Brian Clark

33 Responses

1. The #1 WordPress problem that no one is solving is makin BuddyPress and BuddyPress themes easier to use in terms of set up and monetization.

   In other words I can’t believe no one has come up with WordPress theme solution that can compete with Ning as a WP powered social network / membership site.

2. Great interview Troy/Brian! At last year’s State of the Word, Matt Mullenweg mentioned that WordPress.com has an attrition rate of 96%. I think this is the #1 problem for WordPress that isn’t really being discussed anywhere to find a solution. Even a small decrease in attrition would mean millions more users for WordPress. Would be really interesting to see if content creation was the bigger issue or the WordPress platform for new users.

3. The #1 problem I haven’t see solved is styling the WYSIWYG editor (TinyMCE) according the Theme’s styling settings. E.g. typeface and font size of text and headers. Solving this would be awesome!

4. The worst WordPress issue is SEARCH! WordPress search is terrible! For smaller websites, you might be able to find a free or affordable plugin to help. Larger sites with a ton of content will eat up a year’s budget trying to use a paid WordPress search service. This should be a high priority for the core framework. For some sites, I literally have to go to a search engine sometimes and type keywords and the blog name to find an article I could not find using native search. I want my readers to be able to find content easily. If they can’t find it, they will leave and go elsewhere.

5. Greg, Matt was referring to WordPress.com, not self-hosted .org sites.

6. Thanks Brian for visiting Troy at the WP Elevation podcast! I really enjoyed what you said in response to Troy’s issue with a person who wrote, “I’ll never use your VUM. I can get those videos on YouTube for free.” And you said something that I want to talk about in my first blog: “Some people value time more than money and others, money more than time…I can’t help those people who don’t value their time more.” There’s so much to unpack with what you said in articulating what true value is to someone – really exposes people’s hearts when they want to go cheap and attracts the people who not only have a budget for your services, but are also interesting to be around.

   MY ISSUE WITH WORD PRESS THAT I THINK NO ONE IS REALLY TACKLING:

   Admin UI themes.

   I’m Googling around and can’t find something that works to resolve both the learning curve, reducing clutter, and reducing abstraction from literal visual results on the back end. Yes there are end-user themes that do this on the back end, but I don’t like how they dominate the whole of the dashboard and admin menu. Or, it works against the admin dashboard creating redundancies that could be best utilized by the inherit WP framework. WooThemes, OptimizePress or even PageLines cater more-so to a design/developer role when possessing your WordPress installation. In the end, they OWN you if you want to make changes to the site through their “drag n’drop” model or capitalize on some business feature that you are using them for in the first place. (And your client is a designer/developer – you are!)

   The new 3.8 UI look is more decorative than it is useful. And when having all the necessary plugins installed for your client’s site, it gets hard to scan for the menu elements, even for me. Yay I can change colors, but I can’t rearrange or alter the interaction of the elements.

   It would be nice to have the flexibility of relocating or restyling (not removing) WP core feature elements in the menu bar into categories to you can minimize the number of visible clickable elements for admin users who are actually business administrators in their company role.

   I find that people who are not familiar with WP are introduced to things that they really aren’t going to use and don’t need to see all the time. Or, it just doesn’t have to be in a side bar!

   This may have appeared as more of a rant, but it’s a case I think is worth investigating. More happy customers when the UX of WP becomes more transparent and more about user tasks. 🙂

   Just for kicks…here’s a hyperbole!

7. An end to end version control solution for WordPress that doesn’t involve using 5-10 different platforms and services.

8. An end to end version control solution for WordPress that doesn’t involve using 5-10 different platforms and services.

9. Hi Seth. I noted that in my comment but it is relevant for both .org and .com users. A lot of users (that I talk to) actually try WordPress for the first time via WordPress.com before going the self hosted option. Understanding the reason for the high attrition rate would benefit both WordPress.com and .org users.

10. Lightweight, codeless media event tracking would be nice something that could give play, pause, or %complete data on media files or YouTube/Vimeo embeds without adding a bulky plugin just to embed and serve the media files. Just paste in the media url like you do for the embeded player and call it good. The DIY coders can do this all they want, and Hubspot probably has it, but what about for the code and plugin-bloat-averse folks in the middle?

11. Great interview. I have two issues. The first issue is adding custom code. I have a fair amount of web design experience but if you have to add custom code, even with the plugins, it makes it hard to determine where it needs to go and how to troubleshoot if it doesn’t work. The other issue is the dashboard menu. Does the plug in show up in tools, settings, appearance or on the main menu. I constantly have to look through everything to find what I’m looking for. Everything should be in one place.

12. I’ve found that it’s oddly complicated to use WP as a CMS by way of limiting users to certain functions. I have a client that wants specific users to be able to edit only one page and maybe make posts to one specific category. Why this isn’t a function that’s easy to implement is puzzling. This is one of those features the client thought would just be there out of the box in WordPress, like Troy’s example of someone trying to drag an image to the post interface before version 3.9.

13. Thanks for this insightful interview. Nice questions and interesting answers.
    Only recently did I find wpelevation, but now, Troy, you have a new fan!
    Brian, I already use Genesis, I ‘ve bought the framework only, combined with Dynamik Website Builder. I would love to have a premium membership and try your themes.
    I believe #1 problem for us, WordPress users, is that there is no efficient and practical way to make our evergreen content easily found by our audience. Great content is lost in the archives, while categories and tags are not enough. There is a need for both the content producer and the content consumer to use an innovative way to easily dig into archives and pull out the content they want.

14. Troy, isn’t Brian one of the most interesting and engaging people in the industry? I’m just a huge fan. Thank you as always for the interview.

