How WordPress podcasts have changed over a decade

Basketball coach for the local rec league and then my daughter's in gymnastics and dance. And so we've got all of these things happening this week with a culmination of a Christmas party on Friday going to a, going to Topgolf. I don't know if there's Topgolf near you, but we've got That happens. So there's light at the end of the tunnel. We're going top golfing and the kids are staying with friends. And so we have like a one night away from them.

So, but getting to your question, doing all the things like, man, it is hard. And I, I feel like earlier on, like I was very dedicated to WordPress podcasts. Like I host the, your website engineer podcast. And that was like. I'm not going to miss ever. Like I would go on vacation and I would schedule things. And man, it has been really hard to keep consistent. So I rely on my calendar a lot.

last night, last night I was actually even recording, like I came down to my computer and I was like, what can I get done today? And like putting blocks on the calendar and rearranging it. And I, I mean, I got done with the workout about. 13 minutes before we started talking and I showered and I shaved and I'm just like I'm here like you try to fit those blocks of time in and get your priorities in and I mean it is it is hard, but I do all my work for work from home.

I work out at home and then I have a lot of kid running to and from places and I mean, it's It's an everyday thing.

This is stuff you and I were talking about over a decade ago again back in April 23 or excuse me, April 23rd, 2013. You and I were talking about the stuff that you and I were both doing, like putting out WordPress content. Really, educating, informing, hopefully entertaining some folks. Has there been a drastic difference, that you've seen over the last decade of this business of creating WordPress media? Like what has changed in your life?

And so there's always a segment about news. And so I'm all the time like looking for like, who's doing webinars on things or what companies are in the space. And, you know, you can tell that the bigger WordPress companies are. Producing that more media or they're, you know, they're continuing to just be out there in the space. And I think that's, what's really cool about just WordPress in general. Like anybody can be their own voice.

I don't know how many people have like started a podcast or like just done it because why not? Like it's a good way to give back. That's, that's my main reason why I continue to do my podcast is because I don't have the time or the energy to like. Contribute back to core or you know, write blog posts for WordPress news or things like that. But I do have time to share Here's some updates.

Here's some things that are going on Here's some of the things that you need to learn about when it comes to WordPress and here's the changes and whatnot So I think there's there's a lot more media that's out there And I think that's just kind of part of the times too, right? the youtube is really big like now in comparison to it was 10 years ago like I don't even watch TV anymore, Harley. It's like, Oh, I subscribed to these YouTube people that are building this or doing that or whatnot.

And so, so yeah, so I think that just in the general landscape of just how life is in 2023, like there's going to be more media content.

Yep, this is another episode. We're just going to keep chugging along. And so no, don't have anything planned. I'm approaching my, so December 3rd is my anniversary for your website engineer and December 2nd, which is the day before is my 10 year anniversary at automatic. So I got some, some big milestones coming up.

Kids were little and like, I'm like, I don't really want to enjoy a sabbatical in the middle of the winter. And so I pushed mine off until May and we took some vacations. I worked on the house, built a deck and stuff like that. And then when I, and so then August 1st is 2024 is when I'm eligible again. So I've got a. I don't know. What is that? Nine months counting down

So over a year ago. and I focused primarily now here at the WP minute, the WP minute plus podcast, focusing on WordPress news, short form and long form. This is long form. How have you stayed in the state in the lane? with your website engineer, how do you just keep that core focus?

And so that's kind of where I had some stalling, maybe 20, 2021 and 2022. Just there, there wasn't things that I'm seeing. Like I work in support and now like when you're in support, you see a lot of stuff that probably shouldn't happen on WordPress sites. And so that kind of gives you some, some fuel for, for continuing with it. So I think it's just kind of like that. I don't know when I started, I always thought, Oh, this will be really cool. Someday when I can say I have 500 episodes of like.

