6 ms·

I really like some of the things John has done in his mockups here, especially on the write screen, and contrary to what he thinks ideas like this are more than

I really like some of the things John has done in his mockups here, especially on the write screen, and contrary to what he thinks ideas like this are more than welcome in the WordPress community. (For example check out the dramatically revamped media or the dozens of eliminated options in trunk right now.) The one big mistake in his premise, however, is that only 34% of WordPress users are blogging, the actual percentage is much higher. The survey he quotes me talking about was of mostly people who make their living building WordPress sites (over 20,000) and mostly WordPress.org users. This community naturally focuses (and contributes) more on the CMS and application framework side of WordPress. On WordPress.com, however, the vast majority of its millions of users blog, and are blogging more every day. If you visit WP.com you will see a simplified and streamlined user experience that is boldly different from the traditional wp-admin dashboard. Already we've seen huge boosts in user engagement from this new experience, and while it's a few dozen iterations from being ready I'm confident the best concepts will make their way back into WordPress core when they are ready. But overall, I love seeing different people's takes on what the next generation of WordPress will look like, and I wish more people did blog posts like this. We've had 3 dramatic shifts in our evolution before, and the shape the next one will take is a topic that occupies most of my waking hours, mind space, and creativity. And don't even get me started on mobile... :)

gozmike 14y ago
Is it safe to say that without a vastly improved mobile experience WordPress is in serious trouble? As a huge fan of the WordPress community and what the software and platform has empowered, I'm seeing a decreasing amount of interest in blogging as my social network turns toward meme-sharing and 140-character quips simply because they're much more conducive to consumption and sharing on mobile. It's so bad that there are startups trying to fix this like Blogstand (http://blogstand.co http://blogstand.co - our project). We know that others are attempting the same (and they should be!)
- photomatt 14y ago
  > Is it safe to say that without a vastly improved mobile experience WordPress is in serious trouble? I would 100% agree with that.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- kayoone 14y ago
  agree, you can also clearly see this in how platforms like tumblr have "evolved" to be peoples place to share short attention-span stuff. Blogging is becoming more of a mixture of FB feeds/twitter for most people.
  - gozmike 14y ago
    this saddens me. the promise of blogging for me has always been the ability to have my own printing press and know that nearly everyone else in the world had access to one as well. i'm still trying to understand how this "evolution" has actually decreased the quality of communication.
    - photomatt 14y ago
      No reason to be sad -- imagine a platform that you can stay on whether you're posting pictures of your food to a few dozen people (as I do) or the NYT FiveThirtyEight blog covering the election, to all of Wired.com. That's democratizing publishing.
      - gozmike 14y ago
        That's a great perspective and why I'm head over heels for WordPress as a platform for publishers of all shapes and sizes (and have built a company around it) Then again, this versatility has its drawbacks. We're constantly challenged by the complexity of building a mobile viewport onto WordPress and present it in a way that makes reading, discussing and sharing this kind of content. The options for publishers are limitless and translating that to mobile in a way that makes sense is really non-trivial.
        isaackeyet 14y ago
        Mobile WordPress is not something that is going to be done and figured out in a day. As devices and peoples usage patterns evolve, over time we'll have to adjust to this as well. And while all of us take smart phones and tablets for granted now, only a small subset of this world's population has such devices to connect to the Internet. Many use much simpler phones and devices, and so to truly democratize publishing it can't stop with a fancy iOS app. In core WordPress we'll track our progress and discuss over on the Make/Mobile blog. Feel free to chime in there! http://make.wordpress.org/mobile http://make.wordpress.org/mobile
- kmfrk 14y ago
  Especially when you consider that there are people whose only viewport is mobile devices.
  - pjbrunet 14y ago
    Screen size limitation is a temporary setback. After Google Glasses we'll have unlimited space. As far as the eye can see.
    - damncabbage 14y ago
      A long-term temporary setback. Even if a) it magically works and does everything, and b) most people get them, you're still looking a span of years before you can count on Glasses users being a significant fraction of your audience.
    - hperkins 14y ago
      Yes, because millions of people have $1,500 laying around to solve a software problem with expensive hardware. I sort of contradict myself though, since that's what large sites are already doing with WordPress.
- mannjani 14y ago
  I don't agree with your speculation that WordPress is in trouble. Though their may be decreasing amount of interest in blogging but WordPress is still used vastly as a CMS.
- JagMicker 14y ago
  I used to think that "mobile responsiveness" was the "Holy Grail" of smart website design. Now, I've come to the conclusion that most modern mobile devices are completely capable of displaying the full version of most websites. Every time I use my iPhone to browse to Twitter or LinkedIn I'm taken away from the full site and to a silly "mobile" site that resembles the native app. If I wanted the native app. experience, I'd download and use it! Ever try approving a LinkedIn recommendation using your iPhone? Good luck! Now think about most business websites...5 pages of text, images, and a touch of javascript... Does their "full site" have content that cannot be displayed properly on a mobile device? No. Is there a benefit to having a second, "mobile" website (one with much less love put into it)? I think not. It seems to me that many people think that "mobile responsiveness" is such a great thing, but I'm not sure they've really considered whether it's even necessary. I'd bet that most designers who build WP sites on themes that tout "mobile responsiveness" (and have it enabled by default) haven't even considered whether their client needs the second version of their site. Even if they do, I think often times the "mobile" version ends up being an ugly, hardly-tested, bastardized version of the "full site". Just give us the real website, please!
