FAIR, WordPress, and Knowing When to Stop
Over the past year, we, Karim & Joost, have written and talked extensively about the challenges facing WordPress. We’ve been critical. At times, very critical.
· 6 min read
34 posts in WordPress.
Great minds think alike? My WordPress take on Markdown for Agents
Today, Cloudflare announced Markdown for Agents, a feature that automatically converts HTML to markdown at the edge when AI agents request it. Reading their ann
· 3 min read
The silence is deafening: Google’s “agentic” future leaves the WordPress economy behind
Google just announced a massive shift in how the internet shops, and the biggest platform on the web wasn’t even in the room.
· 4 min read
From installation to integration: Making plugins “agent-ready”
In my last post, I discussed why a design system is the “visual rail” AI needs. But the “Architect” I’ve been describing doesn’t just care about how a site look
· 4 min read
Vibe coding is a trap: why WordPress needs a design system NOW
In my last post, I argued that WordPress needs to become a “Base AI”: a structured foundation that AI can understand and build upon. Before that, I wrote about
· 3 min read
The generalization tax: why WordPress is still the smart architectural base
In my previous post, I discussed the demise of code copyright and mentioned what Dries referred to as the generalization tax. This had me thinking more about wh
· 3 min read
A new path forward for WordPress, and for the open web
In December, I wrote about the state of leadership in the WordPress ecosystem. I shared how too much power rests with one person, and how the lack of transparen
· 4 min read
Innovation in WordPress: a look at plugin development
Recent observations have highlighted a significant surge in new plugin submissions to the WordPress repository, as noted in this post. We also know that Automat
· 9 min read
WordPress comments, cookies and caching
This post explains how WordPress uses comment cookies and why that is detrimental to your site’s caching. It then shows you how to fix this.
· 7 min read
Breaking the Status Quo
WordPress is at a crossroads, now even more clearly then when I wrote my previous post on WordPress’s roadmap. I had very much intended to leave this topic alon
· 8 min read
WordPress, and what should be on its roadmap
I was reading Hendrik Luehrsen’s excellent post “WordPress isn’t WordPress anymore“, and I decided I had to write more about this. I recently spoke at WordCamp
· 8 min read
The People Behind the Platform: How WordPress’s Community Drives its Success
By Marieke van de Rakt and Joost de Valk
· 6 min read
Transparency, Contribution, and the Future of WordPress
When we sold Yoast to Newfold in 2021, I quickly learned we had been incredibly naive. While at Yoast, I hadn’t realized how many deals were made between big co
· 5 min read
Introducing a new plugin: Progress Planner
Ever since Marieke and I left Yoast, we’ve considered building a new WordPress product. We love working on something that people can use—something that will imp
· 3 min read
Playground Blueprint Builder
I have been playing with the WordPress Playground a lot. As I did, I wanted a way to quickly make a copy of an existing site to a new Playground. It seems an id
· 1 min read
Cleaning up WordPress option clutter
Note: this plugin has received a ton of updates since its inception. It’s now been moved to Progress Planner, where the team there (including myself) are develo
· 3 min read
Designing plugins to be uninstalled
I feel a particular class of plugins in the WordPress world should be more prominent. Plugins that help you do something, which you then delete when you’re done
· 3 min read
Research: WordPress publications misuse tags
This post was migrated to this site in January 2025 when we took down the Fewer Tags project site.
· 9 min read
Multi-currency awesomeness with EDD & Cloudflare
We’re getting ready at Emilia Projects (which is the “run our own projects part” of Emilia Capital) to sell our first plugin, the Pro version of Fewer Tags. We
· 4 min read
WordPress needs more dev-rel
The WordPress ecosystem is very good at talking to each other. We do so on platforms like the official WordPress Slack, Post Status, Twitter, and many other pla
· 3 min read
Plugin demos with the WordPress playground
For years, plugin developers have been looking for ways to demo their plugins to users. Users don’t read readme.txt files or plugin pages on WordPress.org. They
· 3 min read
How to deal with plugin security issues
Dealing with security issues for your WordPress plugin can be hard and even a bit scary, certainly when it’s happening to you for the first time. In this post I
· 7 min read
Gravity Forms notification routing with a lookup table
I had a need for complex routing of notification messages in Gravity Forms. The email could, depending on a dropdown field, go to some 50-60 different recipient
· 6 min read
WordPress’ admin UI needs to be better
The WordPress’ admin UI needs to be drastically improved. It should be improved not just for WordPress core itself, but it should implement a simple and clearly
· 3 min read
WordPress’ market share is shrinking
There’s no more denying it: if you look at W3Techs CMS market share numbers, WordPress’ market share is shrinking, losing 0.4% market share since February. I do
· 5 min read
Elementor: WordPress’ secret growth driver?
Is Elementor the secret behind WordPress’ growth in the last years? We know from my CMS market share analysis that WordPress has been growing fast. Could it be
· 3 min read
Building a trusted web, step 1.
One of the biggest long-term trust problems of the web is reliably figuring out who published something first. Who was first has deep implications for ownership
· 3 min read
(Why) I’m stepping down from my WordPress marketing role
I’m going to step away from my role as Marketing Lead. I consider this mostly a personal failure, both in correctly setting and getting expectations and in fitt
· 4 min read
Marketing WordPress – first steps
I’ve had the question a few times now of what I’ve been up to since I got appointed lead marketing for WordPress. The first few weeks have been busy, but very i
· 5 min read
Leading marketing & communication for WordPress
Last week I was appointed Marketing & Communications Lead of WordPress. I think WordPress is one of the most essential platforms on the web and I’m really proud
· 5 min read
Democratizing publishing
Matt blogged, in response to a question asked at WordCamp US: what does “democratizing publishing” mean to you? His answer:
· 1 min read
After WCUS 2018: WordPress & Gutenberg FAQ
I just came back from WordCamp US in Nashville, which was awesome. In this post I want to address some of the questions I’ve had a couple of times. So here we g
· 4 min read
WordPress 5.0 needs a different timeline
For the last few months, the WordPress developer community has been moving towards a release of WordPress 5.0. This is the highly anticipated release that will
· 3 min read
Gutenberg and Yoast SEO
I’m typing this as I sit in Track 1 of WordCamp Europe in Paris. Matt Mullenweg just announced Gutenberg as a plugin is available, so I installed it on here and
· 2 min read