Something and, and, and like you, I'm not really good at finishing. This honestly is like the only thing that I am good at staying consistent about because my wife and I have, or my wife has a, she's a full time small business owner and we've got two or three sites. And so like a lot of my WordPress stuff comes from there. That's where I get my itch to like build stuff and create and, you know, do an e learning platform or a subscription thing or do that.

And so I get to do all of that with her, but we are very bad at like. Finishing. We're really good at coming up with ideas and getting it like a 90 percent of the way done. And then be like, nah, we got to move on to this next thing. Or like, I'm very reactive in the fact that it's like, oh, I should have prepared for this podcast, you know, yesterday, but it was like, oh, I've got three minutes until I sign on.

Let me come up with some questions that I want to add, you know, or anything like that. So it's, it's just one of those things that it's. I don't know, it's, it's hard, but I kind of have that drive of like, I just want to continue to create content, and this is my only thing that is successful, I guess, in a way, and easy for me to continue to give back to the WordPress community.

And it's been like all these things. So I've got all of that stuff everywhere. And so like, I'm just trying to consolidate and like with notion is really cool. You can, you can create like schedules and a calendar and I'm going to publish this here and it's got the, it's got the template and everything built in. So I have like my whole show notes and I just fill it out. And, but I have, like I said, I have 543 episodes and I have like back to five 18 in notion so far. So I still have 500 more.

To go and like in the process, like I always feel like it's a good thing to get updated with like the latest in wordpress too. So like I'm so for example, like I'll take 5 17. I'll open that up in the editor. If there's a reusable block I'm using now, like I'll swap that out. I'll fix formatting like for a long time. I was using I was using markdown in my show notes and so like The markdown needs jetpack to work right.

And so like now I'm backing those out and fixing those so they don't need jetpack. And, you know, just like trying to like, I don't know where your question was or what your question was all the way back. But, but just like continuing to, you know, pre produce this content and like, Oh, how do I keep everything backed up? I don't really like there's there's tons of like data that's out there and it's like am I really going to use this Thing that I created 12 years ago.

Well every all the interfaces are different now I think that's one of the thing that's that's hard in wordpress. Like i've got a lot of good video content that I created Before like the new dashboard, right before mp5, I think is what it was called, like the old school, like 3. 0 dashboard. And it's like, well, this is not really usable at all because like, nobody's going to watch this. They're like, this guy recorded it in the stone age. Like it's

Don't back anything up, Paul. Like. Just don't, I don't, you know, but he's, you know, obviously everybody has different. And it's just, I'm always curious to, to peer into the mindset of other creators, because I think there are those who back everything up script. Absolutely. Everything storyboard, everything are super organized. they have their content calendar out. Like two or three quarters, you know, and it's, and I, I super, yeah, I super appreciate that.

but one life with kids, I have three young kids and two, I have a full time job, just like you, I work at gravity forms, you work at automatic, and this is just like the side hustle, you know? So it's just like, I'm getting this stuff out there. If I ever need to download it again. I'll go to my web host and I'll, and I'll download it, or the podcast host and I'll download it or I'll go to YouTube and download the VOD. And you know, what am I going to do with this video later?

No, one's going to want

Like, Oh, I've backed this up to a Synology. That's got. It's rated so it's on there twice, but I don't feel comfortable deleting it from another machine because we might lose, you know, like there's all these things and it's just like the, like you said, if you don't save things, it just is easier on your brain and you don't have to worry about it.

The first whatever day, I think it was always the first Friday at noon, I was going to do a webinar and just kind of teach something and just having like that consistent schedule, I find is really helpful. one of the things that makes it difficult is like my schedule always changes based on like I have to put my availability and so. So you referenced earlier that automatic is super flexible and it is, but it's not, spontaneous is one way that we like to say in support.

Like it's super flexible and you can pick your hours, but you have to pick them two or three weeks in advance. And so one of the hard parts is like, I'll have an idea and it's like, Oh, I really want to do this podcast or I want to do this thing. And it's like, well, let me look at my schedule. The next time I have a two hour block of time when there's no kids around. So it's quiet and, and it's not bedtime. I'm like, That's in two weeks.