  - papsosouid 14y ago
    Don't confuse "mobile responsiveness" with people doing it wrong. Your website should never, under any circumstances try to look and feel like an app. All that does is set behavioural expectations in the user that will not and can not be met. It should look like your website, just with some presentation changes to make it easier to get to the content you want on a device with a smaller screen and touch based input.
  - jeremyjh 14y ago
    I really like the Dolphin browser on Android, partly because it lets you switch between mobile and "desktop" modes (lies in the agent string). I don't find I have to use desktop mode that often, but its really handy when its there.
    - lmm 14y ago
      You get that option in the native browser, though perhaps it's less fiddly in this "Dolphin".
- rmccue 14y ago
  > Is it safe to say that without a vastly improved mobile experience WordPress is in serious trouble? Absolutely. We had the WordPress community summit just last week, and one of the topics we discussed several times was mobile. The WordPress apps are good, but there's improvements that can be made to both the apps and the way they interact with a WordPress install, so plans were made to move this stuff forward. It's definitely something that everyone (especially Matt) is interested in.
johnonolan 14y ago
Thanks Matt - I don't necessarily doubt that WordPress users are blogging, it's just that WordPress(.org) isn't focused on those users any more. That's fine, as mentioned in the post, but there is a reason that Svbtle (etc) is suddenly the flavour of the month, and it's not just cause Dustin is the coolest kid in San Fran.
- armanmirk 14y ago
  There is no problem with what Ghost is setting out to do. For some of us WordPress is not reacting quickly enough to adopting the 21 century way of providing user experience. Obviously it's unrealistic for WordPress itself to drop everything and focus on this (that just isn't how life works), but it's certainly interesting and worthwhile to explore how modernisation of WordPress will enhance its original reason to exist. Looking at Ghost from this perspective and all the other reasons that John mentions in a comment below makes forking WordPress the right thing to do This project doesn't need someone who loves WordPress and wants make more plugins for it. It needs someone who thinks they can make a good thing even better. Steve Jobs didn't just make a new cover for mobile phones. He fundamentally proved that communicational devices must become many times better than what they were before and that's what I expect from John. Even Steve couldn't fix AT&T so don't expect John to fix WordPress core issues. That job is for WordPress itself.
modernerd 14y ago
This is what the simplified WordPress.com dashboard looks like for those who haven't seen it: http://d.pr/i/xetj http://d.pr/i/xetj You can still access the full nuts-and-bolts dashboard via a drop-down menu, but it's deliberately harder to find, and editing happens in the simplified area by default. I've recommended WordPress.com accounts to a few people recently; I was surprised by this change, but they - having never used WordPress - seemed delighted by the simplicity of it. This can only be a good thing, and I can see this working in WordPress.org blogs too.
- voidfiles 14y ago
  What made sense about the Ghost write screen was that it embraced Markdown. It showed what things would look like as you wrote them. I don't think the screenshot of the new WordPress dashboard addresses that.
  - dangrossman 14y ago
    Markdown isn't for bloggers, it's for developers. The average blogger has never learned an "alternative syntax" in their lives -- a word-processor-like formatting toolbar, like WordPress has, makes much more sense.
    - seanconaty 14y ago
      True, but markdown is incredibly easy to learn, especially with this side-by-side layout.
    - danneu 14y ago
      I found this out last year when I offered markdown support on my forum that used traditional bbcode. I run a collaborative writing forum and, newly obsessed with markdown at the time, I figured that since users were mostly writing many paragraphs of text, they could pick up the markdown basics if a toolbar + cheatsheet helped them out. In my head, it was going to be some sort of amazing improvement and my forum community would begin chanting my name as they experienced the splendors of markdown. Classic mistake. Yeah, sure -- the writers could certainly grasp markdown #headers, how two linebreaks become a new `<p>`, and even `[]()` vs `()[]` links (with toolbar/cheatsheet help). Great! But nested elements and pretty much anything more complicated were a real monkey wrench or just plain unsupported. Writers would put great effort into their posts (just like a blogger would), changing colors, right-aligning, center-aligning, changing font sizes. -- Things that markdown just doesn't support without some extending or post-processing that would turn into something far more confounding than the intuitive bbcode you started with. Everyone just understands: [center][size="6"][color="red"]My Cat, Mittens:[/color][/size][/center] [img]http://imgur.com/mittens.jpg[/img] [size="3"]Mittens says: [i]"Meow!"[/i][/size]
mannjani 14y ago
You may be right about his mistake in quoting the statistics but his point holds that wordpress is not THAT friendly for bloggers who just wants to publish their ideas.
tehayj 14y ago
I'm looking forward that Wordpress becomes more like self hosted Facebook profiles (just better of course). I'm absolutely looking forward what you guys plan for the mobile part. I remember switching from my first self written CMS to a small blogging platform called wordpress a couple of years ago. I never looked back after that :)

