I was recently on Jeff’s podcast over at WPMainline. A good part of the conversation was about the GoDaddy acquisition of Pagely. We also chatted about community and how some frustrations have led to great people moving on.
But with the acquisitions, blocks, community disruption, etc. etc. etc., a thought occurred to me. We focus on the versions of WordPress, but what about community?
Three Versions Ago
I like to think of it this way.
WordPress Community Version 1.0
This is when it all started. WordPress moved on from being a sparkle in Matt’s eye to something on the web.
WordPress Community Version 2.0
I’m not sure exactly when this came out, but am looking at the 2007 – 2010 time frame. Why? This is when I started using WordPress. Ha. Well, that isn’t the reason. This was the time period a lot of the veterans in the space started up businesses. Or entered the space themselves.
But more importantly I think around 2010 WordPress really started to gain traction. Why do I feel this way. From experience and having talked to others, this we a sweet spot. Where the rubber hit the highway. And again, from conversations with others, this seemed to be a ripe time to really dive into the space.
And lastly, what followed in that time, I can guess that the community started kicking up a few notches.
WordPress Community Version 3.0
This one happened in the last couple of years, or maybe when 5.0 came out for WordPress. This is when the stuff hit the fan. More rapid innovation and more rustling in the community. Acquisitions are on the journey to become a norm. Rumblings were hot and heavy. And the community, well, started feeling different. Depending on who you are and what you perceive, those feelings where either really good, kind of sucky or a mix of everything between.
Now rest assure, this is something that came to me as I was driving back from the grocery store at 7:30 am while having just listened to Cory from Post Status talk to Josh from Pagely about the acquisition.
I suppose I could go on to fill a lot of versions of the community between those versions. That would be fun, but obviously time-consuming.
All I know is that I am curious now about version 4.0.
Update/Sidenote:
I had the chance to go on the Post Status podcast and take a deep-dive with David Bisset on this topic.
And here is a poll he took on Twitter with some interesting results and comments as well.
#WordPress folks: based on @BobWP post here what WP generation do you feel you belong to?https://t.co/bjNynPvjL6 — David Bisset (@dimensionmedia) December 31, 2021
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