Building The WP World Community
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Speaker 1:Hey, Marcus. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2:Hey, Matt. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:We're just chatting. We're getting all your titles gathered together. Marketing person at GoDaddy. I've known you from GoDaddy. That's how we first met.
Speaker 1:You're now running a fantastic, what I'll call a community website. You will define it better for me later. You're running the WP World. You and I have a little partnership. You're sponsor here at the WP Minute.
Speaker 1:I'm a sponsor there at WP World. I think we both have crossover of, like, communities, of readers, of profile makers of in your case. But for many you know, I've seen you around for many years. You've launched another you've launched a plug in. I wanna talk about that as well.
Speaker 1:But I didn't know you were a developer type. I didn't know you had no offense. But I didn't know you had the abilities to make something like the WP world, like this new plug in, because I've always known you as like the marketing guy or a marketing guy at GoDaddy. What's your skill set?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fair. I mostly consider myself kind of one of those jack of all trades, master of none type of people. I am interested in so many different things that it's hard for me to dive really deep in one particular place a lot of times. My background is I did work at an agency in Orlando, or in the Orlando area. And I worked at an agency here in town for just over ten years.
Speaker 2:And most of that was design and development for small to medium sized business clients. And so I don't know, I got a little taste of everything doing that. It was a pretty small agency. So, you know, I got to spend some time in like proposal land and contract land and just like business operations land, then also marketing and social content and regular content, design development. I was hired initially as a designer front end developer and then over the course of the ten years you know, grew those skills, but added to it with lots of other things just as they were necessary for for our clients.
Speaker 1:When did you come up with the idea of WP World?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it kind of happened in two pieces. Like I said, I've always been interested in a bunch of different things. And so maybe about a year and a half ago now, mid twenty twenty two, I decided that I wanted to tinker with the Google Maps API. It was something that was interesting to me.
Speaker 2:Just wanted to see how to get some pins on a map. And so I played with it a little bit, put it somewhere, messed with how to get some pins on a map, decided it'd be cool if I could power these pins with a WordPress database, Put it on a WordPress site, have a post type that feeds some kind of information to the map that puts pins on the map just to see how it's how it's done, right? Maybe I need to build some sort of restaurant directory at some point, whatever. So I played with it, tossed it aside, didn't think about it again until sometime in early twenty twenty three. And I started thinking about some of the hurricanes that we've had come through in Florida and some of the especially on the West Coast Of Florida, some of the friends that we both have in the WordPress space that are over on that side that were affected by some of the some of the hurricanes and you know I wanted to check-in with them make sure that you know they're all good and safe and all that but I you know was trying to remember who's where half the time and it's like well I did have this Google Maps API thing that I had played with.
Speaker 2:Let's put some real info into this WordPress database and give me a way to remember where some of these folks are over on the well, anywhere in Florida, mostly just so I could check-in with my friends afterwards. So I started with that and then was like, well, Florida is not the only place that has natural disasters or, you know, cultural differences with, you know, wars and stuff and people need to be checked in all over the checked in with all over the globe. So let me let me open this up. Let me again, designer first, designer at heart. Let me let me make this look nice and then kind of throw it out there to the world to add themselves to the map and that way we can all check-in with each other.
Speaker 2:I mean, selfishly, it was for me to check-in with people. But obviously, it being out there for everyone to use allows everyone to kind of check-in with each other along the way. And so that was kind of how the WP world began. It was mostly just a way to be able to know where folks are and be able to check-in with them, make sure they're okay.
Speaker 1:You know, it's funny. I remember when I first got into web development way back in the days to work at an ISP. We acquired a Drupal company, well, a Drupal web shop. They were they were a web shop, but they were using Drupal. That's basically what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:And one of the first things we built because back then, this is I mean, I'm talking many years ago. This is you know, people were building real estate websites. There were no, like, real estate tools back then. And we were using Drupal and CCK and Views to do just that. We were building out these directories, pins on a map.
Speaker 1:And I feel like then when I started my own agency, we're doing the same thing, but we were doing it for, like, local events. And this all predates, like, obviously, like, social media, Foursquare, and then Facebook. And I feel like directories, whatever form they come in, is always like a a fantastic first step for anybody developing on the web because it's doing a lot. It's like what what do they call it? Like, crud apps, create, update, and delete.
Speaker 1:Like, you have people coming, putting in content, you're updating content, they're display and you're displaying it. And, like, that's the first, like, foray I think a lot of web developers, I at least myself anyway, we come up in that in that sort of game of building out directories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I that's funny. I was also formally in Drupal and before WordPress. But even before that, one of the first CRUD apps that I created was basically that a directory. It was for a local apartment company.
