, Tom and Brad discuss the 2024 State of Enterprise WordPress Report, highlighting trends in adoption, usage, and decision-making dynamics within organizations.

30 Jan 2025 1:12pm GMT

Transcript

On the podcast today we have Anna Hurko.

Anna is the CEO of Crocoblock, a company with a suite of dynamic plugins designed to help developers build complex websites. With a background in computer science, Anna transitioned from support roles to leading Crocoblock, and has been with the company for over 11 years.

Anna quickly rose through the ranks due to her technical knowledge and effective communication skills. Crocoblock, which started with just a handful of team members, has now grown to 85 employees. They offer a wide range of specialised plugins such as JetEngine, JetSmartFilters, JetBooking, and more, primarily aimed at agencies and freelance developers.

Anna shares her journey, and discusses the growth of Crocoblock. She highlights the company's flexibility and commitment to meeting developers' needs, adapting to both the rapid changes within WordPress, and the increasing demand for dynamic site capabilities.

Anna also talks about the company's marketing strategies and their active, and growing, participation in the WordPress community through WordCamps and meetups.

If you're interested in how a company evolves with the WordPress ecosystem, and the challenges and successes that come with it, this episode is for you.

Useful links

Crocoblock website

Anna on LinkedIn

29 Jan 2025 3:00pm GMT

Here is Anna reading her own story aloud.

I never dreamed of being a CEO. Even now, when I am introduced as such, I feel a little shy. But every time I start thinking, "Am I enough? Doesn't the company deserve someone more qualified?"-I return to my journey.

I want to share this to inspire those who are just starting out, changing their path, or feeling lost along the way.

My career path looks like this:
Senior Technical Support Specialist → Shift Support Manager → QA Manager → Release Manager → Project Manager → Product Owner → COO → CEO

I started as a chat operator in technical support and quickly advanced to Senior Technical Support Specialist and mentor, later becoming Shift Support Manager. I transitioned to the production department as a QA Ma

Soon after, my responsibilities grew to include roles like Release Manager and Project Manager.

When we launched Crocoblock, I focused on product and strategic issues, working as a Product Owner, then COO, and finally, CEO.

However, my journey began even earlier.

A story that inspired me

When I was a teenager, my father changed careers. He worked as a land-line network engineer, but as technology advanced, the role became obsolete. At 42, he started from scratch in the gas industry. His persistence and willingness to learn left a lasting impression on me. A few years later, he became the CEO of a company in a completely new field.

Later, in 2014, due to war, he lost his job and started over again. Now, in 2025, after yet another wave of war, he has taken on a new role, proving to himself and others that it's never too late. This story ingrained in me the belief that "you can always find a new beginning."

How I entered IT

While studying at university, I promised myself, "I will never work with websites!" Before WordPress, web development with pure HTML didn't appeal to me.

However, in 2014, as the war began and tanks rolled past my house toward Crimea, I was looking for any job that required English. That's how I ended up in technical support. The training lasted a month, with me spending 5 hours on mentorship and about the same amount of time on homework every single day. During that time, I left the house only once to celebrate my grandmother's birthday-I was that captivated.

My technical education, understanding of databases, and soft skills from public activities helped me adapt quickly. I chose to work a six-day schedule to fully immerse myself in the new world.

A defining moment

After my internship, I was introduced to the KPI system that affected salaries: 30 metrics and a calculation formula. Instead of analyzing the formula, I focused on the tasks at hand. My goal was simple: solve customer problems as effectively as possible.

Two months later, I became the top chat operator. Within three months, I mentored newcomers, and in six months, I helped revamp the support system.

This experience was key for me. I realized it's not about chasing ratings or recognition-it's about focusing on the value you create, which ultimately leads to success.

The transition to production

After a year and a half in support, I wanted a broader impact. Thanks to regular reports and feedback I shared with the production team, they invited me to join their department. I didn't know which role suited me or cared about titles-I simply did what was needed.

Over time, I held several roles: QA Manager, Release Manager, Project Manager, and Product Owner. But none of them confined my scope of responsibilities.

My approach to work

One of the most important principles I followed was a willingness to help-without letting it hinder my main work.

• If I knew the answer to a question, I responded immediately.
• If I didn't know but knew where to find it, I searched quickly.
• If expert input was needed, I contacted the right person.
• If I was short on time, I guided colleagues on where and whom to ask.

