How to Learn the Ins and Outs of Web Hosting

Roger Williams, welcome back to the WP

Minute.

>> Daros, thank you so much for having me

back.

>> I was doing one of those things where

like I had a million things on the

screen and I was like, I got to open up

Riverside and I open up another tab real

quick to type in Riverside and then go

to another tab to finish what I was

doing. And I typed in Roger Williams in

the in the tab thinking I'm like

Riverside Roger Williams. I just typed

it and hit enter. Went back to something

I was doing and I was like Google

results for Roger Williams. Like what

the heck is this? like I wanted

Riverside. Uh but uh thanks for being

here and uh excited to dive into what

you've been up to lately.

>> No, absolutely, man. Computing is hard.

Like let's just make sure the kids

understand this. Like

>> yes,

>> we're trained professionals.

>> Yes, it looks easy, but uh unfortunately

we struggle. Um what have you been up

to? Uh I want to start with talking

about events. I'm going to CloudFest for

the first time. Cloudfest Miami or US uh

in Miami next couple weeks. um will I

see you there and what else you've been

up to uh in terms of like events and

people you've been meeting?

>> Yeah. No, absolutely. So, yes, I will be

at CloudFest USA in Miami, Florida. Uh

that is yeah, the first week in

November, so coming up here really soon.

Uh it will be my first time attending

the US event. I did the CloudFest in

Germany, which is just CloudFest, uh

earlier this year, and that was a whole

experience. Have you ever done that one?

>> I have not.

>> Wow. I mean, so it's in an amusement

park. It's it's uh think Disney World or

Disneyland uh roller coasters and so

that's an experience. But so I'm really

looking forward to Cloudfest USA. Um I I

have uh very little like expectations

other than the fact I'm going to see my

favorite awesome people, yourself

included. Um there's going to be some

interesting talks. Um, I saw that uh

there's going to be like some good AI

agentic talks, which is something that I

had a lot of interest in, I don't know,

six or eight months ago, and then the

rest of the world universe has been

hitting me with stuff. Haven't been on

the ball as much with that. Uh, really

interested in connecting with people.

Uh, it's a it's a hosting event,

but the customers are the hosts, right?

It it feel like from what I understand

and and that's kind of how the CloudFest

in Germany one was. So I'm just going as

kind of I'm I'm representing Kinsta

there, but we're not going to have a

booth. It's just going to be me. Um

which will be kind of a nice change. Uh

to be honest with you, I

>> you don't want to have to wrangle the

team of everybody, all the travelers,

hey, meet in the lobby,

etc. etc.

>> You know, so it'll be unfortunate. I

won't have a team cuz I I do like having

the team but you know I won't have to

have the booth and just kind of the you

know I enjoy the booth because it

creates a place where people can like

talk to me and it's like it's okay like

it's understood we're going to talk

about some hosting and stuff. Um but it

it will be kind of a relief to not have

that and just be able to mingle go and

actually hear some talks. Uh you know

shocker there's actually interesting

information being shared at these

things. Um, and so yeah, I'm really

looking forward to it. How about you?

What what's taking you to CloudFest?

>> So, a lot of friends in the community

are saying, "Matt, you should go." And

uh, well, the WP Minute just launched a

hosting course. It's uh, it would be a

smart move to represent that our sort of

like new path of content and education

here. So, there's that. And um I am

looking forward to like seeing something

different uh and being at a different

event that's not just a word camp. It's

been a while. I think the last nonword

or non WordPress event that I went to

was um HubSpot inbound when it was last

here in Boston which was many years ago

and that was at a massive event. That's

you know huge event I don't know like

40,000 people. Uh but you know that was

cool to just be and and have like a

different energy. So, it I'm really

looking to have that that new vibe which

we haven't had in a while and or which I

haven't had in a while and um some of

the Rocket Genius guys will be there um

sort of at the tail end of it as well.

So, I'll be excited to see them as well.

I will agree with you 100%. like the not

doing a booth thing is just a massive

like stress relief, you know? That was

something I never knew until I joined uh

Rocket Genius Gravity Forms. Like

setting up a booth, preparing the booth,

being in the booth, like we make a bunch

of like space Lego stuff. Like we have

to build all that. like we have to get

the t-shirts out, we have to get the

stuff out, you know, whatever that the

the the uh venue builds the thing, but

then you come in and finish it all and

and it's a lot of work, you know. Spend

some time at your friend's booth and

appreciate the work at the next event

you go to. For sure.

>> Absolutely. Absolutely. Um no, so super

exciting. And you just mentioned

something I wanna I want to kind of

digress here already and take over your

show from you. uh this hosting training

course. You sent me the link to take a

look at it. I I I clicked on it. I

started looking at it and then

>> and then I was like, "Oh, wait. I have a

job. I need to get back to work here."

