One of the major highlights of the recent WordCamp Europe 2016 was Matt Mullenweg’s interview (Q&A) on the first day of the event.
Brian Krogsgard, the editor of Post Status, sat down with Matt Mullenweg to discuss the current status and future of the WordPress ecosystem. The interview later continued with questions from the live audience, including those chosen from Twitter and Slack.
Matt Mullenweg was amazed by the massive participation and mentioned that the event had raised the bar for the upcoming flagship event – WordCamp US 2016.
You can watch his complete interview in the video from WordPress.TV below.
I have highlighted few of his major points from the interview that I found interesting after watching the live interview.
Learning Javascript Deeply
Matt Mullenweg reiterated the importance of learning Javascript deeply and that JavaScript and API-driven interfaces are the future of WordPress.
He believes that users won’t be publishing the same way they do now in the next ten years, and so WordPress will need to evolve and adapt to meet those future needs even in a decade-long time.
Views on WordPress Competitors – Medium, Tumblr
Matt Mullenweg assured us that WordPress has a better publishing experience than some of the recent platforms such as Medium.
When questioned about WordPress competitiveness and how some publishers were switching or adopting Medium as their choice of platform (with reference to Nieman Lab article), Matt argued that Medium was, in fact, paying them and guaranteeing them revenue to convince switching to their platform.
Adding to the discussion comparing other platforms, he says that it’s not just about ease of use and that there have been easier platforms such as Blogger that have fewer steps involved in publishing.
He rather identified Tumblr as one of the best competitors for WordPress, stating that it’s better by 80-100 times than Medium. He further advised that although the platform is in decline after having been sold to Yahoo, there’re still things that WordPress can learn from the old Tumblr.
Matt concludes that WordPress has thrived mainly because of its flexibility and the community and that those are the two things WordPress has done better than any of its competitors.
WordPress.com, WooCommerce, JetPack, .blog domains
In addition to leading the WordPress Foundation, Matt Mullenweg is the CEO of Automattic, a company behind WordPress.com, JetPack, WooCommerce and others that are related to the WordPress ecosystem. Automattic is also one of the major contributors to the open-source WordPress community and as such works of Matt and Automattic, in general, are also of significant interest to the community.
Matt reveals that WordPress.com, WooCommerce, JetPack, .blog domains (in that order..) are major businesses under Automattic and that they are complementary to each other and also to the community as a whole.
Matt believes in giving more to the community in comparison to what they make from the World. He adds that giving back is a way forward for modern enterprises and something that several companies in the WordPress ecosystem are already doing.
Operating system for the Open Web
Matt believes in the broad vision of WordPress serving as the operating system of the open web. He believes all of us in the WordPress community are equipped with the force of good and openness and that all of us have an opportunity to create software for the future that is around in hundred of years.
He believes all of us in the WordPress community are equipped with the force of good and openness and that all of us have an opportunity to create software for the future that is around in hundred of years.
Matt Mullenweg Interview on WordPress Weekly Podcast
If you want to hear more from Matt on some of the topics in the interview, you can listen to the latest WordPress Weekly podcast from WP Tavern.
The podcast hosts follow up on his important views from the interview and discuss many other topics related to WordPress.
What do you think of his long-term vision of WordPress? Let us know if you have anything interesting to mention from the interview in the comments below.
Featured image by Florian Ziegler. Check out his awesome WordCamp Europe 2016 photos on Flickr.