I always ensured the problem was solved and remembered the solution. This helped me build a broad network within the company and become the go-to person who "knows everything."

Why I grew with the company

Throughout my career, I have never feared uncertainty. When responsibilities changed, I took them as challenges. My philosophy was simple: "I need to do everything to help the project grow, and I'll grow along with it."

Of course, there were periods of anxiety and doubt. Remembering my goal helped me push forward, work harder, learn faster, and adapt to changes.

How I became a CEO

With each new role, my understanding of the WordPress market and products deepened. My vision broadened, and my goals became more ambitious. This inspired me to build a strong team and take on more responsibility for decision-making.

As COO, I honed my skills in achieving goals. However, the key to transitioning to CEO was realizing I was ready to take responsibility for defining the goals themselves. As a CEO, your work results in the work of your team. The main tasks of a CEO are to maintain the vision, support the team, and create conditions for growth.

For me, being a CEO is about constant development, solving new challenges, and creating growth opportunities-not only for the company but also for the team. This role isn't the ultimate goal but a tool for achieving results that matter to us all.

Key takeaways

Over this journey, I've learned that it's important to focus on tasks rather than how one is evaluated. Good work speaks for itself.

When you do what you love and constantly strive for new challenges, time flies unnoticed. That's what happened to me: 10 years passed in the blink of an eye. And then, one day, I find myself still the same girl fighting in the name of customer happiness-but now, I'm also setting the budget for the entire project for the next year.

During this time, I've observed my colleagues and subordinates build their careers, and I strive to share my experience. At Crocoblock, we actively help support team members grow into developers, managers, and marketers, taking on new roles. This path is open to anyone willing to work, learn, and aim higher.
My lesson is simple: Be open to change, focus on what you do, and don't fear big goals. If you work toward them daily, they will become a reality.

The post Building a WordPress Career Without a Map: Lessons from My Journey appeared first on HeroPress.

29 Jan 2025 6:00am GMT

What an exciting time to be alive. I was hipped to Deepseek by Andrej Kaparthy's tweet the day after Christmas, it was clear then that something big had happened and that it was truly open source and open weights (not this fake Llama stuff). It's been fun to see the rest of the world catch up to it, and how radically accessible and deployable these models will be for people to hack on. I don't have any comment on public markets or stocks.

The other super inspiring thing today was Boom's first supersonic flight. It's worth watching the video. We're 4-5 years away from halving flight times with supersonic flight. In that same timeframe we might have something even more dramatic from SpaceX, like Houston to Tokyo in 30 minutes. Really cool to see the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation around all of these things. It's tempting to get distracted by drama (WPE and legal battles), but there's such freedom and joy in just continuing to build, to engineer, to solve problems. I'm so grateful I get to do so every day with such incredible colleagues at Automattic.

28 Jan 2025 8:15pm GMT

In this Woo AgencyChat, the hosts discuss AI's role in web development, WooCommerce advancements, e-commerce simplification, and the resilience of the WordPress community amidst ongoing drama, highlighting their hopes for 2025.

28 Jan 2025 12:38pm GMT

We are excited to partner with CloudFest again, featuring over 8,700 attendees and 250+ speakers at Europa-Park from March 17-20, 2025.

28 Jan 2025 10:00am GMT

In this episode of Woo DevChat, Marcel and Mike discuss significant WooCommerce updates from 2024, AI's impact, and their personal goals.

27 Jan 2025 11:20am GMT

Has it been a while since you gave your Gravatar a fresh look? We just rolled out some fun new editing tools that let you remove backgrounds, add new ones, and decorate with stickers. Your avatar travels with you across the web - now it can show even more of your personality.

Background Magic

Take any photo and instantly remove its background. Drop yourself onto a beach, in front of a cityscape, or keep it clean with a solid color.

That quick selfie can now look like a professional headshot.

Sticker Time

Add some flair with our collection of stickers. From sunglasses to speech bubbles, you can layer on elements that match your style. Use the search feature to find the perfect additions.

How to Use the New Features

1. Head to gravatar.com/profile
2. Click on Avatars
3. Upload a new photo or click the three dots to edit an existing one
4. Look for the Background and Stickers menus
5. Start creating!

Pro tip: Try the search button in both the background and sticker menus - you might find something unexpected and perfect.

Backgrounds come from Pexels and stickers from Giphy. Or you can upload your own.