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Um talk to me a little bit about this

thing. What What was the impetus behind

creating this?

>> So, for the uh for the SEC, Kinsta is a

sponsor of the WP Minute. So, I have to

declare that this is still a friendly

conversation with my pal Roger, but your

company graciously supports the WP

Minute. And um I'm always looking for

more value to provide to to sponsors,

right? You and I have talked about this

uh we talked about this a little bit at

press conf

and um we've talked about it online for

a little bit that you know where I was

going with the direction of the WP

Minute like just the news cycle as you

know is well you know it's either like

it's up and down and often times it's

for the bad reasons why like it's up.

It's not really ever like this massively

exciting news cycle of things happening.

So covering just news

as a publisher and as somebody trying to

provide value to sponsorships, it only

goes so far. And I wanted to do

something that an a that an audience

could find value in and my sponsors

could find value in. And that's hosting.

Bringing that education to freelancers

and WordPress agencies that don't know

anything about hosting. because you and

I have been in this business long enough

that a lot of people who

uh one of the reasons why WordPress gets

a bad rap security, it's too slow. I

can't I don't get any support. Like

nobody can help me figure this thing

out. And a lot of that is hosting,

right? Like if that user made the right

choice of hosting, whether they're an

enduser or an agency, if they made the

right choice, the overall experience of

WordPress would be elevated. And um you

know the flag that I'm flying for the

next uh you know from here on out is

unapologetically supporting WordPress

because I want WordPress to survive in

this AI world in this tough news cycle

world and I'm just going to be like I'll

help WordPress however I can to win. And

that's the impetus behind uh starting

this course and a bunch of other courses

that we have coming out. Love it. I I

love it. So So this is great. It's se

we're segueing all day today, just so

you're aware. So this segus perfectly

into I've been doing a lot of events and

a couple of weeks ago I was at Brighton

SEO San Diego and I presented on

um how hosting is the fundamental,

you know, it's the foundation of your

SEO work, right? because if your website

is not loading or or it's not loading

quickly, all of this work that you're

putting into your site is for not.

And so it was a it was a it was a fun

conversation. I was able to go over just

a lot of um you know how hosting affects

SEO really specifically, but also kind

of just giving people some insights into

what to look for in a host, right? Um I

it was not just an advertisement for

Kinsta. I I plugged Kinsta at the very

end, right? Just saying, "Hey, that's

where I work. But, you know, I really

want people to understand how to

evaluate hosts and it sounds like this

training program is exactly doing that.

So, I I would highly recommend everybody

check out the training program. Um, you

know, there's a there's a lot of things

I talk about in the in that talk. But,

you know, one of the big things that I

like to highlight on is service level

agreement, right? The SLA. And we

usually see like the standard anymore is

99.9%.

Um that's what you know we offer at

Kinsta and many other hosts offer that.

Uh we also do 0.99 uh for an additional

fee. You know there's two parts of the

SLA that people need to be aware of. The

first one is what is 99.9% SLA mean?

That means roughly you get about 43

minutes of allowable downtime in a month

um before you're in violation of the

SLA. So So that's the first component.

The second component though which is

equally as important is okay what

happens when the host violates that SLA

and when you look at a lot of hosts

websites they don't really fill in the

details right they they're just like

yeah there's an SLA and then it's like

okay what actually happens when that is

violated and so what I encourage people

to do is read through the terms and

conditions and look for what is going to

happen because it's technology, right?

Things break. This idea that there's a

100% uptime.

You know, there are systems, these high

availability systems that are available

out there where you're going to pay a

ridiculous amount of money and most

sites don't need that. Technology

breaks, right? You have downtime. What

happens when that downtime is that SLA

is violated um is really important,

right? And so what you should look for

is some sort of a partial refund, right?

Like the the hosting company should go,

"Hey, you you you you had downtime that

went over the SLA by X. Here's a partial

refund based on what you're paying us.

We're sorry. You know, we're going to do

better." And the reason I think that's

important is not because you're going to

make oodles of cash getting refunds.

It's because most businesses are not in

the business of returning money to their

customers, right? And so, so it it

should hold them to their word of, hey,

we don't want to give money back to the

customer. We're going to do our best to

not violate this SLA. And so, so anyway,

just to kind of get sidetracked there a

little bit, I I you know, I love talking

about this stuff, you know, that. And

and I think it's really it's about

educating the the customer. And you

know, obviously I'd love it if they all

hosted with Kinsta.

The reality is that, you know, people

have different preferences and different

needs.

What I really want them to do though is

just be educated, right? Look for a good

SLA. Look for backups. I mean, come on,

it's 2025. If you don't have backups in

your hosting plan, I'm I'm I'm scared

for you. I don't know.

