Protecting Content Creators from Corporate Overlords

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[00:00:00] Matt: Doc Pop, welcome to the WP Minute.

[00:00:03] Doc: Thanks so much for having me. It’s great to be on.

[00:00:05] Matt: I’m gonna play something real quick, intro ing you. Here we go. Hey, my name’s uh, Dr. Popular. I’m a uh, yo yo er, blogger, and uh, crafster, living in San Francisco. Um, wanted to show some of my crafts because I know some of my stuff is a little confusing to photograph. 

[00:00:22] Matt: Sixteen years ago, my friend, you have outpaced me by five years, your YouTube channel goes back sixteen years ago, that was a clip of Doc Pop’s Craft Catalog, Cat a Vlog, I should say, two thousand and seven, you’ve been in the game a while, uh, and I’m happy to catch up to see what you’re up to these days, uh, what made you just get, just jumping back into the time machine sixteen years ago on your YouTube channel.

[00:00:51] Matt: Always a love for video, always a love for producing this type of artwork. How did it start?

[00:00:57] Doc: Sharing stuff has always been something I’ve been [00:01:00] passionate about, not just my work, like being able to reach out to other artists and talk to them about what they’re doing. So like, this all comes from zine culture. Do you, do you know zines Matt?

[00:01:09] Matt: I do. I do.

[00:01:10] Doc: So, uh, you know, I grew up in a small town in Tennessee, Lewisburg, Tennessee, hours out to Nashville and in the nineties.

[00:01:16] Doc: Grunge music has taken off and I’ve got no way to line, you know, learn about what’s happening and stuff like that. And I heard about this thing called zines. And so you started kind of documenting your local bands, documenting the music you’re making and the artists around you going to, to Kinko’s printing them up, sending them out to, you know, Olympia, Washington, and then, you know, folks at Olympia send you a bunch back.

[00:01:35] Doc: Right. And that, that kind of communication was what got me really interested in this whole world. And blogging was just, to me, it was like an, Electronic version of a zine and then video was just like, okay, this is just the next thing. So like all of this passion I have for like social media really comes back to just making stuff and sharing it with people, being able to, you know, reach out directly [00:02:00] to someone I admire and ask them a question.

[00:02:02] Doc: And when you have like a zine or you have a camera, it gives you that excuse. It gives you that access. You know, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t normally walk up to this guy and just be like, I love your art. What type of brush do you use or something? Right. With what guitar are using or whatever, you know, kind of lame question like that.

[00:02:15] Doc: But you got that camera there and all of a sudden there’s that permission and that kind of like ability to just have this direct conversation with someone you admire and be able to learn with them. And then you’re not going to hoard that. Obviously your, your goal isn’t to, my goal isn’t to get lots of views.

[00:02:29] Doc: It’s to get, you know, whoever needs to see it, get them a chance to see it, you know, make it as easy for them to see it. Silence.

[00:02:45] Matt: is and how you got this project and why you’re super passionate about it. 

[00:02:50] Matt: Um, but I have a question about content creation and sort of your, Sort of view on how it’s evolved again going back 16 years ago on your YouTube channel to [00:03:00] where?

[00:03:00] Matt: Social media is today where short form content is today. I’ll frame it for you I’m not a fan of the tick tocks in the reels in the stuff that disappears in 24 hours I like Podcasting. I like long form video. I like creating the stuff that is much more everlasting, deeper connection, but it’s not the stuff that people are, at least that I’m told this is the stuff that people are tuning into.

[00:03:26] Matt: Like people are saying, Oh, it’s got to be tick tock. It’s got to be Instagram. You got to do these short things. What’s your thoughts on, on content creation? Like what, what type of content is important to you? And what are you more, most passionate about creating?

[00:03:41] Doc: So as the type of social media has changed throughout the years and the way people use it has changed, I have not really changed that much. My interest has always been, I just want to document this because I think it’s cool and I want to show it in the best way I can. Um, if your goal is to make a living through [00:04:00] social media, which is not, not what I’m doing and, and man, that sounds like a stressful gig.

[00:04:04] Doc: Uh, but if your goal is that. Then, you know, yeah, I think you have to like follow like you, you do need to, uh, if you’re on Tik Tok, you need to post like three times a week and do one live stream a week or whatever. Like there’s these kind of formulas that are tried and true, but if that’s not your goal is, you know, making money exclusively from that, I just say, do what’s fun for you.

[00:04:24] Doc: So if Tik Tok’s not fun for you. I don’t recommend trying to get on it because like you feel obligated to. Um, for, for me, I’ve really liked watching stuff on YouTube. So I kind of grok YouTube and that’s where, that’s where I kind of live or my content lives and I don’t push myself to do. You know, whatever the trend is, uh, and man, those trends have changed because I remember, uh, in the early days, it was like, if you were longer than three minutes, no one’s going to watch your video.

[00:04:51] Doc: That’s crazy long for the internet. And, you know, I watched a four hour documentary on YouTube. About Eve [00:05:00] online and all the rules are changed. Like all the videos that are getting shown to me are at least an hour long now. So I’m not trying to adapt to that or whatever. Whatever YouTube suddenly decides is their new priority.