Why Update Your Avatar?

Remember, your Gravatar shows up automatically on millions of sites like WordPress, Slack, and Zapier. It's the face you show the world across the web. With these new tools, you can make sure that face is exactly how you want it.

Share your new look with us on X or Bluesky - we can't wait to see what you create!

26 Jan 2025 4:30pm GMT

Author pages contain information about a person who has written, edited, or contributed to an article. This usually includes things like their name, picture, short bio, social media links, and then a list of all their published posts on the same domain.

If you have a blog, it's generally always a good idea to have dedicated authors and pages to accompany them. This is important for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that it instantly improves the credibility of the content. It's one thing to read a technical piece written by a credible software engineer than an anonymous user with no name!

Author pages not only encourage users to read and interact with your content (because they know a real person is behind it), but they are also great for improving your search engine rankings, along with E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).

Now that you're convinced how important author pages are, you're probably wondering: "Is there a way to customize them, make them look better and more engaging?"

Absolutely!

To help you do just that, we've created this useful guide that will explore the different ways of customizing the author template in WordPress, show you how you can create a custom page, use template tags, and take advantage of tools like Gravatar to take your author pages to the next level.

Customizing the default author template vs. creating a custom page

There are two main approaches when it comes to improving your author pages: Customizing the default author page template and creating a custom author page from scratch.

Let's take a look at both methods.

Customizing the default author template

Before we dive into this, it's important to mention that there is a difference between the author of an article and the 'Author' user role that exists in WordPress. Technically, the author of a blog post can also be the administrator, an editor, a contributor, as well as an author. So take into account that when we mention author, we mean any person who has written the specific piece of content.

Now, with that out of the way, let's get into the default author pages. The information they include is the data of the specific user profile, which looks like this:

You can add information like names, websites, and bio, along with the profile picture linked to their specific Gravatar profile. If they don't have a Gravatar profile, their profile picture displays as a mystery person.

On the front end, the author page will look different depending on the theme of your choice. For example, this is how it would look with the Bloghash WordPress theme:

Customizing the default author template is suitable for minor changes and maintaining a consistent design across your WordPress site. By utilizing template tags, you can modify the default template regardless of the theme you're using, without the need for additional plugins or custom code.

The benefits of customizing the default template include:

• Ease of implementation: Making changes to the existing template is relatively straightforward and doesn't require extensive technical knowledge.
• Maintaining a unified look: By working with the default template, you ensure that your author pages blend seamlessly with the rest of your site's design.

However, there are some limitations to this approach:

• Less flexibility: Customizing the default template may not provide as much flexibility as creating a custom author page from scratch. You're limited to the structure and elements already present in the template.
• Potential conflicts with theme updates: If your theme receives an update that modifies the author template, your customizations may be overwritten, requiring you to reapply them.

Despite these limitations, customizing the default author template can be a quick and effective solution for those who want to make minor improvements to their author pages while maintaining a consistent design across their WordPress site.

Creating a custom author page

A custom author page gives you full control over the design, the amount of information, and how it's displayed, and it also comes with extra opportunities for user engagement. It's a separate page that is then linked to this specific user and shows up when you click on their name.

Unlike the default author page, you're not restricted to the information fields on the back end and can add virtually anything. For example, you can include customized links to guest post contributions, client testimonials, extra information about services, a donation block, share buttons, and much more.

The only possible downfall of these pages is that they require more effort to set up and maintain, and depending on your goals, you might need technical knowledge or external tools and plugins for the job. The payoff, however, is worth it.

How to use template tags to customize the author template

The design of your WordPress blog is defined by the theme you are using, and themes are made of different templates. Template tags PHP functions built into WordPress to fetch and display dynamic content allowing you to customize your blog and make the pages look exactly how you want them to.

In this next section, we'll guide you through the process of using template tags for author page customization, including code snippets.

Creating the author.php file

The first step is to check whether there is an author.php file in your theme directory and create one if that's not the case. This is the file you'll be using to customize the layout and the content of the author pages.

Basic template tags for author information

There are a couple of tags you can use to access author information, including:

• the_author_meta(): Use this to simply display author information.
• get_the_author_meta(): Use this if you want to return a value and save it to a variable. Values you can request include admin_color, first_name, last_name, user_url, and nickname.
• get_the_author_posts(): Use this to retrieve the current author's total number of posts.

