There’s a paradox at the heart of modern media: the more polished something looks, the less we trust it. Legacy media, television, film, even traditional journalism, spent decades perfecting the art of presentation: clean cuts, studio lighting, voiceover gravitas. But on YouTube, this aesthetic can backfire. The most effective creators don’t try to replicate television.…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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. 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 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…

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…

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…

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…

If you've chosen to turn off monetization on your YouTube channel or specific videos, you might expect that no ads will run. But the reality is more complicated. In fact, YouTube can still show ads on your regular videos, even if you’ve disabled monetization. Here's what you need to know. YouTube's Right to Monetize Your…

How to Create High-Converting StoryBrand-Style Personalized Landing Pages Using Omnisend, Bolt.new, and WordPress (Beginner’s Guide) If you want to create landing pages that feel personal, professional, and high-converting — without hiring a developer — this guide is for you. In just a few minutes, I’ll show you how to build StoryBrand-style personalized landing pages that…

Creating a horizontally scrolling marquee in WordPress is a fun and eye-catching way to show off client logos, testimonials, team members, or anything you want to continuously loop across the screen. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to do this using only core Gutenberg blocks and a bit of CSS magic. No plugins or…

“Humans are just models too.” That’s what James Cameron recently said when talking about AI and copyright — and he’s kind of right. We, as humans, consume vast amounts of information throughout our lives and remix it to create ideas, stories, and solutions. That sounds a lot like what large language models (LLMs) do too.…

The data-driven case for putting video at the heart of your content strategy A few days ago, I shared the infographic below on X — originally published by Neil Patel — showing how much time people spend each day with different types of content. 📊 Articles: 16 minutes📊 Podcasts: 53 minutes📊 Videos: 154 minutes The…

A quiet revolution is underway. Just as the App Store transformed mobile, AI is now unlocking a new wave of digital creation: remixable software. We’re stepping into an era where building from scratch is optional. The future belongs to those who remix—fast, creatively, and intuitively. From Vibe Coding to Remix Culture Software used to mean…

How I Use YouTube to Grow My Email List (And How You Can Too) If you’re creating content on YouTube and not using it to grow your email list, you’re missing a huge opportunity. Sure, subscribers and views are great—but building an email list gives you something even better: a direct line to your audience…

We’ve built two simple, powerful apps — PootleWriter and PootlePhotos — to make creating and publishing WordPress content easier than ever. But just as important as usability is privacy and security. So here’s something we want you to know: We never see your content. Not even for a moment. How It Works (Without the Tech…

When WordPress.com launched its new AI-powered website builder, the response was largely positive. People appreciated how easy it made the setup process, how quickly it generated content, and how beginner-friendly the experience felt. But the real significance of the launch went deeper than most reactions suggested. This wasn’t just a smart assistant that writes your…

A book that predicted cyberspace, rogue AIs, and the future of intelligence…But missed a few big things too. Published in 1984, Neuromancer helped invent cyberpunk.Gibson imagined a world of jacked-in hackers, mega-corps, and powerful AIs.40 years later, it still feels eerily relevant.But how accurate was it? ✅ Self-aware AI? Nailed it.Wintermute and Neuromancer are conscious…

Pootlewriter is a simple, fast, and minimal writing app that I built to help me write better and stay focused. It’s designed for anyone who wants a calm space to get words down without the usual distractions of traditional word processors or complex content tools. There’s no login, no setup, and no fluff. Just open…

What the Luddites can teach us about today’s AI fears Today, we’re seeing the first signs of resistance. Not in the streets — yet — but in trade journals, opinion pieces, and union halls. Writers. Photographers, Illustrators, Lawyers. Teachers. Programmers. Professionals who once felt safe from automation are now raising alarms. They fear being replaced…

There was a time when Google felt like a generous librarian. You wrote good stuff, it helped people find it. A fair deal. But year by year, that deal got worse. 1998–2011:A golden age (in hindsight). Publish useful content, earn links, get traffic. Google even told you what people searched to find you. Transparency felt…

Slightly off-topic, but this post was sparked by a conversation with my daughter Lily, who’s in her second year of film school. Her class was discussing how AI might reshape the future of acting—and it got me thinking… By now, most of us have had some brush with generative AI—whether through a chatbot, a synthetic…

Thinking about going headless with WordPress and building a beautiful front end using Loveable.dev? This guide walks you through the full process — from setup to launch — and includes a free downloadable cheat sheet to help you get going faster. Why go headless? Using WordPress as a content management system (CMS) and Loveable as…

In the same way that vinyl album covers defined an era of music, YouTube thumbnails are becoming the cultural artefacts of our digital age. They’re not just scroll-stoppers – they’re the new album covers, and perhaps the purest design challenge of the internet era. They live at the intersection of emotion, speed, and performance, where…

In the 1950s, if you wanted premium print—wedding invites, packaging, letterheads—you went to the die stamper. Heavy metal plates. Pressure. Precision. Each indentation a mark of craftsmanship. Then came litho. Faster. Cheaper. Die stamping started to feel… nostalgic. Then digital. No plates. No mess. Anyone with a laptop could do what once took a workshop…

In B2B sales—especially in industries like web hosting, cloud services, and enterprise software—there’s a persistent myth that buyers make decisions based purely on logic, features, pricing, and ROI. But thanks to Rand Fishkin, I recently came across a fascinating study by Bain & Company and Google that completely flipped that idea on its head. It…