Month: May 2025
-
How to Build a CSS-Only Carousel in WordPress Gutenberg with Zero JavaScript
Creating an accessible, functional, and beautiful carousel in WordPress has traditionally meant reaching for a plugin—or writing custom JavaScript. But not anymore. Thanks to a new CSS spec, CSS Overflow Module Level 5, we can now build fully accessible carousels using nothing but HTML and CSS. And in this tutorial, I’ll show you how to…
-
When AI Avatars Look (and Sound) Like Us — What Happens Next?
One of the areas we’re exploring at Automattic is how generative AI might help us improve video content — for support, training, and product demos. And one of the most fascinating frontiers is AI avatars: realistic video presenters created entirely by machines, sometimes based on real people. I wrote about this recently in an article,…
-
When My Heart Went Wonky, the Whole World Went Wonky Too
by Me (a totally normal person who now owns multiple pulse oximeters) One morning, completely out of the blue, my heart decided to start improvising. You know how hearts usually go thump-thump-thump, nice and regular, like a dependable old wall clock or a well-behaved metronome? Mine went thump…thump-thump…pause…JAZZ SOLO! It turns out this was a…
-
How We Can Scale WordPress Education in Universities (and Why AI is the Catalyst)
Just finished teaching a WordPress course at OFFF Barcelona with an amazing group of young, energised creatives. They had no idea what was possible with WordPress — and they care deeply about creativity, freedom, and open source. The workshop sold out a week before the event, with all 25 places gone and over 30 people…
-
The Future of Growth Isn’t Just in Code — It’s in Content
Greg Isenberg recently posted something that caught my attention: "The fastest path to your first $10M today is not in the IDE. It is in the FYP." It was aimed at founders — but it has real implications for established brands too. As someone working on a platform like WordPress.com, I see this shift every…
-
The Proof is in the Personalization: Real Brands, Real Results
Still sending the same message to everyone? These brands didn't—and the results speak for themselves. 🎯 Kent Brushes (UK)Swapped out their standard Black Friday emails for hyper-personalized ones and saw an 839% increase in email-attributed revenue.Source: Klaviyo 🎯 Ferris State University (US)Tailored their website content to each visitor's stage in the funnel. Result? A 2798%…
-
WordPress Is Sitting on a Goldmine — And the Feature API Just Dug the First Tunnel
WordPress is sitting on a goldmine. Over the past 20 years, its community has created more than 60,000 plugins — a massive, decentralized library of tools, ideas, and functionality. But until now, accessing that collective intelligence has been like trying to tap into an archive with no index. That’s where the new Feature API comes…
-
The Whole World Changes When Video Gen AI Gets Usable
The other night, I was talking to my daughter Lily. She’s in her second year of film school — passionate, creative, obsessed with cinema. But she was having a bit of an existential crisis. “What’s the point of learning all this,” she asked, “if AI is going to be able to make films better and…
-
5 Incredible Things Coming to WordPress Through the Features API
How a quiet shift in architecture could redefine how we build and interact with WordPress WordPress is changing — and not in the way people usually say it is. This shift isn’t aesthetic. It’s not about blocks or admin redesigns or even the embrace of full-site editing. What’s happening under the hood is far more…
-
No-Code vs. Vibe Coding: A New Frontier or a Tired Debate?
The no-code vs. code debate isn’t new—but it’s evolving. Recently, a public exchange on Facebook between two professionals, Umar Mirza and Ahmad Awais (Founder & CEO at Langbase), reignited the conversation. It revealed not just differing opinions, but two fundamentally different visions for the future of software creation. Umar Mirza: No-Code Is About EmpowermentUmar Mirza…
-
The Old Way of Marketing Is Dying — Welcome to Vibe Marketing
Over the past few months, I’ve been deep diving into vibe coding — a faster, more intuitive way of building software that prioritizes taste, speed, and experimentation over bloated frameworks and traditional workflows. What started as a creative detour quickly turned into a revelation. Vibe coding isn’t just a new technique — it’s a mindset…