[00:05:11] Doc: And they’re going to push things to make that. And you know, I’m not getting millions of views on all a few of mine have probably not that craft video from, from that’s probably comfortably sitting at like 15 views. Oh, 4, 000. Okay. Uh, But, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, for me, it’s nice when things do get a lot of views and it’s a little bit like I just make a lot of content and so I’m buying a lot of lottery tickets and every now and then one of those tickets will scratch off and it’ll do really well.

[00:05:36] Doc: And that feels good. But because there’s no income associated for me, it’s just about making that stuff and being able to open those doors and have opportunities if, you know, for, for business wise, Um, you know, I, I focus a little bit more on this interview might help, um, get people to come visit my site and buy something or might help get my foot in the door at a job I’m looking at or something like that.

[00:05:58] Doc: So that’s, that’s a little bit where I’m [00:06:00] going from and the, the, the numbers that’s, if, if that’s a thing you want to get into, you definitely need to follow the rules and do all that stuff. There’s no way we’re working around it, but I just, you know, comfortably decided I’m just going to make stuff that makes me happy and try to be as productive as possible.

[00:06:16] Doc: And, uh, it’s been, you know, it’s been fun. That’s why I haven’t burned out. I think over 16 years.

[00:06:21] Matt: Half of your title is professional yo yo er, the other half is freelance WordPress content creator. I think folks in the audience, uh, know you for the 8 years at Torque? Mag, I think roughly? Um, something around, was it 8 years roughly?

[00:06:36] Doc: It was about, it was just like one month, shy of 10 years.

[00:06:39] Matt: 10 years. Yep. Uh, so a lot of folks know you, know you from that. What, what? Uh, Did, did you find WordPress and then you found Torque? Or did you find Torque and then WordPress? How did, how did your love and passion for all things WordPress come about?

[00:06:54] Doc: So I mentioned that I love blogging, and so of course I ended [00:07:00] up on WordPress from Blogger. I think I was, uh, first it was like some MSN uh, Microsoft kind of blogging platform that predates blogger, and then there was Blogger, and then WordPress had that really easy tool to. To move your content off a blocker and, and Google was really cool about, uh, you know, delivering that in a friendly way and not, not hold porting it.

[00:07:21] Doc: And due to that, like, yeah. Uh, but, but due to that, I was, it was very easy to get onto WordPress and my friend, Scott Beal, who owns laughing squid. com, he, uh, was a San Franciscan at the time, very interconnected with our art scene. And he was just hooking up artists. You know, if you were like doing events in the city or doing stuff, Uh, whether it was burning man related or, or, you know, just local pranks or whatever, he would hook you up with, with hosting.

[00:07:46] Doc: So that’s how I got on there. And it wasn’t like a passion for WordPress. It was definitely one of those things. It’s like a tool I use and I like it. And there’s no complaints. If somebody asked what, what should they use? I’d be like, Oh, you should definitely use this. And, um, it was [00:08:00] because of making content, a friend of mine who works at WP Engine saw the videos I was making, knew that I, you know, wasn’t, I wasn’t like a WordPress advocate, but I loved using the platform.

[00:08:09] Doc: And he was like, how would you feel about doing this? And that was a really fun gig, you know, 10 years of interviewing people about WordPress is really cool. Um,

[00:08:32] Matt: we all, Like, love it. We all use it, but we know it’s not the best for just this one thing that I think it’s great for blogging, but I’m sure there are some things that can can improve the experience.

[00:08:43] Matt: But what’s happening these days in the ethos of WordPress is just a lot of frustration. Like we got a lot of newbies coming in, which is great. Problem is, they’re like, Ah, this is not that good for building websites. Then we have a lot of developers who’ve I’ve been here for years going, listen, we’re trying to make it [00:09:00] better.

[00:09:00] Matt: Yet you have to, to, to bear with us. How did that empathy evolve? If, if at anything, if you can illustrate that for us, for both camps, cause you were here for, you know, uh, a while representing, uh, one of the longest standing WordPress hosting company brands through torque, you probably heard from both camps, end users, advanced users.

[00:09:19] Matt: How did you, how did that evolve for you? If, if at anything, you have a different perspective for beginners and more advanced folks these days.

[00:09:26] Doc: It, it started off as a way that this is just a tool I like, and if I hired a developer, They might be very concerned about the politics behind it. But I was, you know, very kind of away from that. I was just a user who occasionally hired someone every three years to, you know, update my site or something like that.

[00:09:44] Doc: And I never really dived into it too much other than just being like, man, this sure is, um, I guess ostensible would be the word. Like as a, uh, even someone who does not do any coding at all. Still, it’s very easy to, I wish there was a plugin for this. Well, let me do a quick [00:10:00] search and there’s three of them, right?

[00:10:01] Doc: So that’s the beautiful thing that’s always been around when I started documenting it. It definitely felt like in the beginning I was filled with a sense of just huge optimism. And then, um, somewhere along the line, I became, I guess, so close to it that I actually heard about the, the, the discourse, right.

[00:10:19] Doc: You know, the quote unquote discourse and like, you know, dramas and stuff like that. And that was kind of a bummer. And it’s hard for me now to kind of think about what. Perspective new users would have because there’s been that major change with with Gutenberg, which I think is probably a good term You know good change for users um I can’t help but to think about like, you know, all the behind the scenes stuff I guess when it comes down to it if someone were to come to me now and be like, what should I use for for blogging?

