On today’s episode, we are going to talk about different WordPress podcasts you can subscribe to, to learn more about Word Press, right here on Your Website Engineer Podcast, Episode No. 340.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Your Website Engineer Podcast. My name is Dustin Hartzler, and today we are going to start a month-long session of learning. And today we’re going to be diving into podcasts, and then in the coming weeks – well, next week we’re going to talk about the launch of WordPress 4.8, and then we’ll talk about different places we can learn tutorial wise and blogs to sign up for and subscribe to and videos and all this good stuff. But today, we’re going to dive in and talk about podcasts.

Before we get started though, I do have a couple announcements. The first one is WP CLI 1.2 was released back on May 31st, and it is a major overhaul that removes bundled commands from core in favor of maintaining them in distinct packages. This is the second release since the project was brought under the official WordPress umbrella and the first major release since they hired Alain Schlesser as a part-time co-maintainer. This release also includes three new commands, along with dozens of other improvements; but some of them you can do now is you can use wp config get, and you can list all the constants and globals defined in the wp-config file. You can use wp config path to get the path to the wp-config file, and you can also do wp db size to get the size of the database and the tables.

In this version, there were 43 contributors. That is a 95 percent increase in contributors from the previous release. And it also unveiled a new logo, and so this was, you know, just another part of the rebranding and the update from WordPress, or WP CLI 1.2. So if you’re using that, I highly recommend checking that out and checking out the article over on WP Tavern.

The other thing that I want to share with you today is Post Status Publish. This is an event for WordPress professionals, and it will take place August 3rd and 4th in Atlanta, Georgia. The main purpose of this event is to have presentations that don’t normally have a chance to make it on the main stage. They basically want to bring the hallway track, which is a lot of people just hanging out in the hallway talking and sharing ideas about their businesses, how they get customers, things like that; they’re going to bring that to the main stage. So it’s going to be a mix of conversations, interviews, and case studies. It is a premium event where the membership and the ticket cost $349. Once you buy this, you actually get a membership to the Post Status Newsletter, and you get one year membership for free. And so it’s $350 and then then hotel costs 100-and-some. They’ve got some top-name speakers; they’ve got some really high-end partners when it comes to sponsors and whatnot. And so if this sounds interesting to you, I definitely recommend checking it out. You can go to poststatus.com/publish to find out more information, or you can look in the show notes for Episode No. 340.

Is there a plugin for that section? This is a plugin. It’s called Show Plugin Menu Items on Activation; and it is a definite mouthful, but have you ever installed a plugin on your WordPress site and then had to hunt around in your admin sidebar trying to figure out where the menu item for the plugin was added to work with the settings and whatnot? Well, this plugin, Show Plugin Menu Items on Activation – it’s a long name – solves that problem by pointing out exactly which new menu items have been added to the sidebar every time a plugin is activated. If a plugin has more than one menu, maybe it’s a custom-post site then a new custom post spec was added and there’s a settings menu, it will pop up multiple different little menus that will showcase and highlight where this has been added. So this is something that may be great if you’ve got a big site and you’ve got a lot going on and everything you’ve got to plug in you want to know what it is that’s been added, you definitely want to check out this plugin. It’s called Show Plugin Menu Items on Activation. It’s a mouthful, but there’s a link in the show notes in Episode No. 340.

All right. Today we are going to talk about different WordPress podcasts out there because if you’re listening to this podcast, you may, you know, enjoy podcasts, you may have time for more WordPress podcasts, and there’s a lot of different podcasts that are out there that are different than what this show is. And back in the day when I started WordPress or I started Your Website Engineer, it was like there was only a handful of them out there, and now there’s like dozens upon dozens upon dozens. And I’m not listing all of them here today; these are the ones that I listen to, and then some of the other ones that I do like, I spot download I guess. I’ll download the ones that look interesting to me because I only have so much time in the day and I never drive anywhere, and so I don’t have a lot, a lot of time for podcasting and listening to podcasts. So here’s some of the shows that I listen to regularly, and I’ll give a little brief description about them and why I like them. And then I’ll highlight some of the other ones that are out there and maybe some of the details about them so that you’ll know if this is a good show for you or not. And I believe all of these are available in iTunes; you can just search for them in iTunes. And if not, then you’ll just have to look at the links in the show notes and you can go ahead and find out more.

