Dirk Tolken

If you have a business in South Africa, come and register on thebusinessdirectory.co.za and list your business for free.

@natmiletic And here I am struggling to just get to 5k followers. What's the monetisation threshold again, 10k?

I can’t believe X still pays me. My engagement has fallen off a cliff 😅

@jamesckemp @WooCommerce Happy to join if I'm available!

I'm looking to connect with a small panel of users to join a session where we explore the new variations concepts, as well as the editing/bulk editing experience, in order to gather feedback. If you are a frequent user of variations in @WooCommerce and have feedback to give, please let me know if you'd be willing to join!

@rustybrick Still around :-)

I miss the engagement from the SEO community on here...

@KatieKeithBarn2 Sad times.

It's the end of an era - StellarWP is no more. Some of the most important brands in the WordPress ecosystem - LearnDash, The Events Calendar, Kadence, Iconic, GiveWP and others - have had their websites taken offline and redirected to basic landing pages on the website of their parent company, Liquid Web 😢 For 5 years, I watched the development of StellarWP with interest as it was a first-of-its kind in WordPress. I never shared my opinions publicly because I had many friends there. However, those people have either quit or been laid-off, and now feels like the time due to genuine concern for these great brands and their future, and what this means for the wider WordPress community. Back in 2020/2021, the WordPress product ecosystem was growing rapidly. Many products were seeing huge growth, which sparked a wave of acquisitions. Some were by hosting companies like Liquid Web, who saw potential in expanding into products. They acquired an impressive range of products and created the StellarWP umbrella brand to house them. In my opinion, this was the first mistake. I never understood the purpose of a public-facing Stellar brand because it diluted the visibility of well-known brands that the public was already familiar with. For example, each individual product no longer had a prominent presence at WordCamps because they were represented at the shared Stellar booth instead, which felt strange for brands as big as LearnDash. I'm sure the existence of Stellar brought some benefits internally - e.g. shared resources and centralized marketing - but publicly, I think it harmed the products rather than helping them. Another mistake was acquiring companies of vastly different sizes. It's sensible to apply the 80/20 rule to business by prioritizing the highest revenue products - I do this myself with Barn2's plugins. However, I noticed that some of Stellar's smaller brands - once highly respected independent businesses - were neglected. I struggle to see the logic in acquiring a brand and then giving it less focus. I suspect that some of the companies that acquired WordPress products during the 2020/2021 boom expected the high level of growth to continue post-Covid, which was never realistic. If revenue projections weren't met then naturally, this would have led to the patterns we've seeing at Stellar, such as multiple rounds of cuts, layoffs and restructures - and ultimately deprioritizing their entire product range, as we are seeing with the death of their individual websites. However, the true reason I'm writing this is not to analyze the reasons - it's because I'm concerned about what happens next. I can foresee two possible futures for Stellar's products: FUTURE 1 - SLOW DECLINE The decision to relegate huge brands to minor landing pages on the Liquid Web site suggests that we'll see a slow decline of these products over time. We'll see further cuts and layoffs, and some of WordPress' best brands will fade. That would be a loss for everyone because strong, visible products strengthen the WordPress ecosystem as a whole. FUTURE 2 - ACQUISITION I'd love to see the Stellar brands get acquired by a company (or multiple companies) that understand their value and can give each product what it needs to grow and thrive. Companies with a strong record of building successful WordPress products. I don’t know what will happen next, but I hope these products end up with people who truly understand and care about the WordPress product ecosystem and have the ability to take them forward. More than anything, I hope the outcome gives the remaining people working on these products the stability and leadership they deserve.

Ecommerce conference time in Cape Town. Good talk by @DigitalSamIAm this morning.

@andrewhoyer AI review layer?

Something major is going on with WordPress plugin reviews. The queue has been reduced by more than 50% in the last few weeks. Submissions, however, remain consistent.

@retlehs We have a couple there, works great!

Going to migrate all servers we have on DigitalOcean to Hetzner once Ubuntu 26.04 support rolls out (Roots site, Roots Discourse, Trellis testing servers, WP Packages) Bill is going to drop 50% after switching. Might even use EU location for some servers (~65% in savings)

@jamesckemp We had one where users had to choose a counsellor, and if one aren't sure then any was a great option. We did run into issues where order of variations highly impacted whether the options displayed at all. This might need attention.

