


<p>Um, and somehow they all get channeled into like, you wouldn&#8217;t really wanna do this because your media library would [01:09:00] fill up and most hosting companies limit your disc space, whatever. But if you&#8217;re like, you know, I&#8217;m writing a blog post about, you know, my, my RVing trip with my wife. It&#8217;s like, I. Throw images off my phone, I might go and try to source some images from Unsplash and if all of them landed in my media library, uh, cropped correctly, sized correctly, stylized correctly, um, and then I could, and then it, they were there for me to choose from or something like that.  </p>



<p>So it&#8217;s like, you know, that&#8217;s not, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s a lot of things wrong with what I just described as an actual product, but, or problem to solve. But it&#8217;s like, we can definitely start looking at again, if, if we get feedback that&#8217;s upstream. Bless you. Um, upstream, you know, part of the problem of sourcing images or finding images or, you know, it&#8217;s like, or even getting them off of our, our devices and into WordPress, if that&#8217;s a pain, [01:10:00] you know, you&#8217;re, If you&#8217;re dropboxing it to your PC and then uploading it from your PC into your media library and then selecting it in your posts, then you know, what&#8217;s the, the one click?  </p>



<p>Like take it without signing into WordPress from your phone, you know, what&#8217;s the quick share to your WordPress install little utility plugin or something like that. I use a, um, an app on my iPhone called Flight that is free, and it&#8217;s basically for emailing anything to myself. Um, but it uses the share, so it&#8217;s like I&#8217;m browsing.  </p>



<p>Any website or I&#8217;m in Amazon or whatever and I hit the little share icon and where it gives me the option to airdrop or it gives me the option to post it to Messenger so I can send it to my wife or whatever. Um, there&#8217;s a, a flight option and it opens up a little icon. I hit [01:11:00] post and it sends me an email with a link to whatever I&#8217;m looking at, cuz I&#8217;m in my inbox all day.  </p>



<p>And that&#8217;s kind of my ends up being my to-do list. And so in theory, you know, again, if we find that this is a huge pain point, there&#8217;s a, I&#8217;m looking through images on my phone. I click share, I click the, the send this to my WordPress install and it&#8217;s preconfigured to crop 16 nine, then it just lands in my, my media library already ready to go.  </p>



<p>You know, these are problems we can solve technically, once we&#8217;ve defined that there&#8217;s enough people that want that kind of solution.  </p>



<p>So&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> right now you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re working on the media library thing, um, d but do you like this right sidebar thing? What&#8217;s your thoughts on having it? Do [01:12:00] you crop express you the tool, whatever next version, thoughts or whatever? I&#8217;m trying to think through, uh, product guidance and give you enough.&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Sure. I mean, I think to me the,  </p>



<p>right now, the problems that I quote, unquote know we have because I have them and, and I want, if nothing else, I want you to be using this. I want my clients to be using this. I want, um, content journey to be using this is, um, featured image. Media library, uh, block editor, block, classic editor featured image.  </p>



<p>Those are the four to me, the four known integration points of WordPress and images. And then, and then that way anybody who stall installs this plugin is [01:13:00] going to interact. I mean, if, and Beaver Builder aside, or these other scenarios aside, you know, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s a very long tail of integration points, but the four primary integration points are covered at that point.  </p>



<p>And that&#8217;s, that to me is the bay, the, the bare minimum of if anybody installs this plugin, they&#8217;re guaranteed to interact with our plugin and then we can start seeing if it works for people. Yeah.&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> The thing I wanna do on my own is, um, chase this. More metaconcept of like purpose of the image and then just look around and see, you know, where it&#8217;s like images, the opinion I um, thesis of happiness images should add value, not subtract or be a distr distraction.  </p>



<p>How does that get done? How do people source it? You know? Mm-hmm. , how do we get that thing? There is a SEO value, you know, [01:14:00] from a good image, um, in that, and I, I want to chase that a little bit cause I think it&#8217;s gonna help us, you know, downstream cuz like if we, okay. If we do the thing you were just saying, get all the integration points, the, the basis covered.  </p>



<p>Yeah. That&#8217;s the free tool. Mm-hmm. to me. And then it&#8217;s like, you want more and better. And this is where we could explore downstream on the paid side is creation, sourcing, finding part of that. And I, I really like that because the free of those, like, here&#8217;s those points you&#8217;re gonna have and we&#8217;re gonna be utility, we&#8217;re gonna help make it easier, this problem easier, you know?  </p>



<p>Um, and then what it saves us is some of this bigger picture stuff for pro and paid. Like you really want to get serious about it, about doing this better. [01:15:00] This workflow, this outcome you&#8217;re getting. Here&#8217;s&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> paid. Yep. There&#8217;s, there&#8217;s certain WordPress plugins. Because I deal with, because I build web apps, um, and or because I control what my clients see when they sign in.  </p>



<p>I install user switching, uh, in, on many, many sites. I install duplicate pages. Like these are no-brainer, low lift, low impact. High value. You know, they add a button that frankly should exist in WordPress. And I think that&#8217;s kind of what we&#8217;re talking about here is like, yes, WordPress has cropping, but it&#8217;s dire.  </p>



<p>And so we are adding simple, basic functionality that arguably should be there or should be upgraded at this point. But where we take that sky&#8217;s the limit. Yeah. But if we can get, if we get to the point, I like that we keep talking about utility, [01:16:00] essentially is like if, if we are the sponge, the, uh, the coat rack, the, you know, the basic thing that every house has to have, um, you know, then, then we&#8217;re just gonna watch installs happen.  </p>



<p>Mm-hmm. , um, you know, that&#8217;s the dream, right? That hosting companies start recommending us because it&#8217;s just, It&#8217;s gonna save them support tickets. That&#8217;s the dream. Mm-hmm. . And then past that, all this thinking that we&#8217;re doing defines the the business.&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Okay. Take this for a second. I just wanna quickly sidebar on something.  </p>



<p>You hit another value add. So if for utility is, you know, making cropping easier, that&#8217;s our been our thesis. Um, you just put a use case. We&#8217;ve talked about beaver builder hosting companies. So I go, what&#8217;s a compelling thing? It&#8217;s okay. [01:17:00] Huge images don&#8217;t help anybody on the web. You know, h ginormous, it takes a dis space.  </p>



<p>It&#8217;s, you know, bandwidth. It&#8217;s all those things that&#8217;s compelling. Mm-hmm. . So then I go, this is just over here. An idea for us, this is like if, if we, if we take that angle and make this like the rockstar utility and that&#8217;s our base. To showcase. Okay, well you wanna go more? Here it is. Okay. Why would he host recommended it?  </p>