Speaker 2:Was that in college, I worked at the apartment complex that I lived at and one of the things that they needed was a way to better match folks coming in with each other based on preferences, right? Smoking, non smoking, some of their interests, some of their hobbies. So I ended up building this PHP MySQL, I don't know, I guess algorithm database for us to be able to enter in folks with all of their preferences and then kind of let the let the site match people into their three and four bedroom apartments. And so I guess I guess I was meant to build directory sites.
Speaker 1:That was your special calling to build directory sites. The you know, obviously, you know, you and I have talked behind the scenes, and you've you've probably heard some of my takes on WordPress media, whether that's a WordPress blog, a WordPress community, a WordPress podcast, a YouTube channel covering WordPress. This is a sort of like a a well, first, let me ask you this question. Do do you slot WP World into media? How do you see yourself maybe fitting into the WordPress content landscape?
Speaker 1:I have my opinions, but I'd I'd love to hear, like your opinions and how you slot in to those of us who give back to WordPress through say media and content, but in your case a directory.
Speaker 2:First and foremost, I see the site as just a community hub. There are I mean, I'm really just touching the tip of the iceberg of things that I really want the site to be. It's already a lot of things currently for folks to go in and check out. But just thinking through some of the content that I want to have there for WordCamp and other WordPress event organizers and volunteers and even attendees, you know, what to expect, how to get new attendees to come to word camps and stuff. I think there's a lot of potential there for more content and more media.
Speaker 2:But I think really just trying to start by building up a community where we can all kind of see where we are. I think one of the things that is easy to overlook is just how important in person connection with each other is, especially since we've all gotten kind of so far away from each other with the pandemic shutting a lot of stuff down. This is kind of a way for people to be able to meet in person, not just at word camps or meet meetups but hey I'm gonna be in, you know, name a city, Chicago or something next week. I want to know who's there. I mean I could post on one of the social media sites and say hey I'm gonna be in Chicago who wants to meet up?
Speaker 2:That's great. But you can also go to the WP world and search, you know, the Chicago area and see who's around and those folks have details of what social media platforms they're on. You can message them and say, hey, I'm going to be in town, do you want to get together? All of that stuff. Think the community building part of it is core to what I'm doing with it right now.
Speaker 2:And I do think that there are additional media possibilities going forward. But just building that base on the community itself is is where I'm starting.
Speaker 1:You recently started I mean, I think you've always had it, but I feel like you're you've put more effort lately into the newsletter that goes out. How does that tie in to, say, your content creation process? Really just trying to unpack your marketing brain with the WP world and where you see content and communication going with that. Starting with a newsletter, do do you have plans to expand that? And in a world where there are so many of us creating newsletters, how do you stand out?
Speaker 1:How do you think about standing out from so many of us that that do newsletters and broadcast to what I'll call is such a small target audience across the world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of went back and forth a little bit on starting the newsletter. I think as anyone who does a newsletter will tell you, we know that email is probably still the one most reliable delivery platform. And so it kind of made sense to start a newsletter. What I wanted to focus on when in creating a newsletter for the WP world is providing value to folks in their inbox that maybe they can only get from the WP world. I know a lot of WordPress newsletters that cover WordPress news.
Speaker 2:I think that's great. I think there are some really great ones. I think I linked to some of them including yours and one of the newsletters that I sent out early on just letting people know what this newsletter is about. But I think what I really want to make sure and I have some ideas for other things for the newsletter I don't want to make it super long, people's time is valuable and I know if I make it long it won't take but an issue or two for somebody to say I don't have time for this and unsubscribe. So I want to keep it fairly short and I want to provide information that you really can only get from the WP world, among that being obviously what's new at the WP world.
Speaker 2:I think that's kind of central piece of the newsletter is 'hey, here's what you might have missed by not being in the site this week' or whatever. And then more of the community aspects, Here's upcoming events and that way you can see within the next few weeks whether the events are any of them in my area so that I can attend. Then connecting folks with businesses in terms of employment and stuff. So those are the three, I don't know, let's say pillars of the newsletter that I've kind of started with is let's help folks who have been displaced or looking for work to be able to get them some eyeballs on them to hire them. You know, let's make sure that the camps are represented well, not just WordCamps but any WordPress events in the site.
Speaker 2:Let's make sure that people know about those and are able to sign up and attend those so we can keep the community alive and well and just let people know what's new at the site. I have a whole laundry list of things that I could add, but again it's that that balance of keeping it short enough that you can pretty easily digest the newsletter and get the info that you need while still providing enough value for people to want to, you know, open it and take a look at each week.