    My opinion on the WordPress shortcoming is probably close to Brian’s and yours. I am a php/css guy, so I don’t find wp challenging, but for people who spend their days running their own business, it is fairly rough around the edges… If I am writing a blog, engaging the right hemisphere of my brain, I don’t want to be bothered with remembering short codes, html or inline css. I just want to write and have it look as I envision.

    Secondly, I would like to a general rant to the WP community as a whole. We collectively have to stop the hacking, brute force attacks and other deviants in our mitts. Two or three of my prospects have said no lately due to the number and frequency of WP security concerns. Hopefully this will be addressed in upcoming versions from automatic.

15. The number one problem I find with WordPress, is that an entire project can’t be committed to an SVN repository, and checked out, or updated with future changes on a live environment – as an example.

    Well, at least I haven’t been able to find a solution for this.

    Let me explain. If you develop a website from scratch (your own code) on your local PC, your entire website can be committed to an SVN repository and all your database updates can be saved in separate .SQL update files. The project can be checked out, and updated for future changes on a live environment, and the database can be updated via your separate SQL file updates. No problem.

    If you develop a WordPress site on your local PC, you can’t simply commit it to SVN and checkout or push future updates to live, because of plugins and various settings being stored in the database. You can’t install a plugin locally and just commit it to live. Also, you can’t then update your WordPress version or any plugins directly on live, otherwise it will break the SVN index.

    If someone does in fact have a solution for this, I’d GENUINELY appreciate it! I will even bake you a cake 🙂

16. #1 WordPress area that needs development now, licensing of themes.
    There are many great authors out there getting ripped-off because you can download the premium theme from some pirate site. This hurts their sales which in turn makes honest people who buy the themes (like me) not get as good support as possible because the author is not getting paid as much as they should.
    Try this, think of a great paid-for theme that you use, then spend 5 minutes on Google and see if you can’t get an illegal download of it.
    I reckon the way it should work is this, all themes don’t work without a license, WordPress checks the license for your theme and if legit it works. If the theme is free, then obviously the same license code for everyone, if the theme is premium, then, one license per user.
    Then it should be possible to have 30-day free trials of the theme. How many developers out there have purchased a theme only to find out it was money wasted because the theme didn’t do what it said on the box, the theme didn’t work straight outta the box, the theme had con using documentation when on the box said it had detailed documentation, the theme conflicts with plugins you need to use, but the author pushes the problem onto the plugin developer & vice versa………..
    I believe this would help theme authors sell more themes, when the 30 day trial is over, you automagically get a link to purchase and you get locked out of some theme options, or it reverts to default theme.
    Thanks again Troy for another great podcast and thanks to Brian Clark for a fascinating & entertaining interview.

17. Excellent podcast and interview.

    For me, the issue with WordPress that could really use a solution is a simplified way to set up and manage content between a dev/staging server and the live server.

    It would be extremely helpful to have a site to test plugins, tweak settings, create new content, etc., (whether locally or on a dev/staging server) and then one-click push it to the live server when ready – either in total or per modification. Couple that with version control for backing out of changes and we would have an incredibly useful, efficient, and safe development environment.

18. It’s so rare that I spend an hour doing anything but I watched the whole thing. Great interview Troy.

19. It’s so rare that I spend an hour doing anything but I watched the whole thing. Great interview Troy.

20. I’m not sure if this competition is still running (Troy—do you post the winners on your blog?). If it is, I can’t pass up the chance for the possibility of winning the Genesis Pro Pack.

    From my perspective, the #1 WordPress problem that nobody is solving is this: Stop spammers from registering an account by confirming that their e-mail address is valid (perhaps by sending a confirmation e-mail that has a custom URL that they have to click). I have several low traffic sites that get constant registration attempts by bots. If they had to verify that their e-mail address is valid, they would be stopped from creating accounts.

21. I believe Troy actually doesn’t give the prizes he promises. So, I’m not coming back to this site. It is ridiculous.

22. Hopefully, Troy does give out the prizes. If he responded to your e-mails, he is paying attention, which is good. I’ll give him the benefit of a doubt, and hope that he responds here and clarifies things.

23. Thanks for the feedback Jimmy. Troy has a great time doing this interview.

24. We haven’t forgotten about you guys and all the great responses. We’re waiting for Brian to get back from a conference and then we’ll get him back to announce a winner. So sit tight! Gin – WP Elevation

25. Hi Stella – we definitely make good on the prizes we offer for each podcast. Sometimes there is a bit of a wait (especially with the more high profile guests) because we have to follow up with the guest and remind them to check in to award the prize. Hang in there though, Brian is a busy man and a bit tricky to get hold of. We’re on the case though!Gin – WP Elevation

26. Thanks for the benefit of the doubt Jim!

27. Hi Stella – we definitely make good on the prizes we offer for each podcast. Sometimes there’s a bit of a wait (especially with the more high profile guests) because we have to follow up with the guest and remind them to check in to award the prize. Hang in there though, Brian is a busy man and tricky to pin down. We’re on the case though! Gin – WP Elevation

28. Thanks for the benefit of the doubt Jim! I’ve sent an urgent follow up request to Brian, so I’m sure it won’t be much longer. – Gin, WP Elevation

29. Yes – we’ll definitely post the winner on the blog.

30. Congratulations Greg! Brain has chosen you as the lucky winner of the Genesis Pro pack for your insightful comments! We’ll be in touch shortly to organise the prize.

31. Thanks Gin! Well that was a nice surprise for my day 🙂 Thanks Brian! Troy, your podcasts are awesome – keep up the great work.

32. And time goes by….
    Honestly its the last time I visit this blog. You are full of lies.

33. Hi Stella, If you look in the “Prize” section below the video, as well as further down the thread, you’ll see that a winner has already been awarded.