All Systems in Flux for Publishers

Welcome to this week's issue of the Niche Media Publishing Newsletter.

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Let’s get started with this week’s topics.

WordPress Takes a Turn

I’ve been watching the WordPress saga unfold and unfortunately it looks like it’s taken a bad turn recently.

Initially, the WordPress vs WP Engine battle was a head scratcher. Why now? What’s suddenly changed? But it was more of a “grab your popcorn” and watch them fight.

Now the collateral damage extends beyond just these two groups, encapsulating the broader WordPress community. Longtime ecosystem volunteers are getting removed from official WordPress community Slack’s and blocked on Twitter (by Matt).

This feels like the moment it truly went off the rails…

For context, some of these contributors contributed code for years. For an open source community, this might not be the death rattle, but it’s not looking good. It’s also incredibly hypocritical on the part of Matt and further supports the theory that his beef is personal rather than a campaign for “justice”.

If they can ban platform players and literal voices of dissent (totally non-threatening dissent, I might add), then ALL WordPress stakeholders are at risk. I don’t see this ending well.

So what can we do?

Examining the WordPress Alternatives

For most of our sites - already battered by Google - migrating to a new platform might be a bigger risk. But for new CMS projects, I’d be hard pressed to justify STARTING on WordPress today.

I don’t have a favorite right now, but I’d consider these:

• Webflow: They may be the biggest beneficiary. I like Webflow, but I hate their pricing model and have heard some horror stories about escalating costs. Still, I’d like to give them a trial run on one of my next projects.

• Duda: I’ve been eyeing Duda as a fast, SEO-friendly option for a while and I’d consider it right along Webflow as a WordPress substitute.

• Drupal: This one brings me back! I could see Drupal filling some of the gap, but it’s a fairly steep learning curve for most webmasters without platform experience.

• Craft: I’ve worked with a few sites on Craft before. I like them, just fairly slow to push updates compared to the others in this list.

• GhostCMS: I like Ghost as it’s a clean play for newsletters (often positioned as a Substack alternative) and from some initial experimentation it’s fairly easy to use compared to the other options in this list.

Thinking more broadly about the dual headwinds of WordPress AND Google platform risk, my honest take is that I wouldn’t necessarily consider a traditional CMS as a solution for my next platform business.

• Reddit: This is my top controversial pick, but I think Reddit is the best platform to get traction on for almost any business right now. Reddit is a social media platform with built in viral distribution, excellent SEO visibility, and community building platform. It’s ALSO a CMS, even if that’s not on the label.

• Substack: Substack is an interesting example of a “free” platform with built-in distribution (network effect). It’s a bit like Reddit in that readers can “discover” you through their app and they are focusing more on discoverability with their “Notes” answer to X.

• YouTube: YouTube is surprisingly creator friendly these days, despite sitting under the Alphabet umbrella with Google. Video is clearly a growing content medium and I’d strongly consider transforming a WordPress content brand to a “video-first” platform with built-in distribution like YouTube.

Google’s Breakup Chatter Peaks

Speaking of Google, it appears a formal breakup is likely.

The real question is how Google gets sliced and diced.

So what? Given the current world of hurt publishers are in, I see this as a mostly positive development. Of course, bad things could still happen to publishers with a breakup, but I’m inclined towards seeing a more focused “search business” as a better, more responsive structure for publishers.

Need Traffic? Want to Build Community?

I’m “all in” on Reddit right now as the fastest way to acquire users and build community.

As such, my course is a fluid, evolving project. I’m adding new modules weekly!

Other Things I Read Recently

These are some articles I enjoyed, but don’t really have anything to add to!

Other Newsletters Worth Following

Here are some other publications I subscribe to, author, or co-sign.

If you are operating a newsletter (or even just interested), this next one is one of my “must opens” every week as a newsletter operator myself:

For some of the best breakdowns of creator success stories:

If you want to go deeper with Reddit (one of my favorite creator ecosystems right now), check out my sister publication:

And don’t miss Amy’s excellent insights into wants happening in the world of content marketers.

Interested in Booking an Ad?

I’ve put together a resource sheet over at Passionfruit here.

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OK, that's it for this week...

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Ewen