[00:10:49] Doc: it’s not quite as simple as it used to be but not really because I have that insider knowledge or because WordPress has even changed that much You know, for some people, Wix is just [00:11:00] kind of maybe, uh, a good, you know, all they want to do is create something for like, um, you know, a birthday party or something they’re doing for one weekend and then they’re going to get rid of it or whatever.

[00:11:09] Doc: And that’s where, that’s where I actually come kind of confused is when people these days ask me, what, what should I be using? What, you know, where should I be hosting or whatever? And I’m like, Oh, there’s a whole, whole first off, we’re going to pick out which CMS you want to be on and how much changes you want to be.

[00:11:22] Doc: Or if you just want something kind of, uh, Ready to go. Do you want a single landing page or what? And I guess that’s good to have that problem where there’s so many things. I wouldn’t avoid recommending WordPress because of my time kind of in there. Uh, but, but yeah, it is, it is hard at this point.

[00:11:38] Doc: Sometimes to figure out like, maybe it’s not perfect for everyone. Um, it’s, it’s complex.

[00:11:46] Matt: how important is open source to you as a user of WordPress?

[00:11:50] Doc: It’s, it’s very important for me because of those, the, the plugins that I was talking about, the ability, ability to get themes for, for a lot of folks, [00:12:00] it’s important just for costs, you know, getting, uh, free themes or free plugins is, is a huge priority for them. Hosting is sometimes pretty expensive. So anywhere where you can save is nice, but, uh, as a believer in the open web, it’s very important for me.

[00:12:15] Doc: I think, um, That’s, that’s a harder thing to communicate maybe to someone who just wants to create a website for a weekend, but for me personally, I try my best to support things that are open protocols that can help improve other things, you know, make the web better, not just, not just kind of, uh, lock people in.

[00:12:32] Doc: Okay.

[00:12:32] Matt: We’re going to talk about that, uh, that Fediverse stuff, uh, in a moment. Uh, I, I want to know how you, If at all, and listen, I, I don’t cause I don’t know how myself, but how do you relay that? Do you try to relay that importance to maybe not friends and family, but maybe you have colleagues that are trying to decide between WordPress and in, in Wix.

[00:12:57] Matt: And, and do you try to, You [00:13:00] know, you should make the nod to open source, even if it’s a little bit more difficult to get started with WordPress, you should care about open source, uh, you know, for the open web. Do you try to make that case with the average user or do you just, nah, I’m not going to try to go down that rabbit hole, they’re still trying to figure out how to, you know, design their website.

[00:13:17] Matt: Yes.

[00:13:22] Doc: we all know we should eat healthier, right? Like, no one needs to tell us, like, this is a thing you should be doing. You shouldn’t be eating that junk food. And it’s maybe a better case to try to say, this is better because I mean, because everyone knows, like, uh, these big Companies are going to get bigger and eventually you’ll kind of regret it.

[00:13:40] Doc: But still, even myself, like I’m, I’m not running Linux. Uh, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m on Chrome right now. Chrome browser. I, I know that I’ve kind of given up some stuff and I try to fight the battles that I can. But I, I’m not going to try to make an argument to someone explaining open source to someone who, you know, is probably never even going to be Contributing to it.

[00:13:59] Doc: They’re just going to [00:14:00] be an end user. Instead. I’m just going to try to sell them on those features. I’m going to try to be like, this is something that if, if this company goes away overnight, it should be pretty easy to find someone. You might not be able to do it, but to find someone who can help you get it running somewhere else or port it over.

[00:14:14] Doc: And you can’t say that about this other company. That’s, that’s the way I think about it. I don’t go for, uh, open sources, you know, the best thing to do morally or, or anything like that, if, if they’re not a developer and they’re not going to be actually kind of going in under the hood, I, I just try to make the cases for the things that are awesome, which is usually focusing on the free plugins or the usually free plugins and, um, the, the flexibility that you have.

[00:14:39] Doc: And that safety, you know, like I said, as someone who’s been making content for, I guess, uh, since zines, but like, uh, making content on YouTube for 16 years, if, if YouTube goes away overnight, man, all this stuff’s kind of gone and it’s a bummer. So I’m, I’m definitely thinking at this point, what’s going to be the thing that if this goes away, cause I’ve seen so many things come and go, you know, and so I try to kind of [00:15:00] share that with people, like this is a better longterm bet for you.

[00:15:03] Doc: And some people don’t, don’t think longterm, you know, they’re just trying to get this thing up for, you know, right now. And, uh, I don’t try to win them over with, you know, arguments about open source or anything like that. Yeah.

[00:15:18] Matt: you know, I love WordPress for the open source, uh, angle of it, right? It’s roots in open source, uh, one for the end user as this is your thing. You can move it around, you can bring it to different web hosts. You’re not, you’re not locked into just one.

[00:15:33] Matt: Um, so I love that. I love too that it’s a community of folks. And even if the overall direction of the open source project isn’t there. Led in a democratic way. You still have, you know, a voice and vote to do things. Like I just had a little feature added to WordPress 6. 6 as just a, Hey, I’m gonna raise my hand and say, this should be added.

[00:15:52] Matt: It was added. And I got credit to, I was like, this is pretty cool. Um, so like, I like it for that. And then I say the open web [00:16:00] too. But I’m not a like, you know, like you said, like I used to run Linux, you know, when I was younger and I had time to like mess around and break things. And okay, I got to fix my computer now.