gozmike 14y ago

Is it safe to say that without a vastly improved mobile experience WordPress is in serious trouble? As a huge fan of the WordPress community and what the software and platform has empowered, I'm seeing a decreasing amount of interest in blogging as my social network turns toward meme-sharing and 140-character quips simply because they're much more conducive to consumption and sharing on mobile. It's so bad that there are startups trying to fix this like Blogstand (http://blogstand.co http://blogstand.co - our project). We know that others are attempting the same (and they should be!)

photomatt 14y ago
> Is it safe to say that without a vastly improved mobile experience WordPress is in serious trouble? I would 100% agree with that.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
kayoone 14y ago
agree, you can also clearly see this in how platforms like tumblr have "evolved" to be peoples place to share short attention-span stuff. Blogging is becoming more of a mixture of FB feeds/twitter for most people.
- gozmike 14y ago
  this saddens me. the promise of blogging for me has always been the ability to have my own printing press and know that nearly everyone else in the world had access to one as well. i'm still trying to understand how this "evolution" has actually decreased the quality of communication.
  - photomatt 14y ago
    No reason to be sad -- imagine a platform that you can stay on whether you're posting pictures of your food to a few dozen people (as I do) or the NYT FiveThirtyEight blog covering the election, to all of Wired.com. That's democratizing publishing.
    - gozmike 14y ago
      That's a great perspective and why I'm head over heels for WordPress as a platform for publishers of all shapes and sizes (and have built a company around it) Then again, this versatility has its drawbacks. We're constantly challenged by the complexity of building a mobile viewport onto WordPress and present it in a way that makes reading, discussing and sharing this kind of content. The options for publishers are limitless and translating that to mobile in a way that makes sense is really non-trivial.
      - isaackeyet 14y ago
        Mobile WordPress is not something that is going to be done and figured out in a day. As devices and peoples usage patterns evolve, over time we'll have to adjust to this as well. And while all of us take smart phones and tablets for granted now, only a small subset of this world's population has such devices to connect to the Internet. Many use much simpler phones and devices, and so to truly democratize publishing it can't stop with a fancy iOS app. In core WordPress we'll track our progress and discuss over on the Make/Mobile blog. Feel free to chime in there! http://make.wordpress.org/mobile http://make.wordpress.org/mobile
kmfrk 14y ago
Especially when you consider that there are people whose only viewport is mobile devices.
- pjbrunet 14y ago
  Screen size limitation is a temporary setback. After Google Glasses we'll have unlimited space. As far as the eye can see.
  - damncabbage 14y ago
    A long-term temporary setback. Even if a) it magically works and does everything, and b) most people get them, you're still looking a span of years before you can count on Glasses users being a significant fraction of your audience.
  - hperkins 14y ago
    Yes, because millions of people have $1,500 laying around to solve a software problem with expensive hardware. I sort of contradict myself though, since that's what large sites are already doing with WordPress.
mannjani 14y ago
I don't agree with your speculation that WordPress is in trouble. Though their may be decreasing amount of interest in blogging but WordPress is still used vastly as a CMS.
JagMicker 14y ago
I used to think that "mobile responsiveness" was the "Holy Grail" of smart website design. Now, I've come to the conclusion that most modern mobile devices are completely capable of displaying the full version of most websites. Every time I use my iPhone to browse to Twitter or LinkedIn I'm taken away from the full site and to a silly "mobile" site that resembles the native app. If I wanted the native app. experience, I'd download and use it! Ever try approving a LinkedIn recommendation using your iPhone? Good luck! Now think about most business websites...5 pages of text, images, and a touch of javascript... Does their "full site" have content that cannot be displayed properly on a mobile device? No. Is there a benefit to having a second, "mobile" website (one with much less love put into it)? I think not. It seems to me that many people think that "mobile responsiveness" is such a great thing, but I'm not sure they've really considered whether it's even necessary. I'd bet that most designers who build WP sites on themes that tout "mobile responsiveness" (and have it enabled by default) haven't even considered whether their client needs the second version of their site. Even if they do, I think often times the "mobile" version ends up being an ugly, hardly-tested, bastardized version of the "full site". Just give us the real website, please!
- papsosouid 14y ago
  Don't confuse "mobile responsiveness" with people doing it wrong. Your website should never, under any circumstances try to look and feel like an app. All that does is set behavioural expectations in the user that will not and can not be met. It should look like your website, just with some presentation changes to make it easier to get to the content you want on a device with a smaller screen and touch based input.
- jeremyjh 14y ago
  I really like the Dolphin browser on Android, partly because it lets you switch between mobile and "desktop" modes (lies in the agent string). I don't find I have to use desktop mode that often, but its really handy when its there.
  - lmm 14y ago
    You get that option in the native browser, though perhaps it's less fiddly in this "Dolphin".
rmccue 14y ago
> Is it safe to say that without a vastly improved mobile experience WordPress is in serious trouble? Absolutely. We had the WordPress community summit just last week, and one of the topics we discussed several times was mobile. The WordPress apps are good, but there's improvements that can be made to both the apps and the way they interact with a WordPress install, so plans were made to move this stuff forward. It's definitely something that everyone (especially Matt) is interested in.

