The good news is that the WP Tavern isn’t dead, as Remkus de Vries suspected:
Surely we must conclude by now that @wptavern is dead, right?
I mean, apart from @wpbuilds‘ podcast.
— Remkus de Vries (@remkusdevries) July 4, 2024
Matt Mullenweg weighed to apologise and explain that he has been busy with other projects:
“Just that I’m so sorry, there are only so many hours in the day and a lot of mine have been on keeping other things moving.”
He was also away on a sabbatical for a while – he’s probably still catching up on his emails.
So, for everyone’s benefit, I’ll quickly recap where we are at. And then make a case for the WP Tavern v2.
- Back in November last year, Sarah Gooding moved on from her role as Editor
- Matt organized a Hunger-games style A/B testing of potential replacements (explained here)
- 7 candidates published a potpourri of posts over a couple of months – see the screenshot below
- No winners were selected
- The news feed dried and was recently replaced by podcast episodes (a good idea)
- Remkus de Vries posted the aforementioned Tweet/X.
So, what next? Matt could decide to complete the hiring exercise and soon enough fresh blood (or cold beer?) will be flowing again through the Tavern’s pages.
Or… is there an opportunity now to re-think the WP Tavern’s role in the ecosystem and the content it should focus on?
Why the WP Tavern should change (or, at least, should think about changing)
There have never been as many news publications covering WordPress news as we have today. And they are of the highest quality, too: blogs, podcasts, newsletters, hashtags… I can’t keep up! I think most will agree that WordPress news is being taken care of and that we don’t need more of it.
I also think timing is right for a change. The project’s Marketing function/strategy is evolving and similar discussions are taking place: what should it be? Now is the perfect time to brainstorm ideas about connecting the two.
The starting point for this exercise should be: how can the WordPress community benefit from the re-positioning? It’s not for the news, for the reason mentioned above. The answer, I think, is what’s on most of our minds (and keeping up Josepha Haden Chomphosy up at night): Marketing WordPress.
Yep, I’m talking about good ol’ fashioned story-telling (aka Content Marketing). But more L’Unità than Hubspot. It’s unlikely you would have heard about the former, an Italian newspaper, founded as the official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party 100 years ago, so let me explain.
I used to catch the train to high school, a half-hour ride into the city and an opportunity to catch up with the latest Italian soccer news by reading il Corriere dello Sport. Given the political environment at the time – this was the 80s – a lot of grownups were reading L’Unità, which was the “Organ of the Italian Communist Party” as stated in the masthead. That is, the official publication of the Italian Communist Party and a very effective piece of content marketing if you consider that it has survived until this day (while the party has evolved many times over).
Should the WP Tavern position itself as the official publication of the WordPress project? I don’t think it’s such a bad idea: to closely associate great content and its brand equity with the project and its vision.
The WP Tavern should be more like an inflight magazine
This is a lazy idea – I haven’t spent anytime researching its audience (current and future), but I think it’s an interesting one because of the type of content they feature.
(I’m including the cover of Philippine Airline’s Mabuhay Magazine as an example here to act as a lucky charm for my WordCamp Asia 2025 ambitions).
When you flick through an inflight magazines you typically read the following:
- Featured stories: usually about some fancy destination
WP Tavern’s version: highlight great things about WordPress - Interviews: Airline staff and customers
WP Tavern’s version: Spotlighting contributors, end users and the wider WordPress community - Product overviews: Routes, airline classes, loungers and associated products and services
WP Tavern’s version: Use cases and feature highlights - Airliner specs: Photos and seating plans
WP Tavern’s version: Block themes and the components that make them up - Safety information: What to do in case of an emergency
WP Tavern’s version: Security tips - Entertainment guide: Info about what passengers can ‘consume’ during their flights
WP Tavern’s version: Highlighting podcasts, WordPress TV and events streamed live - Shopping: Perfumes, pens and toy plans
WP Tavern’s version: WordPress merch!
This makes interesting reading, right? I think the WP Tavern could publish a mixture of promotional, informational and education content that can appeal to the non-WordPress crowd too – collateral the WordPress Marketing team can use in their future efforts to promote the platform.
Powered by Newspack?
Technically and monetarily – someone has to pay for my rather ambitious vision for the Tavern!
It makes sense, though. The WP Tavern can act as Newspack‘s own trophy publication as well as testing grounds for new functionality. Also, to shift responsibility off Matt’s busy shoulders. It can also be packaged up as a template publication, a free Block Theme anyone can download to kicks start a publishing empire.
It would be a bit of a messy deal, though. The WP Tavern is owned by Audrey Capital, Matt Mullenweg’s own angel investment and research company, for the benefit of the WordPress Project and in partnership with Newspack, an Automattic product. But doable.
No last call, please
I’ll finish off with a scary graph showing the WP Tavern’s steady decline in traffic.
The red line marks the month Sarah Gooding left – November 2023. Assuming data is accurate, it looks like traffic was already declining then and continued to drop. This isn’t looking healthy, but the brand has equity and the domain authority. There are definitely opportunities there if some resources can be thrown at it.