[00:16:10] Matt: I don’t do that anymore. Right? I run Mac. I use brave, but I run Mac and I run an iPhone. There’s diehard open source people who are using like the graphene phone. They’re running Linux. They’re not touching anything. pixels or cookies ever come near their computer. Um, that’s not me, but I love the open web for, for the mere fact that you, you, you can have choice.

[00:16:34] Matt: When you don’t like this, this path anymore, you at least have this other path, right? And that you could go down and it might not be as good. It might not be as sexy or fast or have all the crazy algorithms, but it’s there, it’s opening and you have access to it. And that’s about as far as I go with, you know, my understanding of, of the open web and what’s great about it.

[00:16:57] Matt: Um, Does the open web mean [00:17:00] anything else to you? Like, organizations, you know, big corporations, you know, controlling the web. That’s one thing. Is there anything else about the open web that, that really you’re passionate about or that you really like about it?

[00:17:11] Doc: We, you mentioned the big corporations. It is interesting that, that sometimes we go deeper and deeper into open web stuff to the point where one company maybe kind of dominates it. And the, you know, the example that comes up for me is, is Google and Gmail. Uh, email is this perfect example of like an open federated system where anybody can communicate with anyone.

[00:17:32] Doc: But if you talk to someone these days, Google has gotten so good at it that they’re basically email, like Gmail is basically email. And if anybody these days try setting up an email server, they, they’ve learned the hard way that Google doesn’t want them communicating with their people. Like I keep hearing from folks like that.

[00:17:47] Doc: So that, that, that’s the interesting thing to me is, is. When things go really well and they seem to be going perfect and this technology is catching on and we’ve got like all this money coming in to pay developers to make it even better from, [00:18:00] from these big corporations and then after a certain while, you’re like, Oh wait, we’re just in another silo by accident, you know, and that’s, that’s such a bummer when that happens.

[00:18:06] Doc: Yeah.

[00:18:09] Matt: You know, I don’t know how closely you follow the, the, the podcasting space, like the, the actual industry news of, of things. Um, I follow it pretty closely. There’s a whole open source movement called podcasting 2. 0. It’s like WordPress for the RSS feed of podcasts, right? They enhance the RSS feed, they make it better, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:18:28] Matt: And they’re, you know, they’re always advocating for other apps to adopt this technology. Just like, uh, if WordPress was advocating for another web host to. You know, use WordPress on their hosting platform. And the big thing in podcasting these days, because, you know, Spotify was supposed to come in and in their words, save podcasting.

[00:18:47] Matt: But they were, they were just trying to build a walled garden around acquiring shows and having premium features, but all in the Spotify app, they’ve since given up that they given up those reins in their most, um, figurehead [00:19:00] of podcasting, let’s say Joe Rogan, because it is the biggest show. They just now went to open publishing.

[00:19:05] Matt: He’s back on all the airwaves since the start of the, of the new year. So it looks like they’ve sort of given up. That, uh, which is good. Like it’s a good thing that they’ve given up trying to reign RSS feeds into their own platform. But now YouTube is the one that everyone is looking at as like the savior of podcasting because people are going there for search and discover it.

[00:19:25] Matt: And don’t you want that? You know, Mrs. Podcaster, don’t you want that search and discoverability for your show? Cause no one else is giving it to you. And everyone’s going, yes. And now look at the ad revenue is going up and the viewership is going up and you must have a YouTube channel. If you want a successful podcast, it’s like, Whoa, Whoa.

[00:19:41] Matt: It’s all going to, what have we not learned our lesson 18 times over with this stuff. It’s just going to live on YouTube. And what has Google shown us time and time again, they keep getting rid of things, including their own podcast app. Which they just end of life on all Android devices [00:20:00] as of last month It’s just like what why are we saying these things?

[00:20:04] Matt: These corporations are just for one thing. It’s for profit. It’s for revenue It’s for their ad network, and it’s never the creator And I’m sure from your YouTube experience if you have ad sense on your your channel mine has been like cut by more than 60 percent in terms of You Ad revenue coming in over the last four or five years.

[00:20:25] Matt: It just keeps getting less and less and we keep losing out It’s a frustrating experience. I don’t have a direct question there, but just more framing these frustrations of giving all your content to one Silo, it’s very difficult

[00:20:39] Doc: You, um, I just want to mention you, you, you stumbled upon one of my favorite things in the world, which is RSS. Uh, there have been several open protocols on the web that I’ve benefited from as a, as a web user, but I never really was aware of the idea of an open protocol until RSS, maybe because it sounded kind of complex, but this ability to not have to go and [00:21:00] check someone’s site every day, or, you know, someone posts once a year, right back in 2007 or 2008, you don’t have to like remember sites and see if they’ve updated.

[00:21:07] Doc: So the ability to just kind of like set up this RSS feed, which Google had an amazing. Uh, feed reader called Google Reader. And so all you had to do is just go to the site, grab the RSS, put it in, and then you just check Google reader every day, which was, uh, you, you know, you could use any other RSS reader.

[00:21:22] Doc: That’s the one that we use. And that was to me, the, the beginning of this walls coming down, you know, I thought in 2008, we were going to be, uh, I thought Facebook’s doomed. Um, I didn’t mean to have to go to Facebook because back then you could actually get an RSS of someone’s Facebook page. So even Facebook.

