Newsroom  ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **WP Engine Targets Publishing Niche** - WP Engine's Newsroom targets the same publishing specialization space long dominated by WordPress VIP. - Winning a few large media contracts gives hosting firms a sticky workflow advantage across editorial tools. Transcript: Luke Did you see the news about WP Engine releasing Newsroom? Jonathan Yeah, I did. I'm curious about it for a number of reasons, but the first thing that struck me is that it's a foray directly into VIP territory, because historically, that's very much been WordPress VIP's main thing, right, is this focus on a publishing space. Luke So let's see if we can get through this episode without you mentioning the words operating and system in the same sentence but yes this is a specialization of WordPress with like very Specific plugins built to work together that is all tailored in and around news sites. And it's something that WordPress VIP has been doing for a very long time. And now we have a new player in that space. Jonathan One thing, like, so first, I like the media and publishing industry. I think it's important. My sense is that there's diminishing returns there. So one thing that strikes me as interesting is, like, what business is WP Engine going after? ([Time 0:01:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/28a54de6-6296-457a-8e74-c37f3d9e91f6)) - **Publishing Clients Are Highly Sticky** - Media customers buy entire publishing workflows, not just hosting, making them hard to move. - That stickiness creates deep, valuable relationships even if the overall market is small. Transcript: Jonathan Thing, like, so first, I like the media and publishing industry. I think it's important. My sense is that there's diminishing returns there. So one thing that strikes me as interesting is, like, what business is WP Engine going after? So certainly there's going to be competitive interest in going after VIPs, clientele, but it's like, I haven't seen media as like a really big growing space. So that's interesting to me, but maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. I think if you can get a couple of those big media hosting contracts, because it's really a sticky product. Luke Those media sites aren't just, that's fair. They're not just buying WordPress, right? Or just buying hosting. They're buying a whole workflow, which includes like a asset management and publishing workflows and editing things and all of that stuff put together into WordPress. And that's hard. It's hard to train into. It's hard to train your staff into. And so if you're going to switch away to a different system, then you need to do all of this extra change in training and updates for people. So it's interesting. ([Time 0:02:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9846e39a-aa04-4cae-b8af-2a8cc8b38dba)) - **Acquisition Signals Sales-Led Play** - WP Engine's BigByte acquisition signals a sales-first strategy to land publisher logos. - This move likely reshapes agency partnerships and competitive dynamics with WordPress VIP. Transcript: Jonathan A better metaphor. One thing I found interesting about this is with the acquisition of Bigbyte, the first thing that came to mind for me, because Bigbyte is an agency, is, oh, I wonder how this is going to Affect their relationship with VIP because they were one of the agency partners. And as of my checking just a moment ago, Bigbyte is no longer listed as a WordPress VIP agency partner, which isn't a big surprise. But that was what struck me as interesting about this is the angle of like, huh, they acquired Big Byte, an agency that has connections in the media space. They also, and they have a media press plugin. So this is, it's interesting to me because it's like a, I presume some like more unintended consequences of the overall conflict between Automatic and WP Engine. And it'll be interesting to see what it means. ([Time 0:03:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8fccdca3-4feb-4147-9161-575eebdba652)) - **Keep Agency Options Open** - Agencies should avoid forcing a single-hosting allegiance and try to maintain relationships across platforms. - Seek level heads so agencies don't have to choose between WP Engine and WordPress VIP. Transcript: Jonathan No I mean those are certainly the big categories I think there's there's smaller like subcategories of that where it's I was thinking about like corporate sites but yeah in terms of What gets marketed um it's probably connected to WordPress's roots in publishing, right? Like there's a very natural progression over time. We saw that from our agency days where folks like News Corp Australia at the time were pioneers and on the media space in terms of adopting WordPress. But to me, it's definitely one of its most successful sort of categories. And it's interesting for a lot of these publishing houses, WordPress really becomes the operating base for what they're doing. Yeah. Luke And one more thought on this is, I wonder if there's like a