All right, let’s dive in. The first one that I listen to regularly is Kitchen Sink at WP. This is by my friend Adam Silver, and he is a photographer turned WordPress professional. He’s great at this website, and it’s a short podcast. This is probably the shortest of all podcasts that I listen to, anywhere between 10 and 15 minutes on a week. It’s released on Monday mornings, and this a podcast that basically goes through – it lets you know about the upcoming word camps, the things that are happening in the WordPress space, and some of the other news, events, and there’s always a tip. There’s always some sort of research that Adam is sharing, and then there’s a section of the show – it’s a short section that he talks about some of the things that he’s doing inside his own business, some of the things that he’s learning, some of the things that he stumbles upon on a weekly basis. This is a podcast that I like, and it’s definitely recommended that you should check this one out for sure.

The second podcast is called Get Options, and this one is co-hosted by Adam Silver and Kyle Maurer, and it basically is a question-and-answer show that people will write in, they call in, or they ask questions via email or their slack channel and just ask, hey, how do you do this with WordPress or what’s the best recommendation. So it’s kind of like a recommendation, how do you do this. And Kyle and Adam, they tag-team and go back-and-forth with kind of snarky answers, kind of sarcastic-type answers, usually giving them the wrong advice first and then following it up with the correct advice. And so it’s another kind of fun thing. Kyle sometimes plays a guitar or a banjo in the middle of the show, so that’s really cool and it really has a lot of personality. And they do – these two do tag-teams at word camps. They’ll do like the battle of the plugins; which is better, a plugin or a theme, and they kind of battle back and forth and tell you which one is better than the other. And so that’s in the Get Options podcast.

Another one I listen to is called the Matt Report, and this is a podcast that is kind of focused on the business side. He does a lot of interviewing different WordPress businesses or companies or founders of companies, and they just go through and spend some time like diving into the business side of things. And this was a really helpful podcast. I loved listening to this when I was running my own business and just trying to figure out, okay, how do I do this, what’s the best method, like what are other people doing. And it’s just really interesting to see like how people started from really nothing and turned it into a WordPress business that’s this full-time business for them, making lots of money or a little money or if they’re doing it on the side. So that’s the Matt Report.

Another one that I listen to is called Apply Filters, and this is by Brad Touesnard and Pippin Williamson. This one is like the most geeky developer-y one that I listen to, and that’s the main reason that I listen to it, because they have really cool show topics. And I don’t quite grasp everything they’re talking about, try to just – everything that I hear them say, it’s like, okay, I need to look up this, I need to learn this, I need to optimize my database tables and I need to be able to do this, this, and this. You know, like that’s why I like this podcast; they do a really great job. And they always talk about their businesses. Brad Touesnard is behind WP Migrate DB Pro and a few other products, and then Pippin is in fact in charge of and leads the team behind Easy Digital Downloads, Restrict Content Pro, and as well as WP. So it’s always interesting to hear like kind of what they’re doing within their business, whether they’re changing their business model or upping their prices or things like that. I really enjoy that style of show.

And then the last one that I listen to regularly is called Post Status Draft, and that’s by the same folks, Brian Krogsgard over at Post Status, and it is a podcast that’s really focused on – there’s normally two people. There’s a host, Brian, but they talk about different – it’s kind of a back-and-forth. They talk about breaking into the community, how JavaScript works, just kind of piecemealing things, working with other people, talking with other people about how to make a living without, you know, having client work, a whole bunch of different topics. And usually this gets a little bit to be on the technical side. Brian is a person that really scours the web for WordPress news and puts together a weekly or daily I guess WordPress email that gets sent out to tons and tons of people. And so I listen to the podcast just to kind of keep up with what he’s doing. He’s had interviews and posts some of the Q&As that he does at different events and whatnot. And so that is a good podcast to listen to as well. That’s called Post Status Draft.