[00:21:40] Doc: You could just scrape their page and, you know, oh my God, podcasts are powered by RSS. Everybody’s using RSS and they don’t even know it. Right. Of course, there’s other open protocols like HTML or IMAP or, you know, whatever. There’s other ones that we all use, but it wasn’t really until RSS that I realized that if someone builds a standard and we get around the standard, this magical stuff can happen.[00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Doc: But then, uh, you know, we talked about Gmail kind of becoming the big thing. And then, and then now it’s basically a silo when Google reader was killed for Google plus, which was also killed and replaced with something else. Who knows? 

[00:22:11] Doc: Right. But when Google reader was killed, all of a sudden RSS was killed too, because everyone, you could have used anything and there was lots of great alternatives.

[00:22:20] Doc: There still are, I use them, but for the most part. When that, when that big easy tool went away, everyone just gave up on it. And we, you know, kind of built up silos again and it’s happening again. It’s, it’s this cycle. I hate it, Matt. I hate this cycle and this optimism. And then it’s like, somehow getting tricked into supporting the wrong thing.

[00:22:38] Doc: You’re like, Oh, they’re doing the right thing. You’re making this better. They’re making, Oh my God. They, they dominate the industry and now nobody can do anything anymore. And I’ve made a terrible mistake.

[00:22:46] Matt: Yeah.

[00:22:47] Doc: Silence.

[00:22:52] Matt: out over the like button, right? 

[00:22:53] Matt: So let’s just say like the like button took over like all of social media, it’s likes, it’s hearts, it’s whatever. It’s all these things that [00:23:00] just drive this like a vanity engagement. But if RSS had one as just like maybe your email address or your phone number represented a way to get with you, get connected to you.

[00:23:11] Matt: If everyone kind of knew what RSS was and we all had Our own RSS address, let’s say, uh, that had all of our content on it, man, what a, what a world that would be because you would have, you would have that direct one to one relationship with, I have a thousand subscribers that go to my RSS feed every, every month or every day, whatever it is, and it’s all of your content, photos, blog, podcast, video, whatever, um, man, what a world that would be, and these, these And these corporations, Google, Facebook, all of them, they don’t want it because that is open distribution that anyone can connect with.

[00:23:49] Matt: Any app can connect to it. And guess what they can’t insert? Is the ad network, is the algo to, you know, to, to scoop this stuff up. Anyway, I don’t want to get on too much [00:24:00] of a, of a soapbox about RSS cause I do love it as well. 

[00:24:04] Matt: Something similar to that though, let’s get into the Fediverse project that you’re working on with wordpress.

[00:24:09] Matt: com, wordpress. com slash Fediverse. How did this project come about? Is this something that you pitched to WordPress as your, with your freelance WordPress content creator had on and they said yes or vice versa? How did it all come about?

[00:24:22] Doc: This was a beautiful thing that happened on social media. And there’s been so many lucky, wonderful things that have happened where you use social media for a long time, as long as you put something out there and you get this response. Uh, when, when I was laid off from Torque, uh, about four months ago, I put out a message saying if I could do anything right now, I would love to somehow help spread the word about the Fediverse.

[00:24:45] Doc: I, and I think that was like one of two things I said, I’d either like to interview artists or I’d like to spread the word about the Fediverse and there’s no money in the Fediverse. It’s like, it’s like saying

[00:24:53] Matt: I thought you were going to say there’s no money in interviewing artists.

[00:24:56] Doc: Yeah, actually there’s nobody out there at all. But, uh, [00:25:00] It would be like if, if in 2009, I was like, I want to help promote RSS, right?

[00:25:04] Doc: There’s nobody paying, right? And so, uh, saying I want to support the Fediverse is like, well, you know, you can, but you’re probably not going to get paid for it. And, um, just as some luck, I think some, some right people saw it and some good, you know, coincidence happens where. I guess, wordpress. com or an automatic.

[00:25:21] Doc: We’re looking at Fediverse stuff. They have Mattias Buferli on staff, who’s building the WordPress, uh, to activity pub plugin, and so they’re, they’re interested in it and they’re always kind of dabbling with it. And I guess they, they saw that, or it was shown to them and they reached out to me and we had this conversation and, uh, the Fediverse files is the end result, which is, um, currently a five.

[00:25:43] Doc: Episode series there might be another series, you know, uh, series two might come but series one is in the can And it is meant to explain the Fediverse in very simplistic terms So it’s not like a deep dive into Fediverse politics at all The first episode is what is the Fediverse and talking about that [00:26:00] Simple analogies to help people understand it and to get them to share my enthusiasm and to hopefully get them started on there.

[00:26:07] Doc: The second one’s an interview with the co creator of activity pub. Um, we’ve got, you know, lots of other cool interviews. So it’s been a dream job for me and it definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity where you’re like, there is a thing I’m extremely passionate about. Oh, you’re going to give me money to like write songs and draw animations about this thing.

[00:26:26] Doc: And it’s, it’s, I couldn’t be any more prouder. I’m definitely going to be showing this to my grandkids. Silence.