>> How about you? What What are like your

top things for in a hosting? And and

let's talk about the the people that are

just starting out, right? I understand

Kinsta is a premium brand. Not everybody

who's starting out, maybe they got a

side hustle. They they don't necessarily

want to go and spend all that money on

the hosting. They maybe want to save a

little bit. What are things that you

recommend people look for when they're

first starting out? Maybe a side hustle

type thing.

>> Yeah. In inside the uh course, what I

built was a calculator. Actually built

it with Telix, the AI tool from

Automatic. It's a block that I built

>> and um I built in a a bunch of uh like

feature requests. So like you were

mentioning SLA or custom SLA or custom

terms of service and agreements and all

that stuff. The calculator when you

first load it up is it starts out as

shared hosting, right? Simple site, low

requirements. As soon as you start to

dial up like uh bandwidth usage, page

views, database size, file storage size,

or you start checking off the boxes of

like I need a custom SLA with this where

this needs to be, you know, 7 9 of

uptime. Uh it starts to rank up things

like enterprise hosting, manage

WordPress hosting, custom hosting, all

this other stuff. So it really helps

that person hopefully hopefully it

visualizes for the uh the new freelancer

or new hopeful agency owner coming into

the space like oh I never even thought

that my customers project requirements

are going to change the hosting because

that's how I learned right like I

learned I mean I was in hosting before I

started my agency but this was a zillion

years ago hosting WordPress was so

different than like hosting we were like

hosting front page sites this was like I

don't know this was like whatever.

But that's how I learned like as I got

in got into the the space and started uh

selling bigger projects. I was just like

why is this not running on a $10 shared

VPS you know with CPAL on it and but

that's how I I learned and I didn't

learn and you know those failures helped

me you know learn and elevate that. Then

I worked at PageY and then really

started to understand.

But I think that the most important

thing is as somebody's getting started

out is you don't just have to look at

hosting as this like throwaway

or like subleted out kind of thing like

oh yeah go get your hosting over there.

What you really want to do is get your

one, two, three top hosts that you think

are going to fit the type of clients

you're servicing and really start to

build relationships with them. Sure,

some of them have affiliate programs.

Some of them have like white label

selling. That's cool, right? but really

start to understand how they're going to

best help with your client because that

client relationship is like the most

important thing aside from getting paid

by the client, right? To like keep them

long term. The last thing you want to do

is try to like

>> short change the the client and just

like you're afraid to say like, well,

you might need to pay $50 a month to

host this website, you know, and you're

afraid to like have that conversation

because you're used to them paying five

bucks a month. Have the conversation, be

transparent, and be honest. The second

thing that I I failed at because I had a

hosting background was when I started my

agency was I started hosting sites for

clients. So, I got my own Lenode server

or whatever it was back then and I

started hosting. So, in the beginning,

hey, profits are great. Like, if I get a

bunch of these customers, I'm a mini

hosting company. I did that in the past.

Uh, now like this is awesome for the for

the agency. It's a lot of revenue.

However, as soon as like the kernel

needed to be upgraded on the Linux

server or there was a security issue in

the MySQL package, then I was like, "Oh

my god, I'm on the hook for this over

the weekend." Which is what I don't want

to do having clients yell at me. So,

that was another thing where I went like

in the total opposite direction. I was

like, "No, no, no. I'm the host. I got

it. Come here. Uh, I we'll we'll host it

for you." And then when the problems hit

the fan, that was the big the big

challenge. and a a fast way to lose

customers. So again, leaning back on

transparency and looking at it as, hey,

if Kinsta might be 50 bucks a month for

a couple of websites, no big deal, you

can also pay me to manage that, right?

And and be more honest about that. Like

I'm the guy you're going to call anyway.

You're not going to call Kinsta because

you're the customer and you don't know

how to debug these things. I'm going to

do it. So you pay me the management fee.

So, it's really about like maturing

yourself as a business and understanding

your value even if your customer might

be paying a hundred bucks a month to

host their website. It's okay to have

that conversation. Um, because their

business is important and so is the

relationship between you and the a them

and the agency. So, you want to secure

that. So, those are my two pieces of

advice like being super transparent with

the customer and building relationships

through folks like you at Kinsta. um

because it's going to be a win-win for

everybody.

>> No, man. I I love it. I love it. And and

you know, I think you you hit on a a

really important concept there is the

value, right? And so another thing I

talk about in my presentation is I this

metaphor I've been using I don't know 20

25 years now is um host your your

website is like a house, right? And so

you've got the domain names, the

address, that's how people find you. the

the house, the building is your website,

right? You're modifying it and doing all

this stuff, but the hosting is the

foundation, right? It's the plot of land

that you're building all this stuff on.

It's got the infrastructure, bandwidth,

power, all the stuff to make it work.

And if you start thinking of it in terms

of like an actual building, right, think

of your your website as a business.