<p>It&#8217;s like, well, maybe there&#8217;s a tool out here that does this, but like when you put an image, it&#8217;s like, hey, fyi, you&#8217;re think maybe there&#8217;s a module or in the free at some point it&#8217;s like, by the way, this is 1000 million pixels wide, big disk size, it&#8217;s not the right, like some of that&#8217;s in in WordPress already, right?  </p>



<p>Mm-hmm. True. So true, true. Getting some of those details [01:18:00] to prevent, like it&#8217;s kind of a, for the hosts, kinda like a prevention, by the way, this is gonna help you and the tool right underneath it, A free tool. Is it gonna help you crop that to the right setting? There&#8217;s a compelling value proposition.  </p>



<p>Mm-hmm. , it&#8217;s like a, and this is 10 year old story, but my mom uses one of our themes and it&#8217;s got rotating images and she&#8217;s like, wow. 15 five megabyte files. That doesn&#8217;t help anybody. Doesn&#8217;t help the user. Right. Doesn&#8217;t help their visitor, doesn&#8217;t help the hosting company that checks a lot of boxes for a utility.  </p>



<p>So I almost wonder, it&#8217;s like conceptually you&#8217;ve uploaded an image to the media library and it&#8217;s like, hey, this is effing huge size it. Yep. So, I don&#8217;t know, I just want to see, cuz you know, technical, all the, the backend is like, conceptually speaking, you think [01:19:00] this is huge. You probably don&#8217;t even need it up here, but before we put it up here, we can make it better.  </p>



<p>Yep. Right there. That&#8217;s compelling. It&#8217;s like, You know, people would recommend it and support, because this is a, I&#8217;ve heard enough of this that I think it&#8217;s probably an issue. It&#8217;s like, it&#8217;s not gonna help your bandwidth , it&#8217;s only gonna, you know, most of these hosts have, uh, visitors&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> caps and, and disc space caps and Yeah.  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> And they&#8217;re solving it with CDNs and stuff on the other, you know, other side of it. You&#8217;re like, what if you could be proactive about it and help people get better images?&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Right. Well, and that&#8217;s, I mean, like, that goes back too to the, you know, creating, creating images, helping users create images that work with the themes, the theme and the design overall.  </p>



<p>It&#8217;s like if, if everywhere on your site you&#8217;ve got. Square images, why are you up uploading 16, nine featured image? You know? So it&#8217;s, um, you know, all part and parcel of, um, [01:20:00] the, the sort of cynical way of saying it is like protecting people from themselves. Um, but that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s like you said, on all fronts, the disk size, uh, or the image size, the space that it takes.  </p>



<p>So there&#8217;s bandwidth issues, um, you know, and making it look good the way humans view it. So, um, but yeah, I mean the, the upsell again, be by becoming a utility. Like there&#8217;s a number of, um, hosting companies that recommend certain plugins that have white list, white lists of recommended plugins or incurred, you know, and some of them I don&#8217;t, I don&#8217;t know.  </p>



<p>I&#8217;m not on enough hosts anymore to know, like, do they come that most of them have their own plug-in installed, but they don&#8217;t necessarily like pre-install a bunch of plug-ins for you. But, um, you know, but again, all good marketing copy, um, good relationships to be [01:21:00] building and, and taking advantage of. And, um, you know, and we, and in, in, in the inverse right, is hosting companies that we recommend working with that are trying to solve this problem.  </p>



<p>Again, kind of protect, protect people from themselves. If you&#8217;re non-technical, these are things, you know, ideally you&#8217;re not even having to think about. Well, and&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> give me another per person to put people to put on this. Um, asking about problems is hosting companies. Mm-hmm. , so probably hit up Jess from principal and some of my different contexts, but like from the utility value prop.  </p>



<p>The alone. This doesn&#8217;t get us to revenue as fast, but it&#8217;s like, get installed or get recommended. Huge. So the value prop, like if we can hit the value prop for the user, the end user, the agency, the hosting in a very simple, elegant way, just solve these little problems. Yeah. It&#8217;s like we, we all become the [01:22:00] defacto, um, recommended tool.  </p>



<p>Like Hendrick was saying, okay, it&#8217;s it&#8217;s forms, it&#8217;s seo, it&#8217;s this, it&#8217;s that. You know, like, why not put it up there? Maybe we&#8217;re not that tier, but we&#8217;re second tier in that recommended of like making your images better for everybody. Mm-hmm. . So that&#8217;s what made me think about as you&#8217;re working on the media library stuff is simple ways to say, this is really big, you know, why don&#8217;t you like, hey, two, two parts, just one is it&#8217;s huge.  </p>



<p>You don&#8217;t need it. You know, the file size is way too big. Way too big margin. The second I thought of is like, I didn&#8217;t think about this until you said this, but themes have recommended default ratios, right? So it&#8217;s like we can go back to Cadence, beaver, builder, elementary, whoever it is, and go like, can you give us those?  </p>



<p>What are those standard if we [01:23:00] can&#8217;t find them? But I was even thinking like, I wish that information was in the theme that could be displayed in there. It&#8217;s like, you need&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> four by three. Well, and there&#8217;s, um, like you can install a c f. If you own an A C F license, you can install a c f, um, you know, preconfigured essentially.  </p>



<p>So the client doesn&#8217;t know that it&#8217;s being used, but it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s integrated. Um, and so I&#8217;m envisioning ways, um, of our functionality being integrated with constants being defined in the code. And so it&#8217;s like you install the, uh, the golf course theme and it&#8217;s, and it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s beautiful. If it has 16, nine images and so hard coded into the theme is anywhere you&#8217;re uploading an image, again, media library featured images, Gutenberg block is, you know, [01:24:00] all you can, it, it, it throws up the cropper and says, you know, the theme you have installed has 16 nine defined, you know, will let you break that if you want to, but, , you know, you, you should probably do what they tell you and then your site will come out beautiful.  </p>



<p>Um, and, and like you said too of like, um, I like starting that conversation. Like there&#8217;s a, there&#8217;s a chicken or egg, right? Like you can&#8217;t warn, you can&#8217;t tell people the image you&#8217;re uploading is too big. You should install the, our plugin if you, because that&#8217;s functionality we would build into our plugin, so they&#8217;d already have to have it installed.  </p>



<p>But having the option, uh, or having it throw up a warning that&#8217;s like, you know, our, this is going to get cropped to a recommended 1200 pixels. We noticed that it&#8217;s, you&#8217;ve uploaded one that&#8217;s 10,000 pixels. Do you want, is there some compelling reason that [01:25:00] you want this bigger? Obviously, like we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re saying this conversationally, but.  </p>



<p>But I like that kind of thing. Like co you know, we&#8217;re helping people, we&#8217;re protecting people from themselves, but we&#8217;re not also, we&#8217;re also not gonna, like, like I said, right now, I think the, the product is too opinionated, um, that you can&#8217;t get around the plugin, which isn&#8217;t, you know, is gonna piss some people off.  </p>