[00:26:37] Matt: it came out. It’s fantastic. I want to talk about the production of it, uh, in a moment, but in terms of explaining the Fediverse project. Number one, you’re doing a great job, like breaking it down, like super simplistic. Uh, there are things that I, I learned from it that, you know, I’m not an expert in the Fediverse by any stretch of the imagination again, really only got into it a few years ago before the whole, you know, sort of Twitter fiasco, um, Twitter to X fiasco, [00:27:00] I was there for the podcasting 2.

[00:27:02] Matt: 0 stuff. Because largely that’s where they, they lived and communicated with, um, but doing a fantastic job, like breaking it down, making people understand it. Uh, so I applaud you on that. Here’s the thing. 

[00:27:13] Matt: It’s like what you said earlier is things I’ve said before is like, we should all eat healthier. We should all drink less.

[00:27:17] Matt: We want to lose weight, stop eating the pizza. And I felt like when the whole like, Oh, you know, we don’t want to be on Twitter anymore. What are the alternatives? And people are saying Macedon, go to the Metaverse, all this stuff. And people got there and like, okay. Wait a minute. Why doesn’t it look as good as Twitter?

[00:27:33] Matt: You know, where are all my, where are all my friends? Why doesn’t it do these things? And then people go, okay, I guess I gotta go back to Twitter now. You know, and you’re just like, Hey, you should have stayed like, this is here. This is the open web. This is what it looks like. It’s never going to be as polished in that, that, uh, uh, steroid injection of like, uh, you know, news and, and breaking news and stream and the algorithm.

[00:27:58] Matt: It just, it’s just not there [00:28:00] because. People aren’t building for it. And these other commercial platforms are just a long way of getting to what’s your thoughts on like, Hey, here’s the open, here’s the open web slash social platform versus here’s the Twitter or the Facebooks of the world. Like, how do you make that distinction when people ask you where they should spend their time doing social, if you can.

[00:28:23] Doc: I mean, this is very similar to, if someone asked me where, what type of website should I have? Right. Uh, there’s different things that might be different fits for them. Exactly what a teenager is looking for and Mastodon isn’t right. Like I’m not going to try to force them onto it. Um, I really like Mastodon and I’ve been very surprised at how many folks just don’t find it very sticky or have some issues with it, like, um, creating Mastodon, Mastodon account for some people, it’s a big barrier to pick a.

[00:28:54] Doc: A server and, you know, uh, create, create your, your identity on that versus just going to [00:29:00]mastodon. com, right? So a lot of us are just used to go to twitter. com if you want to use Twitter and go to whatever. I didn’t have too hard of that. Like it was very similar to, you know, if someone said, uh, I want to use email.

[00:29:11] Doc: Okay. First thing you got to do is find an email server and then you create your name. It wasn’t, it wasn’t that hard for me. I, I don’t get too offended if, if it’s not for everyone. Like I, at first I was like, man, what’s wrong with you? Don’t you care about this? Like this is, you said, you said you’re leaving this other platform for these reasons and this fixes it.

[00:29:27] Doc: And I don’t do that anymore. At my hope, um, I’m just running on optimism and my hope is that in the long run, uh, and by long run, I’m just talking about like five to six years. That this stuff won’t be complicated to people, um, in the same way that people subscribe to a podcast and they don’t think about the word RSS, which we should be taking shots every time we take, we said the word RSS in this episode, but in the same way that like, you know, RSS sounds scary.

[00:29:52] Doc: RSS readers sounds scary. Podcast, nobody, nobody thinks twice about podcast. Nobody thinks about like, how do I send an email to someone? Oh, I have to write their [00:30:00] name and then their server. They’re like, no, that’s not weird for anyone. And I’m hoping that the Fediverse is going to be this thing that just catches on in a way that’s super natural.

[00:30:10] Doc: When, when Twitter came around in 2007. understood it. Even though Facebook was around, I was trying to get people to sign on to Twitter and they just were like, why I don’t understand the appeal of this in any way, and you were just constantly explaining how things worked and how usernames work and nobody does that anymore.

[00:30:26] Doc: Like it’s just, it’s just natural. I think that, uh, that activity pub is going to be like the RSS. It’s going to be the thing that we don’t really talk about that powers the Fediverse. And people aren’t going to need constant explanations like they do now. And I hope that because of all this stuff, the things that are built around there will be so enticing and so good that the healthy meal will be so good.

[00:30:50] Doc: They’ll just want to eat it because it’s delicious and not because of how it was made. And, and they’re not even going to have to think about it. You know how it was made. It just is, this is so much better than, you know, the garbage they’re selling down [00:31:00] the street. Um,

[00:31:12] Matt: that injection shot to connect WordPress and activity pub to the, to the Fediverse. And I’ll just, you know, frame it with, with the activity pub plugin. And you show this as an example, um, in your video.

[00:31:24] Matt: So if you have the activity pub plugin running on your WordPress website. Which I do on the WP Minute, uh, and you make a post, number one, just from like, The typical one on one of, of a daily marketer, it just goes, just goes out there like I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to send it to, to the, to the Fediverse or go to my master account and punch it in.

[00:31:47] Matt: Um, you know, like a lot of people have to do with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. I know there’s plugins out there that will automatically post it, but it just lives, uh, in, uh, in the, in the Fediverse once I publish it. And two, Once it’s [00:32:00] out there, let’s say if I’m on my Macedon account, um, in my app, I should say on my phone and I’m scrolling through and I leave a comment on that link, it automatically post to the comment section of that post.

