 Hello everyone. As you guys just heard, I'm Miles Lifton. I'm 11 years old and happy 10th anniversary Word Camp Miami. I am very honored to be speaking here today, especially on the 10th anniversary. And for those of you who don't know, this is my second time speaking at a Word Camp Miami, as I did a lightning talk last year, and my third time speaking at a Word Camp in general. So today I'm going to be talking about how WordPress helped shape the web, and how applying a user-driven business model to any business can help grow said business. So without further ado, let's jump into a brief history of the internet. So in 1969, ARPANET was created. It was created by DARPA, a defense sector of the U.S. military. While it was nothing major, as was only four computers at four different locations, it was a proof of concept that computers could talk to each other and was very significant in the creation of the internet. And then in 1973, Ethernet was created. Ethernet was the first consumer-grade way to access the internet. However, at this time, there was not really that much to access, as the internet at this time was fairly bare and the content was not organized. However, this all changed in 1991, when the World Wide Web was created. The World Wide Web was the first structured collection of webpages that made Ethernet an amazing invention that could be used by anyone. And then in 1995, eBay, the first successful execution of e-commerce, was released. This was proof that things could be bought and sold on the internet, along with the first time that things that happened on the internet would manifest completely in the real world and vice versa. And then on a completely different note, in 1996, the first meme, or at the time viral video, Uga Chaka Baby, was released. So you guys may be asking, why is this important in the creation of the internet? Well, this was the first proof that the internet could be used recreationally. Sorry. And at this time, the internet was very expensive to contribute to, therefore making this meme important as it was signifying how the web could be used in a recreational manner. And then in 1999, Napster was launched. Napster was the first, Napster caused an influx of users, and this influx of users was due to the fact that all of everyone's favorite music and artists were now available on the internet for free. So in the 1990s, the web really turned into what it is today. However, it truly started growing in the 2000s. So in 2001 to 2002 to 2003, et cetera, we can see that the internet really started to boom and grow. And as we can see, it went from around 29 million websites to 238.027 million websites in a fairly short period of time. So a little bit of a disclaimer before I go on. I cannot contribute all the growth of the internet from 2002 and beyond directly to WordPress. However, as we will see, there is a nearly undeniable correlation between the growth of WordPress and the growth of the internet. Because in 2003, WordPress was created. WordPress was created, as I said, right during the boom of the internet. And at this time, its main competitor, Moveable Type, made some damning changes to its company. WordPress was the first real open-source, user-friendly way to build a website. This meant that anyone could help contribute to the project and make it their own. And as we will see, in 2003 to 2004 to 2005 and so on, the web really started to grow much faster than it used to. However, like I said, I cannot contribute 100% of the growth of the internet directly to WordPress. However, in 2009, WordPress had 50% market share, meaning that the web grew and grew and grew and so did WordPress. And since they grew hand in hand, WordPress definitely contributed to the growth of the internet. And now in 2018, WordPress has around 59.9% market share. And also, not to mention the fact that its main competitor, Joomla, only has around 6.6%. So what does that 60% manifest in numbers? Well, that WordPress is used by 75 million websites worldwide. It is used by 409 million people to view over 23.6 billion WordPress pages each month. And WordPress users create 69.5 million new posts and 46.8 million new comments each month. So who uses WordPress? Well, WordPress is used by a lot of notable companies such as Walt Disney, Rolling Stones, Vogue India, The New Yorker, New York Post, TED, Forbes, Times, and the official country of Sweden. However, it's not just people that are using WordPress. Many people can use WordPress. So I'm sure no one's heard of these 90 websites and as I can see, they're not exactly very legible. However, these are small websites created on WordPress.com. But WordPress can be used by everyone, whether you're big, small, short, tall, however you'd like to categorize it. So WordPress is the go-to for thousands, if not tens of thousands, if not even hundreds of thousands of companies. So why WordPress? Why is WordPress important to you? Does anyone have any thoughts? Olivia, interesting. Anyone else have any other thoughts? Yes, and that leads to our third question, which I'll just jump to immediately. Why is open source better than proprietary? Any thoughts? All right then. And why WordPress over Wix or Squarespace? So this I'll answer myself. One of the things that's amazing about WordPress is the fact that it's completely plug-and-driven, meaning that while WordPress at the core cannot really compete with these two competitors. However, Wix and Squarespace is sort of limited to what the company puts into it. One of the beauties of WordPress is that it's only limited by the people using its imagination. And that's what makes WordPress truly better overall, because it's open source, it's plug-and-based, it respects the four freedoms, and overall it's easy to use, meaning that anyone, a grandma or a toddler, can learn how to create a website. So I name it my talk, Trick Track Control. So let's touch on that a little bit. So, Trick. It is very, very easy to trick out a website using WordPress. I can say this from experience. Since WordPress is completely GUI-based, sometimes transferring data is as simple as copy and paste. And that's part of the beauty of WordPress. Due to its GUI and its user friendliness, anyone can create a website and make it look