<p>Um, but we can, we can help people conversationally or functionally as a user.&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> This is a problem I&#8217;ve had forever, you know? Yeah. And as on the other side is you build a cool theme or product and people can make it as like, ugly as you want. You know? This seems like an idea to go, like we just need, I think we&#8217;re talking about first Dominoes is we&#8217;ve got hosting, we&#8217;ve got some set of use cases, like your clients come to Journey, different things.[01:26:00]&nbsp;  </p>



<p>Now we&#8217;ve got theme providers. , that could be a domino for us because, you know, I just put down here Cadence and Kathy&#8217;s aunt because she&#8217;s doing, um, community marketing at Cadence and just going like, can you, can you give me a little bit of time? Tell me what the problems that users have with this and what you all have with this.  </p>



<p>Like, seriously, we went to all this time and effort to make it a beautiful template and you effed it up, you know? Yeah. Um, and it&#8217;s like  </p>



<p>the banner there is help, you know, this tool with this integration points, the four, I wanna write those down by the way, cause I didn&#8217;t get to write those down. But the four integration points, um, could be a way to get this adopted. Again, chick Egg, but like, cool. You know, is it interesting to you and I to make this a free utility that potentially builds a bigger snowball [01:27:00] down there?  </p>



<p>What&#8217;s&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> your answer? Hey, if we get internet famous off of a free plugin, I&#8217;m okay with that too. You know, like we, like we talked about on, in our first call, all of this is a bit of an experiment and, and I think we&#8217;re by, by talking about it publicly, we&#8217;re making it more of an experiment than it would be if we weren&#8217;t.  </p>



<p>But we&#8217;re both, we&#8217;re both approaching it that way. We&#8217;re not, we&#8217;re not having a ha you know, meeting and having a hackathon and going, this has to make us a million dollars, uh, tomorrow. Yeah. And so there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s, and neither of us are, I, I think we&#8217;d both love it to make us some money or to lead to something that makes us some money.  </p>



<p>Uh, it becomes a, a, a revenue stream for us individually and or may it becomes a business, um, or whatever that looks like. Um, you know, [01:28:00] but we&#8217;re open to non-obvious or not immediate apparent, immediately apparent. Benefits here. And so, you know, being the person behind a utility plugin that has millions of active installs, some good is gonna come from that and probably some revenue in some way is gonna come from that.  </p>



<p>Even if crop Express becomes itself, becomes a lead magnet for some other plugin, we&#8217;d, if we crop express, we, we end up creating Image Express that integrates with all of the free image sourcing and, and that&#8217;s purely a paid product or something, you know, so, so that&#8217;s kind of, I think to me, we&#8217;re still there.  </p>



<p>Do you&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> have image.express? Because if not, go by it. Please. , we&#8217;re all by for you because I think we need that. Um,&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> okay. Everybody listening is scrambling right now to go see if that&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> hang. You&#8217;ve got a five second delay, so see how fast you [01:29:00] type. Yeah. Okay. No kidding. . Takeaways? Takeaways and next steps. Um, I need to do my original to-do from last week, which is like, just have a conversation with a couple of these people on my list.  </p>



<p>Mm-hmm. , um, you&#8217;re continuing to work on the integration points Media library is next. Is that right? Okay. Yeah. Anything else you need from me?  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> I just wanna, sorry, ,&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> he&#8217;s, he&#8217;s getting domain guys. Um,&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> nope, it&#8217;s taken.  </p>



<p>Hey, I mean, I, I feel lucky that, and of course it&#8217;s parked, um, I feel lucky that I got Crop Express and the other, the couple of other domains like that, that I have. Um, but, um, photo Express . But anyway, um, yeah, I, I feel like I continue to, my, my [01:30:00] to-dos are to continue to cover, cover those, those functional.  </p>



<p>Feature the feature bases that we&#8217;ve talked about, um, those integration points. And you, you start having conversations about, like, cuz I, to me, we, we know, well we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re again, we&#8217;re still at truly laying the foundation. We&#8217;re pouring the slab. Like this is a no-brainer. No matter what kind of house we build, we need the cement that we&#8217;re gonna build off of.  </p>



<p>So, um, I have no hesitation about continuing to build at least the, the next few features that we&#8217;re talking about. Okay.&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Awesome man. Okay, I got my marching orders. How the combos yours keep your, keep on your work with the integration media library points. Um, yep. I was cueing up a question in the agency on [01:31:00] your channel to say, how do you use your, how do your clients use images?  </p>



<p>I&#8217;ll wait until after my next meeting, which starts in just a minute. But thanks&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Corey Maass:</strong> brother. Yeah, great to talk to you again.&nbsp;  </p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> I love doing philosophy and productivity  </p>



<p>but seriously, this is context for what I used to formulate marketing messages and approach, and I think it&#8217;s invaluable to product as we understand the problem, you know, and we&#8217;re understanding, I should say. Mm-hmm. , it&#8217;s always evolving and then we&#8217;ll find the point. But I really like where we landed, which is for.  </p>



<p>Pre plug in super uber utility, keep going to those low lift things that we can kind of keep adding value with some avatars that we added, which is hosting agencies end user kind of thing. And then, um, just get, keep the feedback loop going. Yep. All right, my friends. You good? Thanks for your time. All right.  </p>



<p>Bye.</p>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 10 Mar 2023 15:42:52 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Cory Miller";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"Post Status: Interview With Product Lead Brandon Dove Of Pixel Jar — Post Status Draft 144";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=148081";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:99:"https://poststatus.com/interview-with-product-lead-brandon-dove-of-pixel-jar-post-status-draft-144/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34818:"<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group eplus-wrapper has-theme-palette-2-color has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-text-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><div class="wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt"><a href="https://twitter.com/brandondove">Brandon Dove</a>, co-founder of <a href="https://twitter.com/pixel_jar">Pixel Jar</a>, joins <a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> to discuss his WordPress plugin, <a href="https://twitter.com/adsanityplugin">AdSanity Plugin</a>. They dive into the nuance of advertising, evaluate the benefits of free and paid plugins, and talk through the challenges and opportunities available to agencies that invest in product development while providing other services. </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer eplus-wrapper"></div>



<p class="yoast-reading-time__wrapper"><span class="yoast-reading-time__icon"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__spacer"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__descriptive-text">Estimated reading time:  </span><span class="yoast-reading-time__reading-time">60</span><span class="yoast-reading-time__time-unit"> minutes</span></p>
</div></div>







<p><a href="https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript">Transcript</a> ↓</p>



<p class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">In this episode, <a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> talks with <a href="https://twitter.com/brandondove">Brandon Dove</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/pixel_jar">Pixel Jar</a> about agency product development. They discuss how the <a href="https://twitter.com/adsanityplugin">AdSanity Plugin</a> works and what lessons Brandon has learned about the relationship between agency operations and product development.</p>