[00:32:12] Matt: Let’s say that is fantastic. I mean, imagine having And the conversations on Twitter about your post and then they just all show up on your post. Like that alone should make people look at that and go, wow, engagement, amazing, off the charts. Um, and going back to that connection to Tumblr, like Tumblr being a social network, I would have loved to seen, and maybe it’ll still happen eventually, but I would have loved to seen that like core connection, WordPress, Fediverse, social network, and we’re all kind of living in this like higher engagement world.

[00:32:44] Matt: But that’s just like. Scratching the surface of what this ActivityPub plugin can do. Um, any other cool features of the ActivityPub plugin that you’re, that you’re liking and, and seeing, um, through doing this series?

[00:32:56] Doc: Well, okay, this, this is getting a [00:33:00] little, um, optimistic. I don’t know. I think we think of the Fediverse as a Twitter alternative, uh, or at the very least a social Right. A form of, of social media that, um, it’s as if I was on one social media platform and I could comment on another social media platform without creating an account there, right?

[00:33:19] Doc: That’s how we think of it. I think that the Fediverse is going to be something far bigger and it’s not going to be just social media. It’s going to be, um, The replacement for, uh, podcasting 2. 0 could be powered by ActivityPub. And the way that that would work is I have, uh, uh, ActivityPub reader or a Fediverse.

[00:33:38] Doc: You know, I have an account on the Fediverse. And through there, I could be like, I’m going to start following Matt’s podcast on here. And so like, that’s that one way RSS connection, right? That podcast connection, right? And there might be whole podcast players built around this. Um, and once I like something that podcast gets an actual, like in the Fediverse, or if I leave a comment, it actually goes there, right?

[00:33:57] Doc: So instead of just that one way broadcasting, [00:34:00] we might have this system of like two way interactions. And I’m still thinking based on kind of. Current things that we’re doing and how the Fediverse could kind of integrate with it. But I think there’s almost like a new type of web that that could be enabled.

[00:34:15] Doc: Um, the missing ingredients might be things like portability for your username. Like right now you’re really kind of tied to if you’re on Macedon, you can one move servers, whatever that could break things a little bit. Um, but eventually I think we’ll have some sort of. Fediverse identity and from there be able to connect to the things.

[00:34:31] Doc: And if we move around from servers, people don’t even have to know. They just always kind of connect to that identity. And, um, you know, if you change your podcasting company, maybe like, I don’t know, like, I think there’s a lot of interesting two way stuff that could happen that we don’t even know is missing right now.

[00:34:45] Doc: And that’s exciting. Um, and you, you mentioned, you mentioned press and, or will you mention blogs and the ability to have those comments, you know, When I think about the next use case, I’m hoping that, you know, Wired and [00:35:00] Verge and TechCrunch all have that Fediverse integration and not just like, we have a mastodon account, let’s copy paste what we wrote on Twitter and put it in there, but actually, when their blog post goes up, it also gets federated, becomes a first class system, first class user, basically, like it’s, it’s a post that hasn’t been updated.

[00:35:19] Doc: Shared to the FedEverse, it lives on the FedEverse. And from there, people can like subscribe to, you know, news, newspapers and stuff, write comments, and they go into the comment section. And I I’m feeling pretty optimistic about that because I know that the publishers more than anyone else have been burned by Facebook.

[00:35:34] Doc: They’ve been burned by Twitter. They’ve been, you know, they’re the ones who are like, we’re tired of building our audiences for some other platform. And then all of a sudden they, they shut off the algorithm or something. And if they switch to FedEverse integration. And start kind of really leaning on, you know, instead of focusing on posting on, on these other things, we’re just going to post this on our site and it gets federated and it’s a first class citizen of the Fediverse, then maybe users will start kind of coming in.

[00:35:58] Doc: That’s maybe the first [00:36:00] wave of users that come in other than just looking for Twitter alternatives.

[00:36:03] Matt: Yeah. Um, I know in podcasting 2. 0, this will get a little bit technical, but the, there’s a lot of features that they’re, that they’re exploring, you know, powered by activity pub and especially like comments and, um, you know, being able to like podcast, like, cause this doesn’t exist right now. Like, especially.

[00:36:22] Matt: You know, blogging is, is fragmented, right? There’s, I mean, you just have search, right? You have Google, right? And other search engines, but there’s no, you know, I don’t know if any, you’re not going to a place to go, Oh, I want to just look at these blog categories and see all the metadata there. Um, but they’re trying to do that with podcasting 2.

[00:36:41] Matt: 0, you know, thanks to, uh, things like activity pub, because that data with air quotes met, maybe With air quotes can be shared throughout all app experiences. So if you like my podcast and let’s say pocket casts, it might show up in overcast that you liked it. And that sort of [00:37:00] like that data is every can be everywhere.

[00:37:02] Matt: If these other apps decide to like pull in the likes, pull in the comments. And it’s just like a one stop shop where by enabling having these features live on. Or through activity pub, other apps can build upon that experience and then build the experiences that they want for their audiences. You don’t want to see comments in this podcast app.

[00:37:21] Matt: No problem. They, they don’t use comments in this podcast. You’ll never see it, but in these other three podcast apps, comments are there. You can engage with them. And I really liked that. Like, I think that’s an amazing thing. 

