#199 – Brian Coords on WooCommerce’s Challenges and Innovations in a Changing WordPress Landscape

In this episode, Nathan Wrigley interviews Brian Coords, Developer Advocate at WooCommerce, about his career path, WooCommerce’s recent rebranding, and its approach to developer relations. They discuss how WooCommerce balances its open source ethos, support challenges, and global reach, as well as the platform’s growing focus on AI and enhanced integration with WordPress Core. Brian also shares insights into upcoming features and the evolving landscape of e-commerce, emphasising WooCommerce’s adaptability and strong community connections. If you want to hear how WooCommerce and WordPress are responding to a rapidly changing tech environment, this episode is for you.

In this episode of WP Tavern, Nathan Wrigley talks with Muntasir Sakib about the crucial importance of marketing in the WordPress plugin ecosystem. Muntasir shares insights from his experience growing popular plugins and discusses how product success today depends not just on great development, but on early, strategic marketing, ongoing community engagement, partnerships, and prioritising recurring revenue over quick wins like lifetime deals. The episode offers practical advice for developers and founders hoping to stand out and succeed in a saturated marketplace.

In this episode, Johanne Courtright chats with Nathan Wrigley about her journey in WordPress development, focusing on enhancing the block editor (Gutenberg). She discusses her project, Groundworx, which adds features and custom blocks tailored for agencies and advanced users, such as improved breakpoints, colour palettes, and navigation options. They explore the challenges of shifting to full site editing, the 80/20 rule in WordPress Core, and the evolving ecosystem for block-based business models. Johanne also emphasises the need for better plugin discoverability and user experience in the WordPress directory. Whether you’re a developer eager to modernise your workflow, or just curious about extending Gutenberg for real-world use, this episode is for you.

In this episode, Nathan Wrigley chats with Topher DeRosia about the impact of doing things in public within the WordPress community. Topher shares how openness, community involvement, and generosity have shaped his career and personal life, reflecting on organic reputation and the balance between commercial and philanthropic forces in open source. They discuss the importance of giving back, building friendships, and the long-term benefits of sharing work, highlighting the value of supporting newcomers and the ongoing evolution of WordPress. If you’ve ever wondered about the power of sharing your work, finding meaning in open communities, or how to make a difference over the long term, this episode is for you.

In this episode, Saumya Majumder joins Nathan Wrigley to discuss innovations at BigScoots, focusing on high-performance WordPress hosting and Cloudflare-powered architecture. They unpack the recent global Cloudflare outage, the complexities of internet infrastructure, and Cloudflare’s transparency in response. Saumya explains advanced caching technologies, BigScoots’ direct physical connection with Cloudflare, and their custom cache plugin, highlighting how these developments offer speed, security, and fine-grained control for WordPress users, agencies, and enterprise clients. If you’re curious about how hosting companies manage such advanced caching strategies, and how Cloudflare might fit into the hosting jigsaw, this episode is for you.

In this episode, Nathan Wrigley talks with Devin Walker, the new Artistic Director (Head) of Jetpack at Automattic. Devin shares his background in WordPress, the challenges and opportunities of leading Jetpack, and his plans to bring focus, simplify the experience, and improve both functionality and marketing. They discuss Jetpack’s strengths, weaknesses, upcoming AI features, organisational changes at Automattic, and the importance of listening to user feedback to enhance Jetpack over the next year. If you’re a WordPress user wondering where Jetpack is headed, what’s working, or how AI fits into the future of site building, this episode is for you.

In this episode, Roger Williams joins Nathan Wrigley to discuss the complexities and evolution of sponsored contributions in the WordPress community. They explore how companies like Kinsta can support WordPress and other open source projects, balancing philanthropic goals with business realities. The conversation covers practical strategies for sponsorship, bridging gaps between individuals and organisations, and the challenges of aligning community-driven and financial motivations to ensure WordPress continues to thrive. If you’re interested in how WordPress sponsorships work, how business and community might collaborate, or you’re seeking practical advice as a contributor or company, this episode is for you.

In this WP Tavern Jukebox podcast episode, Nathan Wrigley talks with Joshua Bryant about how Dow Jones uses WordPress in a headless setup to power major news sites like the Wall Street Journal. Joshua shares how his team decoupled the Gutenberg editor, embedding it in a React application for super-fast, distraction-free publishing, crucial for breaking news. He explains the technical process, challenges faced, and the benefits for editorial workflows, highlighting the importance of time-saving and adaptability for large-scale, enterprise publishing environments. If you’re interested in headless WordPress, editorial workflows at scale, or how enterprise newsrooms leverage open-source tech for real-world speed, this episode is for you.

On the podcast today we have Arnas Donauskas from Hostinger. Arnas shares how Hostinger uses AI to help users build, fix, and optimise WordPress sites, automatically detecting errors, applying fixes, and improving performance. He highlights their AI’s 70% success rate in resolving issues, discusses ongoing improvements, and addresses the balance between automation and user control. The conversation also touches on the integration of AI with WordPress’ open source values and what’s next for AI-driven website management. It’s an insightful look into how AI is transforming web hosting. If you’re curious about how artificial intelligence is transforming WordPress hosting and site management, and what this means for the future of the web, this episode is for you.

In this episode of WP Tavern, Seth Rubenstein from Pew Research Center talks with host Nathan Wrigley about advanced WordPress development, focusing on block composability in Gutenberg. Seth explains how new APIs, Block Bindings, Block Bits, and the Interactivity API, are making WordPress more powerful, enabling developers and editors to build dynamic web applications, like complex quizzes, directly in the block editor. They discuss the potential for easier UI interfaces and the promising future of WordPress as a flexible platform for interactive content, while touching on performance improvements and upcoming needs like responsive blocks. Whether you’re a developer curious about the future of Gutenberg or an editor dreaming of more drag-and-drop web app power, this episode is for you.