<p class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><strong>Top Takeaways:</strong></p>



<ul type="video" class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">
<li><strong>Recurring Product Revenue.</strong>While it can be challenging for an agency to balance custom service work with product development, having a product that generates recurring revenue can provide a cushion and diversify the overall business revenue. AdSanity is a successful example of this, and the team is working on dedicating more resources towards the product to even out development between the two sides of their business. However, it can be difficult to maintain free plugins without generating revenue, and it&#8217;s important to consider how to incorporate them into the business model.</li>



<li><strong>Value vs. Spam in Advertising.</strong> For many people, advertising has become a four-letter word, so there is a need to help customers become good advertisers rather than just spamming ads everywhere. It’s critical to empower your visitors by explaining the importance of creating a community around the site to allow for more meaningful conversations with visitors.&nbsp;</li>



<li><strong>The Point of Free Plugins. </strong>Building free plugins is more about passion and community engagement than being a lead generator. The main outcome has been connecting with people within the WordPress community, but those connections remember to come to you for solutions. So the increased exposure can lead to revenue in the long term.</li>
</ul>



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<h3 class="eplus-wrapper" id="h-mentioned-in-the-show"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f517.png" alt="🔗" class="wp-smiley" /> Mentioned in the show<strong>:</strong></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/adsanityplugin">Ad Sanity</a></li>



<li><a href="https://webdevstudios.com/">WebDev Studios</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/avatar-manager/">Avatar Manager</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.admincolumns.com/">Admin Columns</a></li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/wordcampnyc?lang=en">WordCamp New York</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="eplus-wrapper" id="h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png" alt="🐦" class="wp-smiley" /> You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>



<ul class="eplus-wrapper">
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/brandondove">Brandon Dove</a> (Co-Founder, <a href="https://twitter.com/pixel_jar">Pixel Jar</a>)</li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> (CEO, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/lemonadecode">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>
</ul>



<p class="eplus-wrapper has-background">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4dd.png" alt="📝" class="wp-smiley" /><br /><br /><a href="https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simplecast</a>, or <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png" alt="🎧" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<h2 class="eplus-wrapper" id="h-transcript">Transcript</h2>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> [00:00:00] Everybody welcome back to Post Status Draft. This is another interview in the series called Product People, and I&#8217;m talking to my longtime friend, uh, an agency owner and product founder Brandon Dove. Today to talk about Ad Sanity, a WordPress plugin that helps you, um, helps site owners. Um, Well, I&#8217;ll let you tell that in just a second, but , um, you&#8217;ll be seeing ad ad sanity on posts very soon cuz I meant to mention this before we started recording.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s something that we need. Need for the site. All right. And I&#8217;m like, great longtime friend product, product member, um, has the key solution. Anyway. Um, Brandon, would you tell us a little bit for those of you that don&#8217;t know you, and, and, uh, tell us a little bit about what you do, uh, your work in WordPress from both product and services side?</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> Yeah, uh, thanks having me on by the way. And, um, yeah, so, uh, I run a, a company called Pixel Jar. [00:01:00] That, uh, we&#8217;ve been doing WordPress stuff for a very long time. Um, we started our business in 2004 and, um, you know, just, uh, through our work with not only clients and, and services that we provide, um, have, have found sort of a, a niche in building plug-ins for our, our customers.</p>



<p>And, um, some of those are great one-time use things for our customers, but. , in other cases, they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re bigger, sort of, um, needs amongst the community. And so, uh, our product Ad Sani launched from just such a, uh, an instance where we had a, a customer who was, who had a wedding blog that was highly trafficked.</p>



<p>They had been using another plugin that was just tanking their site. And so at the time, you know, we decided to build them a custom solution for advertising and it worked for them. Um, it kept their site up and, and kept making them [00:02:00] money. And so we talked to them about like releasing it to, to the broader community to see if people would be able to benefit in the same way.</p>



<p>And, um, they were agreeable to that. And, um, yeah, we, we put it out in the market.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Well, I want to talk about that, that whole experience too, because I know a lot of people on the on agencies go, &#8220;Hey, what if we did this product?&#8221; And you&#8217;ve done this unique organic experience that came out of. Um, your work, which I think is so cool for agencies to think about that there might be an opportunity to do a product.</p>



<p>And I&#8217;ve seen so many agencies like you, you know, this, uh, friends of ours that have done products, well, maybe they haven&#8217;t monetized directly from them, but it&#8217;s been a part of their portfolio and all that kind of stuff. So, um, how has that experience agency and then having this product. That you&#8217;d like, you work on, I know you&#8217;re passionate about it.</p>



<p>I&#8217;ve talked to you in the pa part about it, but tell me from that agency experience, what that journey has been like. [00:03:00]</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> Uh, yeah, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s tricky for sure, right? Um, you know, our core services are, um, taking care of our customers, our clients who come to us and need more custom solutions, like that&#8217;s our bread and butter.</p>



<p>Um, but you know, as agencies, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s great to be able to. You know, sort of, um, get past the ebb and flow of work to have a, a baseline of income that&#8217;s recurring revenue from a product kind of type of, uh, business. And so that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s sort of where, you know, we really focus on ad sanity to, to provide that for us is, is that that cushion to really start off our month every month with like, okay, we&#8217;re gonna, we&#8217;re gonna make this much money.</p>



<p>We can, you know, we can. Uh, count on that. And, um, so then it&#8217;s like, uh, from an organizational standpoint, how do we focus time on this when we&#8217;ve got clients who are saying, Hey, I, I need you to complete this work by this deadline, or whatever. You know, that that push and [00:04:00] pull of product development in that is, is sometimes really tricky.</p>



<p>Um, I&#8217;ve talked to some product only houses that say it&#8217;s just not possible to do well, um, between products and services. And in some days I definitely feel like that it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s really hard to, um, especially for a small team like ours, to, you know, please everybody all the time. And, um, so we&#8217;ve, we&#8217;ve set.</p>



<p>Over the years at Sandy Launch in 2011. So it&#8217;s been around for a long time. Um, and so throughout that time we&#8217;ve spent, um, you know, a lot of time on it in some instances and also in some instances, not a lot of time because client services had a ramped up. So we&#8217;re, um, we&#8217;re in the middle of trying some, some more dedicated resources towards the product to even out development, um, between the two different sides of our business.</p>



<p>And, um, it&#8217;s a work in progress, right now ?</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> So I appreciate that. I think hearing [00:05:00] that Will is gonna be help a lot of people as they&#8217;re thinking through this. Cuz I think there&#8217;s this perpetual, you know, pressure to say, do I have a product when you&#8217;re doing client services? But then I talk to so many people that are very, very happy doing client work only.</p>