Then there’s a whole slew of podcasts that I just don’t have time to listen to. Like I said, I don’t drive anywhere, so I don’t have a lot of time to listen outside of the times that I do. One is called – the first one that we’ll start with is called WPwatercooler, and this is more of an entertainment show. This is where Jason Tucker brings together various members of the WordPress community to talk about WordPress and how it’s changing businesses and lives.

Another show is DradCast, and this is hosted by Dre Armeda and Brad Williams, and it is a weekly podcast focusing on WordPress news and events and other topics of interest to the community. So that is another one, if that’s something that you like, just talk back and forth, talk with different people especially in the WordPress community, Troy Dean, some folks from Automatic. There’s just a lot of conversation, and they’re up to 99 episodes that they’ve got in their queue.

The WordPress Chick is Kim Doyal, and she is the WordPress Chick, and her podcast is focusing on other entrepreneurs building their business with WordPress. It’s not a technical show, but she talks in general about WordPress and online business topics with her guests.

WordPress Weekly is a podcast by the folks over at WP Tavern, and is led by Jeff Chandler. And it is – they talk all things WordPress, featuring community news; they do interviews, and they just really – the spend time every single week talking about WordPress. That’s what they do. So that is that podcast.

There is WP Elevation. This is by Troy Dean out of Australia. He’s the creator of WP Elevation training program for WordPress consultants. And so his podcast provides business advice for WordPress consultants looking to level-up their business. They do interviews with WordPress entrepreneurs and other business folks, covering topics like digital marketing, business growth, all that kind of stuff, not necessarily all focused on WordPress but to help you grow your WordPress business. So if you’re in that season of life, that’s one to check out.

OfficeHours.fm is created by Carrie Dils, and she is well-known in the WordPress community and she has a podcast called OfficeHours, and it is a must-listen. She interviews a range of folks from WordPress communities that have businesses using WordPress. She also spends a lot of time covering her love of the Genesis framework. So that’s another one to listen to.

One that I heard about while I was looking for all of these is one called Mastermind.fm, and this is another podcast about running a WordPress business. It is the creator or the founder of WP Mayor and the co-founder of WP Ninjas. So, Jean and James, they are the costs of the show, and it is a relatively new podcast and it’s got in-depth topics like a WordPress business model. So if that’s something that’s interesting to you, check out Mastermind.fm.

Another one that hasn’t been updated recently, the most recent episode was February 6th of 2017, is WP RoundTable, and this is a podcast that is a lot like some of the other ones, but it’s more of a WordPress topic type show, and they talk about developing and hosting, performance, businesses, all that good stuff. It’s hosted by Jason Crawford and Kyle Maurer, and they are the ones behind this podcast. It’s generally hosted on Google Hangouts, so you can watch the video, but it’s also made available as a podcast as well.

And then the last one is the WP eCommerce Show hosted by BobWP, and it is a show committed to providing you the best tips and stories and insights to help build and grow your online store. They bring tips such as marketing, social, FEO, security, and everything between. And shop owners are on this podcast and they bring real-life experiences to the show. Their goal is to touch all-important aspects of building and running an e-commerce site on WordPress. So those are the 14 podcasts that I recommend and encourage you to check out, other than this show, so 15 in total.

And I think if you have enough time to listen to all these podcasts, you’re going to be overwhelmed with a lot of WordPress information. Don’t feel like you need to subscribe to all of them. Some of them, I just don’t like the format; some of them are too long; some of them just don’t cover things that are useful for me, like a lot of the business-y ones aren’t useful to me anymore as I’m not running my own business anymore. So I just recommend you checking them out, listen to one or two, see if they fit, see if you’ve got time for them in your week, and go ahead and continue learning about WordPress.

All right. That’s what I want to share with you today. That is the WordPress podcasts that are out there, the ones that I like, the ones that I just don’t have time to subscribe to, although I wish I could. I wish I could listen to all and just consume my entire life with WordPress because I love it that much. But that’s what I want to share with you this week.

Next week we’ll be talking about the release of 4.8, and then we’ve got two more weeks in the month where we’re going to continue talking about where you can learn more things about WordPress, whether it be blogs or videos or tutorials or things like that. So stay tuned for those, and until then take care and we’ll talk again soon.