trickle down mentality. You know, if we can get the biggest websites in the world, which are frequently news sites, right, the biggest publishers in the world on our hosting platform using WordPress with us, Then that's a logo we can put on our website. That's something that can then trickle down to smaller sites and we can use them as proof that we're capable of even the biggest and the best. Jonathan What stands out to me about WP Engine in particular, and this is older context, right? ([Time 0:05:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/072cbd4f-048e-4fa1-8312-059976690cf2)) - **Positioning Often Beats Technical Novelty** - WP Engine's strength may be in storytelling and sales rather than deep technical innovation. - Positioning Newsroom helps them win big deals even if the product isn't radically new. Transcript: Jonathan It's not that their products are all that technically superior, but they sell them very well. Luke I wonder, there's two things I wonder. One is like, is there also a technical layer to this? You know, you've got the WordPress admin user interface changes, updates, whatever, to make editorial workflows better. But like, what is the publishing? Sorry, what is, how do I say it? Like, if I want to add my own custom theme, if I want to add my own custom plugin, is there a different process? Like there is with WordPress VIP. It's all got to be reviewed and approved and things like this. And meet certain standards. Are those standards going to be the same? Is this a VIP competitor or is it only just, what is Automatic's newsroom thing called? Newspack is what this is called. Yeah. Is it just a Newspack competitor? And then the other thing that I wonder then is if this is a shot at vip in general you have this concept of vip certified agencies right these are our vip partners can an agency be a partner Jonathan With wp engine and automatic right and this is where i think if i'm in an agency's shoes right now, this is going ([Time 0:07:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/96b3257c-b2fe-48e5-8b51-f322169310fd)) - **Agent Skills Move Enables AI Contributions** - WordPress Agent Skills moving to a separate repo signals active encouragement of AI contributors to WordPress. - This opens possibilities for automating contributions but raises governance questions. Transcript: Luke Other news, did you see this AI stuff with WordPress agent skills moved to their own official separate repo? The idea here is that we're moving towards a future. We're actively encouraging a future where we can show people and we can show AI how to most effectively contribute to WordPress. Jonathan Yeah, that is interesting. Did you see that, what is it, MaltBot or something? Oh, yeah. This little. Keeps getting rebranded. Yeah. Yes. Claw something now, yeah. This phenomena where folks were having like their AIs like publish and like talk to each other or whatever. It's kind of interesting to observe. That made me think I'm interested to see what our WordPresses can do. You and I talked. You weren't having it at all a few years back where I brought up this idea of, hey, it would be fun if I could have in a game where like WordPress installs, like talk to the other and like do These things. That's something I played with a number of years back, which I don't know. That's what that made me, there's all this agent stuff. It's like, it's like we're pretending, but also there is some really interesting capabilities that are possible when you've set them up well. So yeah, I'm in a position though of like, well, I'm just going to wait and see how this stuff shakes out. ([Time 0:09:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9ec05385-63c4-47ac-80f9-db91862974c9)) - **AI Social Platforms Risk Waste** - New social AI platforms like OpenClaw generate lots of short-lived, resource-intensive outputs. - Luke warns this can be wasteful, polluting, and akin to the crypto hype cycle. Transcript: Jonathan Oh, yeah. This little. Keeps getting rebranded. Yeah. Yes. Claw something now, yeah. This phenomena where folks were having like their AIs like publish and like talk to each other or whatever. It's kind of interesting to observe. That made me think I'm interested to see what our WordPresses can do. You and I talked. You weren't having it at all a few years back where I brought up this idea of, hey, it would be fun if I could have in a game where like WordPress installs, like talk to the other and like do These things. That's something I played with a number of years back, which I don't know. That's what that made me, there's all this agent stuff. It's like, it's like we're pretending, but also there is some really interesting capabilities that are possible when you've set them up well. So yeah, I'm in a position though of like, well, I'm just going to wait and see how this stuff shakes out. I've been fun watching how people are using some of these tools locally, but I don't know about it. Luke That might be a bit irresponsible of you, Jonathan. I think we're