<p>Yeah. Um, And then some people like me that have failed miserably at client work and go, well, it&#8217;s product. So I think it&#8217;s cool. It&#8217;s been around very long time. Um, it makes money. Uh, and now it seems like what I hear too is it&#8217;s an opportunity to even diversify your overall business&#8217; revenue. Yep. And, um, I know you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re passionate about product, like this is something you&#8217;ve poured into with that sanity in particular, just talking to you in the past.</p>



<p>So, um, I think that&#8217;s all, um, super cool to hear, hear, and then it has potential. Mm-hmm. . It could stay here and we&#8217;d be happy with it, but it has more potential if we might put some in there. And I think that&#8217;s a, that&#8217;s a really nice [00:06:00] place to be in the product space. Like we said, there&#8217;s plugins out there that, you know, agencies maintain for themselves that probably don&#8217;t make, you know, money.</p>



<p>Sure. Um, but are those portfolio pieces,</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> and I think that&#8217;s one of, that&#8217;s a, it can be a drag like, um, We&#8217;ve put out free plug-ins before we ever put out paid plug-ins and supporting that as a service. Is really hard, right? Like if you have plug-ins that aren&#8217;t making you money, but they&#8217;re useful to the community, sometimes you put those out there and say, well, some people might be able to use this.</p>



<p>Those often get unsupported. They don&#8217;t, they don&#8217;t really ever change code because, you know, unless you have a very large team. Um, but, uh, It, it, it&#8217;s hard because you&#8217;re like, well, how do I, how do I put that into my business, uh, if I&#8217;m not making money off of it, but I have customers or clients who are paying me.</p>



<p>So that, that, that is tricky. I think if you have a free plugin. But, um, ad sanity started really [00:07:00] small, um, really lightweight, really basic as far as ad plug-ins go, but over time we added functionality through add-ons and things like that, that made it more robust.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Well, tell me about the plugin itself. Uh, I&#8217;ve, I&#8217;ve obviously used it, but tell us a little bit about where the product is today, and then I&#8217;ll ask you where you&#8217;re kind of go, what your thoughts and ideas are for the future for the plugin.</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> Yeah, so the, at the core of Ad Sanity, it&#8217;s just, it&#8217;s a custom post type. So for developers out there or people who are very familiar with WordPress, it, it&#8217;s, it utilizes a lot of WordPress core functionality, which is what we wanted, right? We didn&#8217;t want to build independent systems that we&#8217;re gonna add to WordPress.</p>



<p>We wanted to make sure that we tied in as closely as possible to the WordPress editing experience. So, Any user could pick it up and, and build with it. And so, um, out, out of the box, it&#8217;s, you know, custom post type that supports a featured image. So if you have a relationship with a, an advertiser, you can take their, their ad assets, [00:08:00] dump &#8217;em into a featured image, and we use a lot of the built-in WordPress, um, queries and things like that to keep things really, keep things really performant. And you know, we have different blocks, widgets, template tags, like all sorts of different WordPress implementations to be able to display those in different ways on your site.</p>



<p>Like that&#8217;s, Outta the box. That&#8217;s the very, very basic stuff. We also support, um, ad ad networks. So we have a, an area where you can dump in ad network code if you want to use an ad sense or some other, um, ad network, you can just pop that in there. Um, and over time we added also HTML five ads, which was really, um, a lot of our customers were asking for and even just plain text ads.</p>



<p>Um, so you have some customization of a look and feel of those things, but, um, that&#8217;s sort of out of the box core functionality. Um, I think there&#8217;s some other things I&#8217;m probably glossing over, but, um, we, we created some additional add-ons to. [00:09:00] You know, enhance the functionality of the things that you might expect of expirations on impressions instead of just, um, like date-based ranges of like start and end dates.</p>



<p>Um, we have conditional advertising, so like, You can say, only show these ads on these categories. Um, but you have an ad group that has lots and lots of ads in it, so you can really slice and dice and display those, um, those ads where you want them, or based on user, user type or lots of different things.</p>



<p>Um, we&#8217;ve got a way for advertisers to get self-service reporting, so if you do build relationships through advertisers, they can log in. See all views, clicks, and click through, rate, all that stuff on their own. So you don&#8217;t have to provide those to all your, your customer or your advertisers. Um, yeah, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s probably like a, a few other I&#8217;m missing, but I think those are like some of the popular ones, um, that are on top of my head.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Yeah. The ability to put ads on your [00:10:00] WordPress site. Um, uh, this, its, uh, I can assume will always exist, but. You know, trying to monetize onto the site and it does it very freshly Well, I was trying to remember when I logged in, seeing all the down the add-ons there for a second to help to, to share some isol.</p>



<p>Um, well, okay, so that&#8217;s where the plugin is now. And, and I wanna just talk a little bit before we talk about the future of what you&#8217;re trying to do with the plugin. I know a high value from you, from me and friends as long as we have talking about this product in particular, that you have a, you threaded align with this because.</p>



<p>You know, value, personal values, business values too. And in the subject of advertising, it&#8217;s always this tricky like, line. Yeah. To, uh, to, to, to walk. So tell me about that. I, I know cuz we&#8217;ve talked about this subject is, you know, you, I go to this, I can&#8217;t remember what the side is, but I&#8217;m like, man, I&#8217;ve got one answer by one inch square to actually.</p>



<p>What the text is and everything else is [00:11:00] video. And I know from past like that&#8217;s one of the things I know you always card against. How do you navigate that line with the product?</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> I think like more and more lately, you know, advertising is sort of like, um, a four letter word almost. You know, people are like, I, I&#8217;ve got an ad blocker on my, my browser because I don&#8217;t wanna see 17,000 ads when I&#8217;m just trying to read an article.</p>



<p>Right. And, and more big publishers are starting to go, okay, well, like, hold on a second. We were, we rely on that money. To, um, to be able to create this content. So I think what, what that&#8217;s really led us to is how can we help all of our customers, our insanity customers, be good advertisers or good publishers, and not just spam.</p>



<p>Ads everywhere, all over their site. Um, and so we&#8217;ve done a lot of, um, writing on our site about, you know, best practices for advertising. Um, we actually have another ad-on, which is, um, [00:12:00] is an ad block detection because we want, we want our, to empower our publishers to start that conversation with their visitors, right?</p>



<p>We want them to be able to say, , I appreciate that you&#8217;ve got an ad blocker. I&#8217;ve got one too, or whatever, but here&#8217;s why I have ads on my site. You know, I&#8217;m a small team of, of content creators. We rely on these advertisements to pay our bills. You know, either could you turn off your, your ad blocker for our site, you know, like, like whitelist us or in some cases we&#8217;ve been talking.</p>