amazing. And a good example of this is the New York Post. So this is the New York Post pre-2003. They made some, let's say, questionable design choices, such as the Times New Roman font, or the underlines with the links. So this is not the best website ever. However, now in the modern times, when they use WordPress, as we can see, they had good margins, pictures and text buttons, good formatting, and more things that just make it look like an overall better website, especially compared to this. And while the older site probably took maybe even a month to create, this site probably took a couple of hours to a day or two. And that leads us to another pro of WordPress, which is Track. There are over 54,000 different plugins made for WordPress that can do a multitude of things, and that they're made by the users, meaning that whatever the users need, the users can have. So a great example of a plugin is Jetpack. Jetpack is a statistic tracking, along with all-in-one SEO solution for many websites. And Jetpack was created by the people who use WordPress, in this case WordPress.com, the almost synonymous host of WordPress blogs with the WordPress site itself. And another great example of a plugin is BuddyPress. This essentially turns any website that it's installed on into a full-fledged social network, with direct messages, with profiles, with posts, etc. This means that the people using WordPress and the people who like WordPress can make WordPress into whatever they want, without having to worry about the consent of developers, feedback page, etc. They can just jump in and use the code that they know. And then Troll. So one of the beauties about WordPress is how quick it is. They have the five-minute installation, along with the ability to just jump right in after you choose a theme. Which means that it is completely realistic to create a temporary website using a .tk domain, or other free domain, to do something completely entertaining for no reason. And it may only stay up for 24 hours. As we can see on this website, it's nothing that's really used by the wide population. However, someone probably had fun making this, and some people probably have fun using it. And part of the beauty of WordPress is that it can be created by anyone with an idea. And doing all of this used to take hours, if not days, weeks, or even months. And now with the amazing tools that WordPress provides, it can all be done in a pinch. So does anyone have any thoughts about what the it factor of WordPress is? All right, well then I'll fill in. So one of the things that makes WordPress so amazing is the fact that it's completely open source, and it's completely user-driven. When the market of WordPress and CMS has changed, so does WordPress. And this is part of its user-driven model. Due to the fact that WordPress is created by the people who are using it, when the needs of the users change, the focuses of the company also changes. Well, not a company, but you understand what I'm talking about. And this is what made this small project blow up. The fact that WordPress can be used by anyone, can be created by anyone, anyone can contribute, anyone can create a plug-in, and it's overall easy to use due to the fact that users are the ones creating it, it blew up. Because at this time, the other main competitor was a movable type. And while before the era of WordPress, movable type was around $7 or $8 to completely buy the software license and get everything. However, at this time, what turned it from $7 now turned into around $530. And in an interview with Matt Wollinberg, he said that someone decided, I'm paraphrasing this, that they were going to take the $538 they would use in order to get what they needed from movable type and decide to donate to the WordPress developers. When they did that, they then realized one of the pros of open source. This person wrote a beautiful essay that I read called Freedom Zero. This Freedom Zero, since the people using this are quote geeks, the people who created these freedoms started from zero. Freedom Zero is essentially the freedom that you can use it for anything that you want. One of the crazy things about movable type is the fact that you could not do things like criticize the developer. Criticize the developer on the platform. I'm sorry, my brain seems to be having difficulties here. Essentially, essentially, I am very sorry. My brain is, I'm dizzy. Something is not going right. Yes, I'm very sorry. Let's look at a case study of Chipotle. Chipotle also applied a similar model to the user-driven business model. One of the crazy things about Chipotle is how fast they grew. How fast? I am so very sorry. I'm having, I don't know, the room is spinning around me. I'm having trouble breathing. I got it, don't worry. Would you guys mind if we took a quick intermission for me to sort this out? Let me at the worst possible moment. So Chipotle applies a user-driven business model, which is part of what makes Chipotle so amazing. Its claim to fame, per se, was its assembly line format for creating bowls, burritos, salads, et cetera. This meant that since they were completely transparent about their process, the users could create what they want without the people behind the counter trying to guess. One of the things about restaurants is that they have these pre-made dishes, and it's the exception, not the rule, to say I would like to order this with this or without this. However, Chipotle changed that. What they said is that let the users decide what they want, or in this case, the consumers of the food. And because of this WordPress, I mean, Chipotle grew very fast. So they started in July 13, 1993, and within a month they were selling $1 billion a day. And when they won public, their stock grew by over 100% in the first day. And they're a billion-dollar business, which is proved by the fact that McDonald's made an investment and got a billion dollars back. So as we can see here, the user-driven business model definitely seems to be improving businesses. So you may be asking, why is this to any business, and is it even possible to do so in the first place? Well, it is. So some questions that you may want to ask yourself include, does my product suit my needs, or my customer's needs? You have