[00:37:34] Matt: Let’s talk about the production of the show of the show, of the series that you’re, that you’re building fantastic.

[00:37:40] Matt: Uh, and I, you know, I had no doubts that it, that it wouldn’t be. Um, you’re producing the whole thing, working with a team, like a one, one camera setup. Uh, I don’t think it is, but judging by what I’ve seen, but what’s the production look like behind the scenes? How does it all come together? Do you work with anybody else?

[00:37:56] Matt: How much work you do and let, let us know.

[00:37:58] Doc: So the interviews [00:38:00] are mostly shot, um, the same way you and I are chatting right now. I even bought a new camera to kind of make it look a little nicer, but they’re shot in my office in San Francisco, just a shared. And, um, for the bulk of the non interview stuff, like the intros and that first episode and the, and the fifth episode, um, those are shot in automatics office on mission street in San Francisco, which is one of the coolest buildings in the entire city.

[00:38:26] Doc: And no one knows about it. It’s a real gym. And I was super excited because I, I been in there before they moved in there. And when I found out they were there, I was like, can, can we shoot the whole thing? Yeah. And so, uh, we had one day to shoot in automatic office and, um, I hired a camera guy to kind of help just because it was, if, if, if I had like, if I had infinite days, I’d just do it all by myself.

[00:38:48] Doc: But I was like, let’s just, we, you know, we’ve got five episodes, we’ve got six hours, so I hired a friend to kind of come and shoot and it was for the most part, one camera, uh, and I wrote the script myself [00:39:00] and, you know, it was Uh, I’m the on screen guy for better, for better or worse, that’s, that’s who you get.

[00:39:04] Doc: Um, but, uh, yeah, I just got to,

[00:39:07] Matt: And the camera guy throws paper at you, right? You’re he’s throwing the paper at, or are you throwing it at yourself? Like off

[00:39:12] Doc: No, the camera guy was doing, yeah. So he’s, he’s a stunt double as well. Uh, and, and helped with folly, I guess too. Um, but yeah, it, the, the first episode is largely me in the office, um, kind of talking at the camera and the next episode, which you haven’t seen yet is an interview with Um, Evan Pedromo, who’s the co creator of ActivityPub.

[00:39:32] Doc: And I try to stay away from like, you know, history and stuff like that. I just wanted to kind of get him talking about the things that someone who’s just learning about it could really enjoy. Like still keep this instead of right. Instead of like aiming towards Fediverse users, uh, let’s try to get people to understand the potential of what this could really be.

[00:39:50] Doc: And, um, As also part of the production, I got to write songs for the episodes, uh, which is, you know, long interest of mine is writing music and [00:40:00] anytime I get a chance to write a stupid jingle, you know, I’ve wrote a jingle for Activity Pub. I wrote a jingle for Mastodon. Well, uh, uh, yeah. And, and so it’s just, it was just a chance, everything I said, um, when I was writing the script, I was like, I, I think, I think there’s a song.

[00:40:13] Doc: Potential here. And they were like, go for it. I was like, really? Every, every weird, stupid idea I had. Um, and you know, uh, Matt, as a, as a contractor who had been working full time for a company for 10 years as a contractor, I’m like, wow, when you’re a contractor, you’re like the expert. So if you just say something, they’re like, Oh, this must be a really good idea.

[00:40:32] Doc: Where like, if you’re like, if you’re like full time with the company and stuff, you’re like, Oh, I think we should, you know, do, do a song in here. Well, let’s, let’s, let’s play it by this audience and see how it works. And, you know, see

[00:40:41] Matt: Let’s talk to legal. Let’s get the marketing team involved. Oh God.

[00:40:46] Doc: this is great. This was, this is just like any stupid idea.

[00:40:48] Doc: I wish, I wish, honestly, I have more dumb ideas because I would have loved to have seen where, where the limit was. Like, uh, you know, like, uh, no, doc, you shouldn’t parachute off of the [00:41:00] tower for this. I think we’re, I think we got the point. I think we, we conveyed that. Yeah. They were, they were super supportive of this.

[00:41:06] Doc: Okay.

[00:41:16] Matt: Can’t wait to see the next episode. I hope we’re, if anyone from Automatic is listening, I, you know. Bring Doc on to continue to do more content, uh, for wordpress.

[00:41:25] Matt: com, uh, beyond the Fediverse, uh, uh, if, if that’s possible, uh, but if you’re also looking to hire somebody to jump off of a tower with a parachute with your WordPress logo on it, uh, he’s for hire at docpop. org, uh, check him out, uh, as a freelance WordPress content creator. 

[00:41:42] Matt: Um, anything else, anywhere else folks can go to say thanks to, to visit you online?

[00:41:47] Matt: Macedon, Twitter, any other, uh, corporate social networks that folks can find you on.

[00:41:52] Doc: Absolutely. I’m still on a lot of the corporate social networks and the way to find me is docpop. org slash [00:42:00] about. I think that’s, uh, I think that’s the one and that’s where you can find my little link tree to everything. And this might be how we do it in the future. Instead of being like, here’s my username, we just might be like, here’s a section of my site where everything’s listed and that’s what I’m trying right now.

[00:42:13] Doc: So you can find my GitHub, you can find everything all from that, uh, from that page.

[00:42:17] ​[00:43:00]