Speaker 1:Just don't steal my tagline of five minutes or less.
Speaker 2:Nope, not going to steal any taglines. In fact, I'm again, and you and you mentioned it at the top of the show. You know, we have a bit of a collaborative partnership with being sponsors of each other's projects, but it goes beyond just the sponsorship, right? My goal is to elevate the things that everyone else is doing, not to take over the things that everyone else is doing. And so if there are great news newsletters that are, you know, five minutes or less, then I'm happy to share those things and let people go there.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to take over any of that. Want to elevate what people have going on already.
Speaker 1:As somebody who probably works with, let's say, GoDaddy sponsoring events, maybe people asking GoDaddy to sponsor their newsletter or their podcast, What have you learned about sponsorship that was surprising to you from your side, from the from the WP world side as, hey. This is time and effort. And, you know, having a few bucks in the coffers could, you know, really help me go a long way with this, and, you know, I don't know, like, what maybe maybe you get get into it later, but, you know, like, I have Eric, I have Raquel, you know, get paid to do the work that they do or write an article. I have hosting fees, producer fees, editor fees. A lot of my sponsorship is hard cost to create this content.
Speaker 1:But what have you learned about sponsorship on your side that was either surprising or not coming from your professional day job?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. I think there are a number of things that have been surprising. I mean one of the things that has been important to me at least this far is that I don't take on more than I can do by myself. And I say by myself somewhat loosely. I've had help from some folks along the way.
Speaker 2:I've also think I've mentioned it on Twitter X, whatever you want to call it a few times that a lot of what's in the WP world was helped with, you know, with some AI, some of the coding, some of the ideas, some of you know, this or the other thing, I've been able to kind of lean on that, which has been absolutely interesting and fantastic to be able to sort of play with that as well, and see how, you know, I can have that assistant, if you will, to kind of help along the way. I think one of the interesting things that I I don't know, maybe learned maybe wasn't wasn't something I should have been surprised by just because of how we feel about sponsorship at GoDaddy, but was just how quickly I think some people were willing to jump on board the site that's dedicated to the community. If you take a look at the sponsors on the WP world, you'll recognize a lot of them from being WordCamp sponsors, and that's just because all of those sponsors are so willing and eager to just help support the community in whatever ways the community is represented online.
Speaker 2:And so I don't know, like I said, I'm not I'm not sure I should have been surprised that that sponsors were quick to jump in and say, hey, I want to be a part of this or not. But I think that that was, I don't know, kind of a kind of a nice surprise. I opened up sponsorship as a, you know, hey, this does take some of my time. Hey, this does take a little bit of money to run-in terms of like plug in licensing and hosting fees and whatever else. Maybe I can get a sponsor or two to help me cover some of those costs.
Speaker 2:And, you know, I got a number of folks that were that were eager to jump in and say, hey, I'm I'm in. I wanna I wanna see where this thing goes. I wanna help the community out and sign me up.
Speaker 1:Do you have I wanna press you just a little bit because I I really love this space. Like, I love people who build out, again, like, either content sites or community driven sites like this, whether they're directory community directory like you're doing, review sites, and people have, like, unique angles on WordPress. But my my hard press is at the end of the day, like, you're one person, you know, living your life, day job. This is just what I'll call a side hustle. Just like I would say that the WP Minute is a side hustle for me.
Speaker 1:There needs to be a layer of sustainability and continuity. Define that as there needs to be money coming in at some point so that you aren't the person who's just running it all by yourself in goodwill because you have a life and a job and a family and all and responsibilities. And unless this thing was really kicking in and making a lot of cash, you can't just let it, you know, you can't just let it linger. So do you have sort of, like, that typical business model? Like, at some point, I'd love to have
Speaker 2:this
Speaker 1:thing running, operating, even if it's like a nonprofit. Have have you started to think about that in the future, or are we still in okay. Is this still just my planning and and sort of goodwill runway phase at this point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, think I'm I think I'm still kind of at the beginning of the process in terms of my mindset on the site. I do have a lot of as you'd irons in the FireEye day job, I have this, I'm trying to release a plugin and moderating photos for the WordPress photo directory. I mean there's just a lot of different places where I'm trying to be involved. Right now, because I've been able to mostly keep the costs themselves for the site fairly low, I think it's easy enough for me to just continue to use it as a kind of a give back to the community, right? I want it to grow right now in a way that just provides the most value to the community.