One of the biggest challenges/problems to solve is how we deal with "Any" options for variations. From what I can tell, no other system does this, but I've often advocated for it in the past as a way to dramatically reduce the number of variations required for any given product. What use-cases have you seen where people use "Any" options? Many use it for variations that don't manage stock, don't have different images, and don't have different prices - but are there specific scenarios where this is true?

Why I've never come across a CMO from SEO background 👀

@lilyraynyc The amount of lead gen (for agencies) spam I'm also getting is infuriating.

Nope never heard of it

@natmiletic Organic conversions & revenue (map engagement for directions and phone calls included if local SEO).

What's the one metric you'd use to prove SEO is actually working? Most people pick the wrong one and spend months optimizing for a number that doesn't move revenue.

@tautvidas are any of the MailPoet team still active here? ;-)

Here right now. #Bloubergstrand

@jamesckemp Would love to have the slide or a recording if there are any. Can't make it in person unfortunately (sitting at the bottom of Africa...)

My talk at Checkout Summit aims to take you behind the scenes about some of the decisions we've made at Woo and why we made them, what the future looks like for third-party devs, etc. But, if you could have one (or more) question(s) answered honestly and transparently about WooCommerce, what would you ask? I'll also give the talk at Checkout Summit Reloaded, the online version.

@lilyraynyc All the best with the new venture!

Big announcement! After 16 years in SEO, today I'm launching something I've been building toward for a long time. 🥳 Introducing Algorythmic: my new SEO and AI search consultancy. For the past decade+, I've led award-winning SEO teams at agencies. I've spoken at ~100 conferences. I've spent thousands of hours analyzing Google algorithm updates, studying E-E-A-T, and more recently, figuring out how brands can show up well in AI-driven search. Now I'm channeling all of that into something of my own. Through Algorythmic, I'll be selectively working with brands 1:1 on SEO consulting, AI search optimization (AEO/GEO), E-E-A-T strategy, content quality audits, Google Discover, algorithm update recovery, hourly training, and more. I'm also excited to announce that as part of this launch, I will be continuing my role as VP of SEO & AI Search at Amsive, where I still oversee an incredible team of 30+ SEO experts (who won "Best Enterprise SEO Team" in 2025, according to the Search Engine Land awards!). Algorythmic will allow me to take on solo projects that are a strong personal fit for my skills and experience. Check out the comments for the link to my new site. BTW, if you're curious about the name Algorythmic: it's a mashup of "algorithm" and "rhythm." If you know me, you know those are the two things that have defined my entire life (especially 'rhythm'). The full origin story (involving a fictional SEO-themed deli my Amsive team created in 2019) is on the blog - link also in comments. I'm being very intentional about the work I take on through Algorythmic. If you think we'd be a good fit, I'd love to hear from you. Check out the new site and get in touch!

@Codie_Sanchez Or Cape Town! Loads of digital nomads coming here, probably more than NZ!

The richest people I know are doing one of 2 things: Going all‑in on AI - building, and not sleeping while they try to understand what is coming. Selling everything - cashing out and going to Europe, New Zealand, or off-grid. Weird how few are in the middle.

@helloitsolly Love it here!

I don't want to leave Cape Town It's a beautiful city filled with nature I gave up drinking and I've been training 5 times a week with a PT And I started to get involved with the local indie maker scene which is small but very friendly I also visited some community projects in the townships outside of the city, which were eye-opening and inspiring I feel calm and peaceful and boring Next on my list is France for Dynamite Circle, Microconf in Portland, and Mexico for Dynamite Circle But first I'm doing a 10 day trip hiking, walking and kayaking across the country

@TechWith_Nova STATICS

@emaildeepdive Yup do this all the time!

When I see this, the first thing I think is that this account is paying too much for Klaviyo.

@KatieKeithBarn2 Gemini will hopefully soon do what we need it to do. I'm in the same boat.

Everyone’s raving about Claude Cowork but I don’t really work with files on my computer (which seems to be its main strength), and its browser and GoogleDrive integrations aren’t very good yet. Any tips on how to get more out of it?