<p>Creating a membership so that people become members to your site and you can disable using the conditional ads add-on. You can disable ads for users who are logged in or at a certain level. Um, so again, it creates, um, more of a community around your site. It allows you to, to connect with people who are visiting your site and actually have more meaningful conversations.</p>



<p>With them, um, and, and give them the kind of content that they want. Um, and, and in addition, be able to [00:13:00] provide advertising that&#8217;s relevant to those people. So not only are they not turned off by the advertising, they&#8217;re actually more willing to like look into those, those advertisements because it&#8217;s something they&#8217;re you&#8217;re already writing about or something that&#8217;s related to your content.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> I, I love that for two reasons. One is because, um, giving somebody an option that. , um, you know, like developer and explaining why we&#8217;re doing this. I mean, post status.com, we take advertising in the form of sponsorships. We want people to see those and say thank you. And those advertisers have like goals, objectives, they wanna meet a part of that. And so it&#8217;s like balancing that. I know, I know this, so I love that. You&#8217;re like, Hey, I know you don&#8217;t like it. Here&#8217;s a path to help support us. Mm-hmm. . And then the second. Um, the ability from just a business model standpoint to go, you don&#8217;t like &#8217;em, turn &#8217;em off.</p>



<p>Like come into, it&#8217;s a great introduction to membership and that&#8217;s, you know, [00:14:00] particularly during Covid, Brandon, I&#8217;m sure you saw this too, is like the rise in the. anecdotal data from friends around the sphere. Yeah. Is like membership sites were really hot core sites. L m s stuff was really hot and for good reason, people kinda left, has had a little bit more time and thought I&#8217;ll do my pet project and stuff.</p>



<p>Yep. And I think this is that line you, you kind of balance with any kind of membership is. Strong enough front facing content to attract people to the membership. And I love that you&#8217;ve got a path for people to use, um, with, with those two scenarios. Mm-hmm. , hey, you don&#8217;t like it? We don&#8217;t either, but here&#8217;s an opportunity and then a way to go.</p>



<p>I want to pay for the non-advertising version and to do that programmatically. I pr think it&#8217;s pretty spectacular. Yeah.</p>



<p>All right. What, what, what else did I miss on, on that part? I love that you mentioned that particular add-on. Is there anything else that came to mind before I start talking about [00:15:00] the future and what you&#8217;re trying to do?</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> I think one thing that I just, just, it&#8217;s not specifically related to this, but one thing I, I did forget to mention when we were talking about agencies or like being an agency and having products is, um, what we have found in having ad sanity is there, there&#8217;s always people who want customizations, right? Like we get that as an agency. People come in and they&#8217;re like, Hey, we&#8217;ve got these seven plugins. We need &#8217;em to work better together. Or we have, you know, this one plugin that we just need to tweak another 10% to get exactly.</p>



<p>Have it exactly do what we want. And as a product developer, it, it gives you like core knowledge about this plugin. Like I know how to modify ad sanity. Any use case probably. And so we have, like, we&#8217;ve had people come to us like looking for ad sanity and, and seeing it as a good platform, but they need another 10%, or in some cases they need an entire add-on built for it, um, to do what they want.</p>



<p>And, and that has been a huge revenue generator for, [00:16:00] for Pixel Jar. Um, and, and so like that, that, you know, Cross-selling opportunity. I think as far as an agency and a product space is, is actually really great.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Well, we really didn&#8217;t go deep into that, but I a hundred percent agree and I&#8217;m not from the a agency side, but I go a project that can generate work or an name brain that just being out there and knowing that you might have a plugin that somebody might go, huh, it&#8217;s a cool plug.</p>



<p>I wonder who, who does it. And it&#8217;s this awesome agency. Could lead to a lot, a lot of work. And then I know there&#8217;s companies in space and you got, you all might do this too, is companies approach you to build their integration plugin and continue to maintain it. And so you&#8217;re like mm-hmm. . I, I think that&#8217;s an excellent, I&#8217;m glad you came back to that because an excellent way to build the marketing exposure and, uh, drive revenue to your business.</p>



<p>Yeah. Even [00:17:00] some of the ones, like our friends over at WebDev Studios, I know they&#8217;ve got custom post op ui and I think to myself, what a great calling card. Yeah. Because I think it&#8217;s installed over a million times on the repo. And, um, but what a great calling card, you know, to say when you&#8217;re talking to a client or to get, be out there in the mainstream.</p>



<p>Um, how have the free plugins you&#8217;ve done in the past worked? Um, there, there&#8217;s bound to be some net effect that&#8217;s helped, but how has that experience gone from the free.</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> Um, it&#8217;s difficult, right? Like, um, I would say some of &#8217;em are, um, you know, used on a couple thousand blogs or something like that. Like nothing to the extent of custom post type ui, um, which is a fantastic plugin.</p>



<p>We use that several times. Um, but, uh, but yeah, like, uh, for. It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s more of like the passion for the community that gets us to put those out. Um, the first, I think the first free plugin I [00:18:00] put out was because in 2009, There was a plug-in competition in New York, uh, word Camp New York, that, uh, it just, as a developer, it was a way for me to engage with that community.</p>



<p>Like I had never been to New York before. And, uh, because there was that plug-in competition where you were gonna be on stage and, and kind of talking about the plug-in you built, um, and you had to have a team that was, um, distributed. So you had to work with people, uh, that weren&#8217;t just in your company or whatever.</p>



<p>So, um, I got the, the opportunity to work with people that would&#8217;ve never worked with otherwise. Uh, I flew out to New York to, to present, um, the plugin and, and I think that was like my favorite experience for building like a free plugin because, um, you know, being part of that WordPress community feeling, the collaboration was, was pretty awesome. I, I think for me it&#8217;s more of a, it has to be more about the passion in, in that case than, you [00:19:00] know, having it be really like a, a lead generator in a lot of cases.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Yes, absolutely. And I mean, I would think the better, it helps showcase your core expertise, the work you do, um, e even better.</p>



<p>So, yeah, I like that. All right. Well, Let&#8217;s talk about the future of added sanity and what you got planned and what you&#8217;re thinking about, um, a little bit more in depth. So what&#8217;s next for the, the product?</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> Uh, that&#8217;s a good question. Like I said, um, we are, uh, we&#8217;re experimenting with dedicated resources for the, the product.</p>



<p>So while we continue to maintain it, build new features here and there, it&#8217;s not as like, it, it&#8217;s, we don&#8217;t have a dedicated team to it. So, um, it, it, it can, sometimes development can come sometimes slow. So I think that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s part of our plans next year is, is really to dedicate resources to it. We, we are also as [00:20:00] many plugins are, um, sort of like finding our way with all of the new block editing stuff.</p>