in a real time of change, and the people making decisions now are making decisions that are going to affect us long-term. If suddenly we have this huge influx of, I don't know, like a plug-in submitted to the plug-in repo that are all just AI generated, and then that's going to have long-term consequences. Maybe they don't get frequently updated. Maybe it becomes really hard to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones. And this open claw to me seems like a huge waste of resources. I hate it from, I feel like it's littering. That's what I don't like about it. Do you know what I mean? It's just dropping resources for no reason. ([Time 0:10:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e01b6077-7be9-483f-b653-fab87a59a199)) - **Caution: Govern AI Contributions** - Be conservative about integrating AI into contributor workflows and repository governance. - Plan policies now to avoid long-term problems from mass AI-generated plugins or submissions. Transcript: Luke That might be a bit irresponsible of you, Jonathan. I think we're in a real time of change, and the people making decisions now are making decisions that are going to affect us long-term. If suddenly we have this huge influx of, I don't know, like a plug-in submitted to the plug-in repo that are all just AI generated, and then that's going to have long-term consequences. Maybe they don't get frequently updated. Maybe it becomes really hard to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones. And this open claw to me seems like a huge waste of resources. I hate it from, I feel like it's littering. That's what I don't like about it. Do you know what I mean? It's just dropping resources for no reason. The idea here is that different AIs, well, OpenClaw is just a platform that will allow it, but there's a new website social media for ai and open claw is you know the the way to facilitate Your own ai to get there and it just seems like a waste we're not getting anything or gaining anything from it and you know it's entertainment value yeah it costs money and it costs real Compute it costs real resources that really do affect the planet you i don't i won't go down this rabbit hole too much but like you can look into some of the dodgy things that some of the Ai startups are doing to get compute up and running really quickly and it is polluting you know and so whatever, like I'm not fully anti-AI, just this seems a bit wasteful. But I do think that we are currently in this moment where everybody is so, so, so excited about AI that they just like, it's like the crypto moment. Everybody's just head over heels. And it feels to me like nobody is thinking straight or able to make long-term decisions, wise long-term decisions. Jonathan I'm worried. I don't know, man. I think my approach of like waiting to see, I like to say like just a little bit beyond, behind the cutting edge, right? Like for me, one thing that I'm really interested in is like, I've been writing notes for years and years and years. Like I have decades of notes spread out all over different places on my computers. And being able to go back through and have interesting conversations or bring back things that I don't recall in my short-term memory is really intriguing to me. Gives me even the time that I take in recording these, even the time that I take in editing these crossword transcripts. Part of what's interesting to me is being able to go back through in the future and ask questions or find things or remember things sort of more readily. So I don't know. I'm interested to see where this stuff goes. Luke That's great. I'm glad AI is working for you. It's working for me too. I use it every day. I'm not so much interested in like the individual use case, how we use it here and there, but more how are we setting up our systems moving forward? How are we enabling or encouraging or expecting AI to become a regular part of contributing to WordPress? ([Time 0:11:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/63ae9030-a43f-439b-aaa1-576a5759ac7b)) - **Using AI To Resurface Old Notes** - Jonathan uses decades of personal notes and sees AI as a way to surface long-forgotten ideas. - He wants AI to help query and rediscover past recordings and transcripts. Transcript: Jonathan Like for me, one thing that I'm really interested in is like, I've been writing notes for years and years and years. Like I have decades of notes spread out all over different places on my computers. And being able to go back through and have interesting conversations or bring back things that I don't recall in my short-term memory is really intriguing to me. Gives me even the time that I take in recording these, even the time that I take in editing these crossword transcripts. Part of what's interesting to me is being able to go back through in the future and ask questions or find things or remember things sort of more readily. So I don't know. ([Time 0:13:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4d1c2240-5853-46b6-af5e-cba725b0c88e))