Combining template tags with HTML and CSS

You can display this data on the frontend of your website using the echo command, like in the example below:

<div class="author-info">
        <h2>About the Author</h2>
        <p><strong>Name:</strong> <?php echo get_the_author_meta ('display_name'); ?></p>
        <p><strong>Email:</strong> <?php echo get_the_author_meta ('user_email'); ?></p>
        <p><strong>Bio:</strong> <?php echo get_the_author_meta ('description'); ?></p>
</div>

Using conditional statements

The is_author function introduces conditional logic, where you can check whether a page has an author, and display their information if it does. Use the following format:

<?php if ( is_author() ) : ?>
// Your code here if it returns true
<?php endif; ?>

This is ideal for sites with a very simple URL structure where, say, a landing page and a blog post would have the same structure.

Pair this with the get_the_author_meta() command to retrieve the author's ID and display their information on the frontend, as shown above.

Building a custom author page on WordPress through Gravatar integration

Gravatar, a service built by Automattic, offers a powerful solution for creating feature-rich and dynamic author pages on your website with minimal effort. While WordPress already uses Gravatar profile pictures for users logged in with the same email, you can take this integration a step further by leveraging Gravatar's Profiles-As-A-Service REST API to import entire user profiles and create fully customized author pages.

For example, all the blog posts written by yours truly (me, Ronnie) have a link to my Gravatar page:

This is so that when people click on my name, they are redirected to my Gravatar profile where I've put all important information about myself.

However, the benefits of Gravatar integration go beyond simply linking to an author's Gravatar page. By utilizing the Profiles-As-A-Service REST API, you can create custom author pages on your website that display information imported directly from Gravatar. This offers several advantages:

• Automatically synced author data: When a new author or contributor signs up to your site with their Gravatar profile, all their data is automatically imported. This includes name, location, job title, pronouns, bio, important links to their other work, verified social media accounts, and contact information. This streamlines the process for everyone, especially the author, as they don't need to input their entire information from scratch.
• Simplified author page creation: With Gravatar's API, you have access to pre-populated data, allowing you to build custom author pages quickly without the need to collect information manually. Everything falls into place seamlessly.
• Data consistency: Since the custom author page is connected to the Gravatar profile, any changes made to the author's information on Gravatar are automatically reflected on your website. This eliminates the need for admins and IT support to constantly update author information manually.
• Pre-verified author information: Gravatar validates and vets certain user data, such as linked social media accounts and payment links. This ensures that authors are who they claim to be, making it easier for readers to connect with them and enhancing the credibility and accuracy of your articles.

So, if you want to leverage Gravatar to build a custom author page, check out our documentation for developers.

Customizing the WordPress author box with Jetpack and Gravatar

One of the most important parts of the author's profile is their bio - it's what gives the article credibility and entices readers to check out more posts or even connect with the author. Besides ensuring it's written well, you can enhance the bio's design even further with the Jetpack plugin and its Gravatar hovercard integration.

Customizing author info with Jetpack

Jetpack comes with many additional features, that allow you to customize and add new functionalities to the author pages.

First, it fully integrates with Gravatar to pull author information and update it automatically. Besides that, it lets you enable the display of the author's name and bio or their Gravatar profile on single post pages with all the information directly pulled from their WordPress profile.

In this example, we've added a Gravatar profile widget to the sidebar next to the blog post.

With Gravatar Hovercards enabled, when people hover over the profile with their mouse, they'll see a mini version of the profile as a hovercard.

This is how it would look in our example:

You can easily enable that by going to Jetpack > Settings > Discussion and then enabling the option named "Enable pop-up business cards over commenters' Gravatars"

There are many other customization options, especially with Jetpack widgets. Still, we recommend keeping it simple and not cluttering the page with too many elements, as this may overwhelm readers. As always, balance is key.

Transform your WordPress site with a stunning custom author page

Custom author pages are essential for showcasing your authors' expertise, fostering reader connections, and enhancing user experience. While there are various approaches to creating custom author pages on WordPress, integrating with Gravatar's Profiles-As-A-Service REST API is the most efficient and effective solution.

By leveraging Gravatar's API, you can save time and effort, ensure data accuracy and consistency, provide a seamless user experience, and boost your blog's SEO and E-E-A-T. Learn more about how you can integrate Gravatar with your WordPress website and begin your journey toward a more connected and personalized user experience.

26 Jan 2025 4:24pm GMT