And so like two weeks go by and it's like, oh, well, I'm not really interested in that right now. And I always found that.

Audio was always just so easy for me to do a lot of times probably of the 500 episodes There's probably like 300 of them that I never edited like well I would go in and I would edit like my show has four or five sections like if I messed up a like a segment of the show like I would just Start the whole thing over again, and so I would just like out and now I've been editing these last, I don't know, 15 episodes, 20 episodes, quite a while with the script.

And now like I can just highlight the, all the texts and I'm actually starting to work with the script and doing some audio things. So it's also like, you can see my background here is like boring. I'm like, I don't have anything to show behind me. Like I don't have a setup that looks good for video. Plus a lot of video content is like even just. Even like a talking head, right?

You, you talk a little bit and then you show something on the screen and then you talk some more like just that setting all the stuff up to get a good camera angle. It just it feels like it's a lot of work.

You know, hats off again to folks like you who have, been consistent, persistent, with creating this content because there's a lot of folks out there, especially in the YouTube landscape where they look at WordPress. In fact, I was just before we hopped on, I emailed you said, Hey, I'm gonna be a couple of minutes late.

I was having a meeting with another sort of like YouTube brand in the space and, There's a lot of folks out there on the YouTube world that are just like, Hey, get this hot affiliate deal. It's a WordPress plugin. Here it is. Like I'm going to talk about that. And then next week, another hot affiliate deal came through. So I'm going to talk about that. And, you know, listen, I, I, you know, I don't knock, I can't knock the hustle. As long as you're like, Hustling for the right reasons.

Like you're trying to build like this, whatever, passive income business. It's okay. Like I have some degree of, forgiveness in, in, in that realm, you know, but if you're just like, I don't even care and I don't care what happens to these WordPress users after they use this cheap plugin or terrible theme, like that's where it really bugs me, but it's also, I realized that.

This passion for WordPress, like the folks that maybe you and I talked to, I would say is like the 1 percent of WordPress who actually like really care. Maybe not your content, but my content is probably like 1 percent of WordPress. It doesn't make any money, right? Like I'm talking to a limited audience, not on my YouTube channel, but on my podcast for sure, because it's analyzing the WordPress industry, the community, the business side of things.

The YouTube channel is like You know the sports section of the newspaper people come like, oh, this is cool Show me how to do this wordpress thing, but the podcast in the newsletter. That's me analyzing the industry and in my opinion Is a maximum of 10 000 english speaking people in the world who care about what's happening? At automatic with WordPress core with the economics of WordPress. That's my cap. I don't have a question here

And, you know, so that's not even like even a lot of store owners or whatnot. So it's, it's hard to really know whether, whether you're talking to, and I've always had the, the challenge of like. Is my podcast made for beginners? Is it made for like people who are store owners? Is it for developers who want to learn more stuff? Like, where is that? And I always found that that was kind of a, it was, it was a hard thing.

And it was like, ah, man, if I would have chose a different thing, like remodeling my house, like. There's a ton more people who, even if they don't ever have the desire to remodel a house or like build this thing, like they might watch the channel because it would be interesting. And, and so, yeah, so it's always like, Oh man, like, did we pick the right thing? Like, again, we're doing it because it's a passion thing. Like we enjoy talking about WordPress.

We enjoy like seeing the improvements that especially, you know, like all the things that have changed in the last. 15 years, like it's been really cool to watch and see and kind of like, Oh, I'm kind of an influencer. Like it's kind of one of those influencer things where it's like, Oh, you go to work camp, people know who you are and you know, you'll talk and you'll stop in, but you're at the grocery store and nobody knows who you are. And that's exactly, exactly the way that I like it.

They didn't listen to the wordpress podcast because they weren't Like users, but they were like, Oh, I know you do this thing about WordPress consistently come in and talk to the group about building a WordPress site for their, you know, for their business that they're just starting. And, And so then eventually I started like, Hey, I'm talking to all. And my family has run businesses in the local community for. 50 plus years.