<p>We, we addressed a lot of our core functionality with block editing. Um, we integrated with a couple page builders at the same time. But I mean, the, the way site editing is evolving, um, will probably. Further and deeper than we expect. And so we&#8217;ve been following a lot of the, the development on, on site editing and Gutenberg and, and all of that stuff.</p>



<p>And I think you know what it means for us, like I am, I&#8217;m a backend more PHP focused developer. So what it means for us is really, you know, fully embracing more JavaScript life, um, and, and becoming, uh, You, you know, more in tune and more ingrained with what, with what WordPress is offering at its core.</p>



<p>Because that was our initial mantra is like being, [00:21:00] being very, um, focused on what WordPress offers out of the box and making it an easy to use experience. So I think like the, the big thing that we&#8217;ve been focusing on is trying to plan, how do we want to integrate with, with the site editing experience in a better way and, um, , you know, how does that rework our entire user interface potentially.</p>



<p>Um, and also as a product developer who&#8217;s been around for a long time, how do we not alienate customers that have been with us for years and years and years?</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> So, Yeah, that we could do a whole public podcast series on how to balance like agency time and resources with the, with that product. Mm-hmm. , um, for sure.</p>



<p>And that equation, when does it make sense? But I was right in here, some of the reasons we&#8217;ve talked about why an agency might consider doing a product and one, I was just thinking, I know you&#8217;ll do this part of your client work, but the product is probably an excuse too [00:22:00] to. Dig in and really stay in touch with full side where the software itself is going.</p>



<p>Yeah. Uh, in addition to like flexing your expertise muscle and all that.</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> And Beyond that, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s like we&#8217;re in charge. Right? A another benefit of an agency with a product is like all day you work servicing clients who have requests for you to do exactly what they say, but when you&#8217;re a product owner, you get to decide what gets built.</p>



<p>Like you might have customers who are saying, Hey, we need this feature. But you ultimately get to decide like, do I wanna build that feature? Do I wanna support that feature? Is it good for the broader customer base that I have? Um, so there&#8217;s some freedom in that as well.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Yeah, like a change of pace too, you know.</p>



<p>Mm-hmm. , um, like you said, I, I got change of pace when you said that. It&#8217;s like, okay, we have to do what the client ultimately wants over here, potentially, but over here we get to like make our way and see, and that creative freedom freedom&#8217;s gotta be nice. Yeah, definitely. Balance [00:23:00] with, okay. We still wanted to pay , you know, make money.</p>



<p>Yeah. We don&#8217;t want to just spend it on a research project.</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> Yeah. That tracking is important too, right? Like, whatever time you&#8217;re spending on it, you wanna make sure it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s effective. You know, just like as a developer, if you&#8217;re building a new feature, you wanna make sure it&#8217;s not impacting the performance of the plugin, things like that.</p>



<p>So you gotta, you gotta weigh those things for sure.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Yeah. And just there, it just kind of ping my thing so you. hours you all spend as a company on the product. Yep. That&#8217;s excellent. Because then you&#8217;re able to make better informed decisions. Okay, we just spent 50 or 500 hours this quarter, year, whatever it is, right?</p>



<p>In making those decisions, having some of the data. That&#8217;s awesome. Mm-hmm. . See, I like talking to the real agency pros, ,</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> You gotta know.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Yep. That&#8217;s true. All right, Brandon. Well thanks for, um, talking about all this. Is there anything that I missed that you want to. And talk about with the plugin and,</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> um, no, I think, I think [00:24:00] that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s most of it.</p>



<p>You know, I, I think, you know, we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re not going anywhere. That&#8217;s, that&#8217;s, uh, um, you know, when development slows, sometimes people get like, is this plugin still active? Like, yeah, we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re still grinding on this and, and we don&#8217;t anticipate it going anywhere. There&#8217;s a lot of other advertising plugins out there.</p>



<p>and, um, you know, I still think that that, you know, I, I&#8217;m personally biased, but I still think ours is the best. Mm-hmm. . Um, so we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re gonna continue to, to keep up with what, what WordPress is doing and make sure that it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s doing what we can for our customers to be successful.</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Cool. Well, I know you&#8217;re in Post Status , but where can we find Ad Sandy and learn more about you and Pixel Jar ?</p>



<p><strong>Brandon Dove:</strong> Yeah, ad sanity plugin.com is the website. Um, and uh, from there you can get over to pixeljar.com as well. But, um, yeah, all the information&#8217;s on ad sanity plugin.com. Our, our socials are, you know, burning cuz of Twitter. I don&#8217;t know , uh, but uh, yeah, we&#8217;re [00:25:00] on, we&#8217;re on twitter at adsanityplugin.com (???) and Facebook as well, so wherever you still hang out.</p>



<p>Yeah. ,</p>



<p><strong>Cory Miller:</strong> we&#8217;ll be there. Yeah, exactly. All right. Thanks Brandon for sharing about Ed Sandy in our Product People series at Post Status draft. We&#8217;ll see you all next time. Thanks, Cory.</p>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 10 Mar 2023 03:44:24 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Olivia Bisset";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"WPTavern: WordPress 6.2 RC 1 Released and Ready for Testing";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=142591";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-6-2-rc-1-released-and-ready-for-testing";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1797:"<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/03/wordpress-6-2-release-candidate-1/">WordPress 6.2 RC 1</a> was released today, marking the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/handbook/glossary/#hard-freeze">hard string freeze</a> and readiness for <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp/dev/">translation</a> ahead of the official release on March 28. There are three weeks remaining for testing. </p>



<p>WordPress contributors published the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/03/09/wordpress-6-2-field-guide/">6.2 Field Guide</a>, which includes the dev notes &#8211; technical updates for many of the new features and changes included in this release. These include editor component updates, notes on new and expanded APIs, accessibility updates, and more. </p>



<p>Plugin and theme developers are advised to test their extensions for compatibility and update the <em>&#8220;Tested up to”</em>  version in their readme files to 6.2. (A separate <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/02/07/help-test-wordpress-6-2/">testing guide</a> is available for those who are testing the changes in this release.)</p>



<p>A bug that was introduced in 6.2 Beta 1, which showed a <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/48726">white screen when using the browser&#8217;s back button inside the Site Editor</a>, was fixed earlier this week in the 6.2 Beta 5 release. This is a major issue that would likely affect millions of users, and it underscores the fact that testing at this phase is still important. Bugs can be reported via the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums or by filing a bug report <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">on WordPress Trac</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 09 Mar 2023 21:15:25 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.2 Release Candidate 1";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=14619";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/03/wordpress-6-2-release-candidate-1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10123:"<p>WordPress 6.2’s first release candidate (RC1) is here and ready for testing.</p>



<p>Reaching this part of the release cycle is a key milestone. While we consider release candidates ready for final release, additional testing and use by the community can only make it better.</p>