Speaker 2:Yes, I want it to cover its own costs and you know, it does that to know, to set to them for the most part. And so I can't complain too much there. You know, there's I kind of opened the business directory in the WP world as a way to maybe have some more consistent cash flow coming in. So if anybody's interested in adding themselves to the business directory, definitely go check that out. But yeah, it's it's still kind of in the stage of of me wanting to just provide this this piece of value back to the WordPress community.
Speaker 2:So I haven't thought too much about taking it beyond that.
Speaker 1:I say that with, like, you know, urgency is not the right word. What's the first thing that comes to to my head? But I see fantastic projects like this launch, and then and then over the years, you know, you'll see the creator of that person just be like, hey. Did you know, didn't work out. I I don't have time to commit to to this anymore.
Speaker 1:But in the back of my head, I think, well, maybe if there was enough funding there and it was kind of built in a in a way where it wasn't so stressful for that person or there was a way to sustain this without them just, like, letting it dissolve. And, you know, I really wanna see sites and and creators like you succeed in this space. I've only succeeded because I'm foolish, and I haven't given up, for some odd reason. But, you know, I love projects like this, and I and I I just don't wanna see them go away.
Speaker 2:Yeah. One of the one of the best ways I mean, again, if if you wanna sign up for a business listing, that goes a long way in supporting the WP world, so I encourage that. But one of the things that I think is just a big driver is is seeing folks share the site with others online. I think one of the things that drives me to continue to build the site is when I see folks share that they love what's going on with the site or hey, I didn't even know this person lived near me and now we have this relationship and I'm able to meet up with them at a coffee shop once a week. And just seeing those stories I think helps continue to drive the motivation to keep the site going.
Speaker 2:You know, there may come a time where it feels like it's a lot to keep up the site without having some sort of additional monetary incentive, then I'll keep building things that provide value for people who sign up for sponsorships, sign up for the business directory. That's always front of mind for me when people are giving money to support the site is how can I make sure that I'm providing the most value back to them without taking advantage of the community at large and making it feel like, you know, the only reason you're here is so that I can give the sponsors someone to talk to or whatever? So it's it's obviously a balance. Maybe that's one of those things that I'm learning about sponsorship too is to to answer your previous question is, you know, just making sure that it it's a balance of providing the most value to everyone without anybody feeling like the only reason they're there is to serve someone else's purpose.
Speaker 1:I'm on the website on the homepage right now. 1,261 pressers and counting. Let's just talk about the product to find what it is that people can do. Of course, there's a big map with pins on it that you can scroll around and find where somebody's located, find out, you know, if they're in your area, you can see other folks, other WordPressers. How do you populate this data?
Speaker 1:Is there an automated way? And then what can people do once they you know, if they don't see themselves here, what can they do to sign up and what is it that they can interact with? Or how else would you urge people to, you know, use the site once they create a profile?
Speaker 2:Sure. So there's no automated processes. I added about 20 people myself at the very beginning, people that I knew were friends and in the Florida area, I just they were added at the very beginning, but ever since the launch to everyone it's been an opt in for people to add themselves to the directory. That twelve sixty I am super grateful for. I know that the WordPress community is much much larger than that so I'm waiting for the rest of the folks to come join us.
Speaker 2:But at the same time I don't want to go out and scrape social sites, scrape attendee lists for camps or anything like that to populate the site. I want everyone to add themselves freely and willingly to the site. I know that some people will want to do that, some people won't. I've also added the option more recently for people to opt not to share their location, whether that's for safety reasons or privacy reasons or any reason whatsoever. They're welcome to add themselves to the site without sharing their location as well.
Speaker 2:And once you've added yourself, there are a number of things that you can do at the site and I think one of the one of the the most valuable I guess for you personally as oppressor is being able to kind of track the events that you've been to, whether that's WordCamps or other WordPress events, and then share whether you were a speaker, volunteer, organizer at those events. I think that there isn't really another place where folks can sort of track all of the places that they've been or will be going to that are announced. I know a lot of people who kind of loosely do that in a notepad or text editor or something, they just kind of write down all the different event. Or if they're like me, maybe they've got a whole bunch of lanyards hanging in their office and can kinda sift through those to look at which which events that they've been to. But I think the WP world is a great place for you to kinda track where you've been and let other people where you've been and see where you've crossed paths and didn't know it.