johnonolan 14y ago

Thanks Matt - I don't necessarily doubt that WordPress users are blogging, it's just that WordPress(.org) isn't focused on those users any more. That's fine, as mentioned in the post, but there is a reason that Svbtle (etc) is suddenly the flavour of the month, and it's not just cause Dustin is the coolest kid in San Fran.

armanmirk 14y ago
There is no problem with what Ghost is setting out to do. For some of us WordPress is not reacting quickly enough to adopting the 21 century way of providing user experience. Obviously it's unrealistic for WordPress itself to drop everything and focus on this (that just isn't how life works), but it's certainly interesting and worthwhile to explore how modernisation of WordPress will enhance its original reason to exist. Looking at Ghost from this perspective and all the other reasons that John mentions in a comment below makes forking WordPress the right thing to do This project doesn't need someone who loves WordPress and wants make more plugins for it. It needs someone who thinks they can make a good thing even better. Steve Jobs didn't just make a new cover for mobile phones. He fundamentally proved that communicational devices must become many times better than what they were before and that's what I expect from John. Even Steve couldn't fix AT&T so don't expect John to fix WordPress core issues. That job is for WordPress itself.

modernerd 14y ago

This is what the simplified WordPress.com dashboard looks like for those who haven't seen it: http://d.pr/i/xetj http://d.pr/i/xetj You can still access the full nuts-and-bolts dashboard via a drop-down menu, but it's deliberately harder to find, and editing happens in the simplified area by default. I've recommended WordPress.com accounts to a few people recently; I was surprised by this change, but they - having never used WordPress - seemed delighted by the simplicity of it. This can only be a good thing, and I can see this working in WordPress.org blogs too.

voidfiles 14y ago
What made sense about the Ghost write screen was that it embraced Markdown. It showed what things would look like as you wrote them. I don't think the screenshot of the new WordPress dashboard addresses that.
- dangrossman 14y ago
  Markdown isn't for bloggers, it's for developers. The average blogger has never learned an "alternative syntax" in their lives -- a word-processor-like formatting toolbar, like WordPress has, makes much more sense.
  - seanconaty 14y ago
    True, but markdown is incredibly easy to learn, especially with this side-by-side layout.
  - danneu 14y ago
    I found this out last year when I offered markdown support on my forum that used traditional bbcode. I run a collaborative writing forum and, newly obsessed with markdown at the time, I figured that since users were mostly writing many paragraphs of text, they could pick up the markdown basics if a toolbar + cheatsheet helped them out. In my head, it was going to be some sort of amazing improvement and my forum community would begin chanting my name as they experienced the splendors of markdown. Classic mistake. Yeah, sure -- the writers could certainly grasp markdown #headers, how two linebreaks become a new `<p>`, and even `[]()` vs `()[]` links (with toolbar/cheatsheet help). Great! But nested elements and pretty much anything more complicated were a real monkey wrench or just plain unsupported. Writers would put great effort into their posts (just like a blogger would), changing colors, right-aligning, center-aligning, changing font sizes. -- Things that markdown just doesn't support without some extending or post-processing that would turn into something far more confounding than the intuitive bbcode you started with. Everyone just understands: [center][size="6"][color="red"]My Cat, Mittens:[/color][/size][/center] [img]http://imgur.com/mittens.jpg[/img] [size="3"]Mittens says: [i]"Meow!"[/i][/size]

mannjani 14y ago

You may be right about his mistake in quoting the statistics but his point holds that wordpress is not THAT friendly for bloggers who just wants to publish their ideas.

tehayj 14y ago

I'm looking forward that Wordpress becomes more like self hosted Facebook profiles (just better of course). I'm absolutely looking forward what you guys plan for the mobile part. I remember switching from my first self written CMS to a small blogging platform called wordpress a couple of years ago. I never looked back after that :)