So I have a strong sense of like community and entrepreneurship and tying those two together. so then I was like, Hey, I'm talking to all these local businesses. I'm going to start this local business podcast. Now, again, this is pre COVID. and then I started it literally two episodes in, I walked into a coffee shop and somebody was like, Hey, you're that guy that does that podcast. So I was like, I'm like, you, you use WordPress? And they were like, no, you do. Oh, it was called South Coast FM.

You do South Coast FM. I'm like, how, how did that even happen? How did that happen in like two seconds? It took me like 20 years in WordPress to be like recognized. And, and like, but, but it's weird. Like when you, I. God, as a creator, always look at the other side of the fence and say, if I just did something else, I might be a little bit more successful,

Like house projects or like some builders and creators and I've started, I don't know, maybe in 2021 maybe is when I kind of really got into like, okay, I'm going to start watching a lot of YouTube and it's just been incredible to see that I've done nothing that's outside of, you know, I've barely done any WordPress or YouTube stuff and I've watched these creators go from, you know, they went from 500, 000 to 800, 000 to a million subscribers and they're just like the one guy that I follow is,

His name is Jason and he does bourbon moth is his brand name, but he does like woodworking projects and basically he'll he has somebody that just edits everything that he does and then he just watches it and then does a voiceover like so his editor puts it all and he just sits there and he watches and he's like, Oh, this is when I did this and this and just he's got a dry sense of humor and just really kind of a funny guy. And now it's like, Oh, I'm getting sponsored by this thing.

And he has a, a, yeah. A non woodworking podcast that basically him and another creator just talk about like what they've been doing. It's so interesting to hear like, oh yeah, I got this deal from so and so.

And it's like, you know, when you have that many subscribers and that many things, it's like, man, you know, if I had went down the other path, like, could I have had a, a Home Depot sponsor that helped me turn my fireplace into, you know, something amazing or, you know, build out all these things that I wanted to. And it's like, Oh man, you know, is that the thing? I don't know.

I had a goal in 2023, which didn't happen because the year's almost over, but like, I wanted to at least as a hobby project, like I don't really pay for anything like the, the hosting is, you know, like hosting costs for, for, for my website is all through automatic. Cause I use a product I use pressable for that. And then, my hosts, like that's a few pennies or whatever for the podcast. So, so I don't really have like a lot of expenses. Every plugin I use is like one of our products or whatnot.

But like, I have a goal, like I would really like to be able to like upgrade my personal Apple devices with just income from my podcast. So like, that was kind of where my goal was like, if I could go to YouTube and get enough, like I have enough subscribers to start getting ads, but I don't have enough watch time. So that's like where my, where my problem is right now. And. So I think like there is some, there is some drive to like try to make money.

But on the other hand, my wife has successful things going on. And if I can optimize her sites to do things, to make more money, like it's all kind of the same, right?

I got sold to GoDaddy and As somebody who helped folks start their podcast, a lot of people come in jaded to this industry and they go, Hey, I saw, you know, Mike Maron, Joe Rogan, you know, Whitney Cummings, like your favorite, whatever, like comedian podcast that have been literally beating the streets and going to comedy clubs for decades before starting a podcast, already famous in their own circles.

Making money and then people go, Oh, all it is is plugging in a microphone and talking and then get, you know, and getting sponsorships. It doesn't work that way. And even harder in the audio landscape, than it is in the YouTube landscape, although the YouTube income has dropped significantly because of YouTube, right? They're really starting to tighten that belt around. income, which is just this complete reset to owning your dot com, right?

Owning a WordPress website, driving traffic to that, building an email list while you can, before that gets squeezed, because that'll be the next thing that big tech companies go after. and. It's important to, like, build your brand, roll up your sleeves, get to work, and the decrease in, in Google, organic traffic also hitting creators a lot this year, and it's like, hey, did, you know, did, did, did the algorithm in the traffic? Did we, were we supposed to get this to begin with?