to remember when creating a business that the customers are the ones using your product. The customers are the ones using the product. Therefore, you should be creating your product around what the customers need, and not around what you need. Is my business door open? So another great thing to ask yourself is, is it possible for... I'm sorry again, one more intervention. Essentially, one of the things that makes Chipotle so amazing is the fact that, like I said, users can create what they want. And since Chipotle is completely transparent about their creation process, and what is inside of their bowls or whatever one decides to create, they grew and grew. So let's get back to the house. Another question you need to ask is, is your business door open? Does someone have the ability to come in and provide input? Because if they don't, then you won't be able to better your product. Another question, do my customers feel welcome to provide input, or will they just jump to a competitor? You need to consider this because sometimes you may present your business with a feedback page. However, the customers will feel that they're... set in stone. And if it is set in stone, they may not contribute in the first place, and they may jump to a competitor where they can. And this leads right into the third question, can I hear it when input is provided? Well, another... one more thing that is very hard for some people is listening. If a customer provides input, you need to make sure that you capitalize on every single little detail inside of what they provided, because that is how you better your product. Am I willing to change directions to meet my market's needs, and do I understand the cost associated with it? Now, one of the beauties of a user-driven growth business model is that since anyone can contribute and anyone can help, the business will automatically swerve towards wherever the market's going without much effort on anyone's part. And this is what part of what makes a business model so appealing. And then, how can I capitalize on the failure of my competitors to adapt? This may seem a given, however, you need to take into consideration that when a competitor fails, it isn't just open market share. But it's also that you can focus on what made them fail and make sure that that's not in your business. If you analyze the failure of a competitor or of anyone, you can help make sure that your business has that list, per se. And then, is there a middle ground? Now, we understand that people are possessive of their businesses, and we understand that certain things in business are completely set in stone. So, is there a place where you can go, where you can both adapt to what your customers might want, but still have you happy, have it fulfill your business's idea and concept, along with still make the proper concessions towards whatever you cannot change. But overall, the question is, how can I let go of the reins a little bit and let the users take over a little bit? Because if they do, then it will truly drive your business in the right direction, as the users are the best people who can tell you about said users. Any questions? I don't have a business. This is all purely observational. What... I plan to in the future, but right now I'm still learning. But one of the things that made me understand and learn all of this is actually a very non-used part of common sense, which is that one equals one, essentially. It's that the best people who can tell you about something are the best things that can tell you about something is the thing that you're asking about. If your users are the ones making your product, then your users are guaranteed to like your product, which is something that no one really thinks about, but it's still very interesting once you fall down the rabbit hole, per se. Anyone? I think that the Internet is a very good blend of the two. I think that what's going to start happening is that the Internet is going to go from... I'm starting from the beginning of the Internet, it's going to go from completely professional to mostly entertainment. However, I think that something new will be added, and that new thing is that suddenly people will be able to portray a non-commercial message on the Internet. And while that does happen with things like Twitter, I think that what's going to start to happen is the resurgence of websites that do that individually. I don't understand. Is there a lot of social media? Now I understand. Yes. Well, not buddy press, buddy press, but like... Something like it. Yeah. So, I actually have done research on this. So, this platform such as Twitter and Instagram, you usually will use a custom-coded back-end such as Django, some of them use. So what will end up happening is that they will essentially create their own version of buddy press with everything built in. However, one of the interesting things about buddy press on WordPress is that while it definitely does have a lot of useful features, it is mostly it is mostly like a core that does some things, but it's the building blocks that build on top of buddy press that makes buddy press so amazing. And I think that that's something that's generally ignored by most buddy press users. So, I think one of... I think that one of the best ways to understand your customers is to interact with them live. I think a good one is that a lot of websites have this live chat in the bottom. A lot of the times it uses robots, I highly advise against that. When you're trying to use AI to interpret what your customers are saying, you're going to end up with something a little bit mangled on the other side. I recommend having a customer service representative or something along those lines sitting there with the live chat or calling people. I think that any form of live interaction with a customer is the best way to understand because then you can ask questions. And also another thing to mention is that asking a customer questions about their feedback is perfectly fine and should be done because the customers want to voice their opinion. It's a natural human instinct. So you can take advantage of that to really monopolize on whatever they're giving you. Any other questions? Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.