Speaker 2:Or in the case of future events where you'll both be at an event and you can make plans to, you know, meet up and share a meal or whatever. So I think that's one of the most interesting features to me, I think once you've added yourself to the directory other than just having this profile page for yourself that kind of tracks your WordPress resume, if you will. It's got other communities that you're a part of, it's got photos that you've added to the WordPress photo directory, events that you've been to, your wordpress.org badges, plugins that you've developed in the .org repo, a lot of that stuff, anything that's really tied to your .org username like the photos, plugins, themes, badges, all of that gets populated for you so you don't have to go search out which badges that you've gotten and check boxes and stuff. That's all pulled in from .org for you. So you kinda get a bit of a WordPress community resume out of it by default, and I think that that's interesting as well.
Speaker 1:I like the quick little if you go to the pressers drop down, you have, like, these little quick, I don't know, queries or actions, random presser. I clicked on random presser, and who was it? Daniel Schutzmith, fellow WP minute.
Speaker 2:I remember him being fan
Speaker 1:for a while, but that that was kinda, yeah, fellow Floridian. Right? So that was kinda funny. But that's really cool because you kinda go through and and explore and just kinda see and and meet new people that way. I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it a lot. Sort of wrapping up here and running down on time, the one of the things we hinted at before, you know, you're sending a newsletter. You're for the WP world. You recently came out with a plug in, which I think, if I had to guess, is the same plug in you use to send those emails from the WP world. What is the plug in you're working on and what does it do?
Speaker 2:My plugin is really an extension of of another plugin. Think of it like in the WooCommerce place, like WooCommerce is the newsletter plugin and then mine would be something like a WooCommerce subscriptions that you would add to it to extend the functionality. So the plugin is called the newsletter plugin. It's in the .org repo. And what I found in building out my newsletter with that plugin is that I love a lot of the pieces that that plugin offers, but it's short on a few pieces in making your newsletter look more modern.
Speaker 2:And so it lacked a little bit of flexibility in design and some of the content that you could add. So my plugin, which is really just a foray into premium plugins and learning a bit about the premium plugin and plugin product world is really an extension of that plugin to provide some additional pieces to build your newsletter the way you want to build it. And so yeah, I've been obviously using some of those pieces to send out the WP world newsletter and some of the blocks that are in there. But again, it's it's really just sort of trying to learn a bit more about the the plugin product world and see what that what that entails.
Speaker 1:Soon we'll see you on WP Product Talk instead of talking about WP World, we'll be talking about your newsletter blocks plug in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't I don't I don't know if that'll necessarily be the case for that, but it is an it is an interesting step in. I've I have three, I think, free plugins on the .org repo and so you know I'm not new to building a plugin but new to building like a productized premium plugin and so again, it's it's me itching to just learn something new about a new space, and in this case, a space within our space, within the WordPress space. And at the same time provides, you know, some feature functionality that I was looking for already to send out the newsletter in the WP world.
Speaker 1:Marcus Burnett, a man not afraid to try new things and explore creatively with the WP world, programmatically, marketing wise with your products. I love it. And you also I think you're one of the 1,000 podcast hosts on Bob's network. I don't know who don't even know. Bob has so many shows now.
Speaker 1:I feel like I I can't compete. Marcus, aside from the wp dot world, the wp dot world, where else can folks go to connect with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Most most I'm most active on Twitter slash x, whatever it's called these days. I'm easily found there at marcus d Burnett or TWP world is the the one for the the WP world.
Speaker 1:Listen. I'm I'm gonna take credit for that. I I pushed you to set up that Twitter handle. I'm sure other people told you to do that too, but it was so so nice to be able to just tag the WP world every time I was giving credit to my to my sponsor. So thanks for setting that Twitter profile up.
Speaker 2:Absolutely take credit for adding more work to my plate.
Speaker 1:Put it on put it on automation, and it'll it'll just start pumping out content for you. Everybody, thanks for listening today. Go check out The WP World. Make sure you have your profile set up, and then you can meet others. And hey, if you go to word if you go to WordCamps, if you go WordPress meetups, tell people about it.
Speaker 1:Tell people that at your local meetup to go and sign up the WP world. That's it for today's episode. Get the weekly newsletter at thewpminute.com/ subscribe. Want to support the show and join a Slack group filled with WordPress professionals like you? Talk about the news, share your WordPress business content, and network with others.
Speaker 1:Head to thewpminute.com/support and get access to our group. Support the show for as little as $5 or more if you feel we provided more value. Thanks to our pillar sponsors, Pressable, Bluehost, and Omnisend. Thanks to our Foundation Plus sponsors, WP World, Image SEO, and Hostinger. Thanks to all of our annual supporting members and you, the listener.
Speaker 1:Without your support, the WP Minute wouldn't be possible. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.