<p>The official release of 6.2 is just three short weeks away on March 28. In open source, we say with <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/given_enough_eyeballs,_all_bugs_are_shallow">many eyes, all bugs are shallow</a>, so we ask everyone across the WordPress ecosystem—theme and plugin developers, educators, agencies, and creators—<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/02/07/help-test-wordpress-6-2/">to jump in and help test</a>.</p>



<p><strong>This version of the WordPress software is under development. </strong>Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test RC1 on a test server and site.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You can test WordPress 6.2 RC1 in three ways:</p>



<p><strong>Option 1</strong>: Install and activate the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</p>



<p><strong>Option 2</strong>: Direct download the <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.2-RC1.zip">RC1 version (zip)</a>.</p>



<p><strong>Option 3</strong>: Use the following WP-CLI command:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code class="">wp core update --version=6.2-RC1</code></pre>



<p><em>First-time tester? <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/handbook/get-setup-for-testing/">Here&#8217;s a guide to getting started</a>.</em> </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What’s in WordPress 6.2 RC1</h2>



<p>This release includes over 900 enhancements and fixes and is the first major release of 2023.&nbsp;</p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/commits/wp/6.2">Gutenberg commits on GitHub</a></li>



<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=closed&changetime=2023-02-21..2023-03-01&milestone=6.2&col=id&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id">Core Trac Tickets</a></li>
</ul>



<p>WordPress 6.2 comes packed with enhancements to make everything you do smoother, faster and a little more inspired:</p>



<ul>
<li>A refreshed Site Editor for easier template browsing</li>



<li>A new sidebar experience in the Navigation block for simpler menu management</li>



<li>Reorganized block settings with separate tabs for Settings and Styles</li>



<li>New inserter design that lets you add Media—including Openverse and its more than 600-million-item catalog, plus your entire Media Library—and better categories</li>



<li>More header and footer patterns for block themes</li>



<li>A new Style Book that shows your entire site’s look and feel all in one place</li>



<li>New controls to let you copy and paste block styles for faster, simpler design across your whole site</li>



<li>Custom CSS you can add for those finishing touches, per block and globally</li>



<li>Sticky positioning to keep important blocks fixed when scrolling</li>



<li>Distraction Free mode for moments you want to focus on writing</li>



<li>New options that let you import certain widgets from classic to block themes</li>



<li>The removal of the Site Editor’s beta label—welcome to the next generation of WordPress</li>
</ul>



<p><em>Want to see some of these featured highlights in action? Check out the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/03/your-wordpress-6-2-preview/">WordPress 6.2 Demo</a> recorded March 2, 2023.</em></p>



<p>Do you crave a deep dive into tech specs? These recent posts cover a few of the latest technical updates. This is not an exhaustive list, but it should get you started:&nbsp;</p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/03/07/patterns-api-expanded-to-include-template_types-property/">Patterns API expanded to include template_types property</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wp.me/p2AvED-qNP">Introduction of Block Inspector Tabs</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wp.me/p2AvED-qR8">Shadows in Global Styles</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wp.me/p2AvED-qME">Introducing the HTML API</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wp.me/p2AvED-qM4">Miscellaneous Editor Changes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wp.me/p2AvED-qNm">Custom CSS for global styles and per block</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://wp.me/p2AvED-qLf">Google Fonts are included locally in bundled themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/03/03/editor-components-updates-in-wordpress-6-2/">Editor Components updates in WordPress 6.2</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wp.me/p2AvED-qPp">Enhanced accessibility</a></li>



<li>And much, much more</li>
</ul>



<p>These are also compiled into a <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/03/09/wordpress-6-2-field-guide/">comprehensive WordPress 6.2 Field Guide</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Let&#8217;s go on a bug hunt!</h2>



<p>Without your testing support, hitting important product milestones would be a much bigger challenge. It’s also a meaningful way to contribute to the project. If it’s your first time, or it’s been a while, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/02/07/help-test-wordpress-6-2/">this detailed guide</a> is a great resource to lean on.&nbsp;</p>



<p>From a global perspective, every time you test a pre-release version, you help secure the future of WordPress. How? By helping the community prove the software is stable, easy to use, and as bug-free as possible.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Want to know more about testing releases in general? You can follow along with the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/">testing initiatives</a> that happen in Make Core. You can also join the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-test/">#core-test channel</a> on the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/">Making WordPress Slack workspace</a>.</p>



<p>If you think you have run into an issue, please report it to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">file one on WordPress Trac</a>. You can also check your issue against a list of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">known bugs</a>.</p>



<p>Interested in the details on the latest Gutenberg features? Find out what’s been included since WordPress 6.1 (the last major release of WordPress). You will find more details in these <em>What’s new in Gutenberg</em> posts for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january-2/">15.1</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-0-18-january/">15.0</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/01/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-9-4-january/">14.9</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/12/22/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-8-21-december/">14.8</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/12/09/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-7-7-december/">14.7</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/11/23/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-6-23-november/">14.6</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/11/09/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-5-9-november/">14.5</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/27/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-4-26-october/">14.4</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/13/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-3-12-october/">14.3</a>, and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/09/30/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-2-28-september/">14.2</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A special thanks to WordPress plugin and theme developers</h2>



<p>Do you build plugins and themes?&nbsp;Your products play a special role in helping WordPress do more things for more people across the world. In turn, more people in the WordPress Community mean a bigger, more robust open web.</p>



<p>Chances are, you have already been testing your latest versions against the WordPress 6.2 betas. With RC1, you will want to finalize your testing and update the “<em>Tested up to”</em> version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.2.&nbsp;</p>



<p>If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">support forums</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Help translate WordPress</h2>



<p>Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Português? Русский? 日本? <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp/dev">Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.</a> This release also marks the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/handbook/glossary/#hard-freeze">hard string freeze</a> point of the 6.2 release cycle.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Hungry for even more?</h2>



<p>Want to know more about what went into the making of WordPress 6.2? Please check out the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-2/">6.2 release cycle</a>, the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Make WordPress Core blog</a>, or search for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/6-2/">all things 6.2 related</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Another haiku for 6.2—it’s tradition!&nbsp;</h2>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">Beta has left us<br />The code sings such happy songs<br />Six point two RC</pre>



<p><em>Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: </em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/laurlittle/"><em>@laurlittle</em></a><em> </em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/"><em>@cbringmann</em></a><em>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/">@audrasjb</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/jpantani/">@jpantani</a>. Haiku by @<a href="https://github.com/nomad-skateboarding-dev">nomad-skateboarding-dev</a></em>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 09 Mar 2023 17:39:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"marybaum";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:48:"WpOrg\Requests\Utility\CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:8:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Thu, 30 Mar 2023 06:14:59 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Thu, 30 Mar 2023 06:00:29 GMT";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:16:"content-encoding";s:2:"br";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 1";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20211220193300";}