WP Builds Newsletter #18 – Way too much Gutenberg news, Automattic buys Atavist and more EU laws

This weeks WordPress news – Covering The Week Commencing 18th June 2018:

Matt Mullenweg Unveils Gutenberg Roadmap at WCEU, WordPress Agencies and Product Developers Sprint to Prepare
Last week I mentioned the fact that Matt Mullenweg had spoken about Gutenberg at WCEU. What I forgot to mention was the timeline that he spelled out. I’m not too sure that we’ve going to hit it, but it’s certainly worth looking at this article which lays out the timeline’s three stages very well.

User Testing Gutenberg
This is something that we all need to read as it shows us what users unfamiliar with Gutenberg are able to do with it with almost no instructions. If you have clients who are going to be interacting with Gutenberg, you need to know what are the mistakes that they’re likely to make and therefore you will be forewarned about what you’ll need to alert them to. The article takes a fairly scientific approach which I personally like.

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The State of Gutenberg and WordPress Themes
“Gutenberg’s take on WYSIWYG is different. It does hold true that exactly what you see while writing is what you will see when you view your published post. Setting this expectation is very risky, and I think will ultimately cause a lot of frustration for both users and developers…”

The Demand for Gutenberg Is Not There. Yet.
“In the WordPress economy, I’ve seen few things as divisive as this shift in WordPress (though it seems to be finally have chilled a bit). And I’m not interested in entertaining a position on it on this blog. But when others ask why I’ve not bothered to write anything about it or make certain plugins compatible with it, I find that it’s worth talking about it at least to a certain degree…”

WordPress.com Owner Buys Atavist, Maker of Subscription-Offering Publishing Software
“Atavist’s primary product is a publishing software platform with free and paid tiers. The free version allows users to create their own home pages and build multimedia stories; the paid tiers allow users to launch paywalls, collect subscription fees and sell individual stories. The software has more than 200,000 users, but only a “small percentage” pay for premium versions, Mr. Rabb said. By acquiring Atavist, Automattic will improve upon its suite of tools in an era where many publishers are turning to digital subscriptions, said Matt Mullenweg, chief executive of Automattic…”

Oxygen 2.0 Review: Flexible Visual Website Building For WordPress
“Oxygen 2.0 is a visual drag-and-drop website builder for your WordPress site. Via its powerful editor and templating system, it gives you the power to build literally 100% of your WordPress site using visual design…”  This is a lengthy review of the new / old page builder on the block.

Non WordPress, but useful anyway…

Maps reveal hidden truths of the world’s cities
“A new website that lets people delve into data on the world’s cities has been launched. Dr Robert Muggah from the think-tank Instituto Igarapé showed the BBC some of his favourite maps from EarthTime…” It’s a really fascinating use of maps and reveals things with such clarity that perhaps were not too obvious before you ‘saw’ them.

Deindexed by Google? Here’s How to Recover
“Getting deindexed by Google can hit you like a bolt from the blue. One day everything is fine. The next, all your organic traffic has vanished. Why does this happen? What can you do to fix it – fast? The first order of business is to take a deep breath. Try not to panic. Your site can bounce back from being deindexed, although it might take a while to recover your previous rankings. Start the recovery process by figuring out why your site was deindexed in the first place…”

Facebook Lets Group Admins Charge for Monthly Subscriptions
“Facebook is now monetizing groups by giving admins the option to implement monthly membership fees. Subscriptions are currently being piloted with a select number of groups, and may be rolled out more widely depending on user feedback. Facebook says that subscriptions are being introduced as a way to support group admins who give their time and energy to maintaining communities…”

New EU copyright filtering law threatens the internet as we knew it
“On June 20th, a committee of the European Parliament will vote on whether to proceed on a copyright proposal that some say will destroy the internet as we know it. That may sound fairly hyperbolic, but over 70 experts — including World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales — have criticized the proposal, saying it will turn the internet into “a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.” The controversial provision in question is Article 13, which requires internet platforms to filter uploads for copyright infringement…”

Google Silently Introduces a new Android app for Listening to Podcasts
“After adding the ability to stream podcasts straight from search results, Google has today silently introduced a dedicated, native Android app for discovering and listening to podcasts. Like nearly every service by the company, Google Podcasts too comes integrated with a slew of intelligent algorithms which can recommend you channels based on your past activities…”