This week: an interview with Matt Mullenweg, creating newsletters, Yoast SEO, CSS Tricks, Gutenberg and Tailwind blocks, and much more.
Allie Nimmons is a self-taught WordPress advocate, power-user, and content creator. She started working with WordPress in 2015. She currently owns Beedia Productions, providing editing, voice over, and production service. Allie also co-runs Underrepresented in Tech and teaches courses about WordPress on LinkedIn Learning.
The growth WordPress as a brand, software, and community has achieved over the past 15 years is a little mind-boggling. It has a market share of 60.8%. It powers almost 15% of the world’s top website. There are countless companies that push the WordPress ecosystem forward, selling services and products that make sure people around the world can use WordPress confidently.
I’ve worked for and with many of these companies. They are amazing beasts that sit squarely on the shoulders of 30.8 MB of code. But what keeps me in awe, day after day, are the individual people that keep WordPress going on their own terms.
All too often – in tech and business in general – women are relegated to the “soft” roles – HR, marketing, etc. While these are vitally important jobs, the barrier into engineering and product development can be harder for us to surpass. I’ve been obsessed watching Aurooba Ahmed release amazing product after amazing product based on real problems she has experienced using WordPress. It’s delightful to follow her twitter and watch her develop something from idea to launch. Her list of products currently on her website is impressive – download a plugin or two and send in a review!
Twitter is definitely my go-to place for WordPress community news and interactions. While it has it’s pros and cons as a platform, it meets my needs. It has become even better as of late with the addition of #WPTalks, hosted by David Schutzmith. Often co-hosted by Winistina Hughs, David has utilized Twitters Spaces feature to create roundtable discussions that are so reminiscent of our beloved WordCamp hallway talks. No barrier to entry, no ticket to buy… just tune in live (or listen to the recording) for an unfiltered conversation about what’s really going on. Check out #WPTalks on Twitter to learn when the next meeting is.
One of my greatest privileges is to be able to act as a diversity and inclusion advocate within this community. I “check a lot of boxes” that allow me to speak first-hand about a lot of different issues. However, I am never done learning. Deborah Edwards-Oñoro has been an incredible resource for me to learn about website accessibility issues that I previously believed didn’t affect me. But what Deborah has taught me – between bad puns and bird photos – is that accessibility affects everyone. She is a persistent, dedicated, and prolific person who we all should be following. Check out her most recently weekly roundup of web design and development news.
There’s an engaging interview with Matt Mullenweg on the Verge. It explores many topics from WordPress through WooCommerce to Tumblr. It’s definitely worthwhile.
Lesley Sim has published a guide on how to build a paid newsletter using the Newsletter Glue and Paid Membership Pro.
Joost de Valk will no longer be Head of SEO at Yoast. From now on, he will advise Yoast and Newfold, and devote the rest of his time to, as he puts it, spread his wings and try new things.
LearnDash is taking cutting-edge e-learning methodology and infusing it into WordPress. Trusted to power the learning programs for major universities, small to mid-size companies, startups, entrepreneurs, and bloggers worldwide.
Jono Alderson will replace Joost as Head of SEO. Here’s what he thinks about his new role.
Newfold Digital (owner of Yoast or Bluehost) has just acquired YITH, a company known for its numerous WooCommerce plugins.
Digital Ocean has just taken over CSS Tricks so huge congrats to Chris are in order.
Though I’m a bit concerned about the future of the website, as it has always been a magnificent source of knowledge, and the DigitalOcean Community doesn’t seem as tempting.
A very comprehensive tutorial on creating your own Gutenberg block has appeared on GutenbergHub.
Pattern Creator is expected to launch soon. It will help submitting Block Patterns in a very easy way.
On the SpinupWP website, James Clark explains in detail Web Application Firewalls and if and when we should use them.
David Gwyer presents how to integrate Tailwind CSS with a create-block script.
Erik Torsner from Delicious Brains shows how to get started with WP-CLI.
Raitis Sevelis introduces an exciting initiative – a children’s book explaining the alphabet with different Wapuus.
Zubair Siddiq explains the benefits of the Openverse project.
The WPScan website has just undergone a slight facelift.