Was this like a steroid injection to creators? And guess what? It's hard. Just like it's running a traditional brick and mortar business is hard. So is this. And you're going to have to drive people, create amazing content. And now you get a fraction of that traffic that you used to get pre AI and pre COVID and you know, all of this stuff. So it's it's an interesting, an interesting world. What do you think held? You know, I don't want to say held you back because you kind of answered it.

You, you're not really looking for that money, but are you going to put a plan in place that makes 2, 500 to 5, 000 bucks next year with your content to pay for a new Apple laptop or

conflict of interest, and so, yeah. I don't know. So it just kind of makes that a little bit of a sticky situation. So, but yeah, if I can continue to like pump out some, some content and get the views or, you know, whatever, like I do want to have it play in a place to like be more consistent for next year and just kind of like, I think what's hard for me. Is like, since I do the news part of the show, like I can't batch record very easily because, cause you know, like it's okay.

There's no news because I just recorded 10 seconds ago. Like that doesn't really make sense. But, yeah, I think it's just kind of like sitting down and just really kind of focusing. It just, I don't know. Next year, I think is a big quote unquote, I'm going to say big year. I turned 40 next year. And so it's kind of like, I'm trying to like line all these things up to like, okay, it's going to be a sweet year. Like,

Like I have, I have affiliate relationships with like convert kit and you know, some of those things that we still use, but I don't know, like it's really hard as like, I don't have as a happiness engineer at automatic. Like I don't get my own personal referral code to use wordpress. com for stuff

So your whole story point, like it would, it'd be great to outline a plan and it's one of those things that I'm always behind. And then it's like, oh, well in January, now I'm going to create the plan for the year, but now it's almost February, you know, like, so I just need to sit down and like today is actually a, probably a good day because it is a, it's a flex day from work. I've got to work on this weekend because 24 hour support and whatnot.

So it's like, maybe I should just sit down and just kind of plan the year a little bit. Yeah.

And it's just like, as a small business owner, like there's a lot of times it's like, I know that people have had issues with this latest version of, you know, WooCommerce, like we had to have a hotfix release. Like I'm not up to date until I know that this is ready. And so there is some good stuff from coming behind the scenes and seeing those types of notifications, but man, it's just hard to keep like all the things updated and running and looking good.

And I just did, I went through this account, like, We, let's see, my wife has an e learning business where we sell like virtual CE for, for pharmacists for continuing education. And again, it's a niche of a niche of a niche. So it's like people that are pharmacists that, that are interested in functional medicine and they want to have, like, they want to pay for CE to set in a thing. All right. It was really good before COVID happened. And then COVID like kind of locked everything down.

We, it was an online thing before and we were selling like a hundred tickets per event. And now it's like, now we can sell like 25. Tickets to an event. It's just like what happened here. But anyways, getting to the long story, but the like I was using sensei for a while and then I'm like, Oh, this, learn dash looks better. So let me go use learn dash because I knew behind the scenes sensei wasn't getting any updates. There was no team working on it.

But now like sensei is a viable product and there's lots of development and a lot of cool stuff that they're doing. So now it's like now I want to move back to sensei and now I've got 800 people that have accounts that Some have stuff in LearnDash, some have in Sensei, some have, like, marked things as watched in LearnDash, and now I've gotta, like, open up two windows, and, like, log in as them, and, like, mark them as watched.

I mean, it was, it was a full two weeks, like, working one to two hours a day, like, to go through this process, to keep everything updated, and so, like, my life is easier in the future. But, like, sometimes it's just, like, that really big pain point of, like, oh, man, this is gonna stink, like I have 500 podcast episodes and I want to add these two blocks to them. Like it's going to take a while to do, but in the end, like, I think it's worth it.

And it's just like, okay, this will solve like a lot of our customer support issues. It will solve a lot of things to be in one system. But man, it was a real pain.