Okay? Well, traditionally, right, before

the web, you would go get a storefront.

How much are you spending a month for a

storefront,

right? And now compare that cost to your

web hosting and like it shouldn't even

be a discussion. The client should just

be like, "Oh my god, I'm saving so much

money regardless of what the hosting

costs, right?" And so I think as

agencies and as developers,

we need to really take a step back and

reframe these conversations with the

customer of hey, it's not the cheap,

it's not how cheap we can get the

hosting, it's the fact that the hosting

allows your business to actually have a

storefront. And when we compare that to

having a brickandmortar storefront,

I mean, it's it's a fraction, right?

It's a it's a it's an error. it's a

rounding error uh compared to like

having a physical store um and then the

insurance and you know all the

additional costs staff and all this

stuff. So you know I think when we start

putting it in that terms it should just

dissolve away from the customer and and

instead I think we should be focusing

the customer on the potential. Hey, when

this website is up and running, how much

money can your business now generate?

Because you've got it open 24/7. The

lights are always on. People could come

and buy from you at 2 a.m. on Saturday

when you're on vacation. A and and it's

still uh working for you. Um so really

like focusing that way. Um I don't know.

I I love having these conversations and

and and framing it all this way. Um,

yeah.

>> I want to I want to ask you about the

Brighton SEO and and like some of the

conference that you went to and maybe

some of the stuff uh that you picked up

on with AI and I'll try to build the

runway for it and see if you can land

the plane on these threads of thought.

>> Yeah.

>> But, you know, I've been I don't know

for the last two years really diving

into like the vibe coding thing and and

really analyzing the space from many

different angles. How productive can I

be with AI number one? and the WordPress

side, like how does it track and report

news about WordPress?

Spoiler alert, it's terrible. So, I I

still have that job, you know, alive.

Uh, and three, like what does it mean

for a power user? I often joke that I'm

not like super technical, you know, you

know, I'm not a developer, but I can

really I can do a lot more than a lot of

people and I'm a power user and like

what can I build with AI that I would

never have been able to do before. So, I

paint that picture to say that I've been

in this app called Replet. And I've been

using that as my canary in the coal mine

to understand like where the direction

of the industry is going. And when I

started using Replet over a year ago, I

could build like it would just rip

through all those tokens, man. Like I

for 20 bucks a month, it would just

boom, it would build it out. It wouldn't

get it all right, but it was pretty

good. And it would just like, okay, I

need to fix this. Boom. And it just rip

through another bunch of tokens and it

would fix it. I was like, "Wow, this is

only 20 bucks a month. I can't believe

it, right? And they do hosting, they do

database, they do all this stuff. And I

was like, wow, this is this is pretty

amazing. But now over the course of just

a short year, I've witnessed what

they've done. And this is this is the

question is starting to see the true

cost of AI starting to come out because

now Replet's process for building is so

much slower, right? Under the under the

uh the veil of well, we got to do it

right. You can't just rip through all

these tokens. You have to reanalyze the

code. You got to check for security. You

got to do, you know, database

optimization. And what it's starting to

do is stack on what I might call like

these accessories to the process to now

where my bill is like four to five times

the cost of what it used to be. I mean,

it's only like 100 bucks as I experiment

with this stuff. It's fine. But I'm I'm

witnessing like some of the projects

that I've built just like the cost

incremental cost keeps going up and the

speed to development is going slower.

Now, could I do this by my could I do

this without Replet? No, I understand

it. But what I'm what I'm getting at is

like we're starting to realize this true

cost of vibe coding and AI coding. I

think over the next year, we're going to

see that spill out even more where once

we were paying 20 bucks, it's going to

be minimum 200 bucks to do what we did

is my my theory. So, the runway there is

what's your take on like AI site

building? Did you learn or see anything

uh explicitly at Brighton SEO that

impacts hosts in the AI space?

>> Uh, great question. Um, I I love this.

It's a tricky tricky landing. Um, it's

almost it's almost Matt as if we've been

being sold on a dream of an easy click

button that will just answer all of our

problems and and provide us with exactly

what we want. And what we're seeing is

we're kind of waking up a little bit

from this dream, right? AI is amazing. I

use AI every single day. I've got Chad

GPT open here. I've got a couple of tabs

of it open because I can't just have one

prompt going at a time. Um, it's

absolutely amazing. It's absolutely a

gamecher. It enhances my work. It speeds

me up. It does not replace a lot of

fundamental things. And actually, Adam

Silverstein uh had a really great

presentation at Word Campus US this

year. Uh he went through all these

developer tools that he'd been working

on and and he was using them to create

plugins and I encouraged people to go

look up that talk uh on WordPress TV.

But when I was talking with him about

it, you know, the big thing that kept

coming up was these tools don't replace,

they enhance. And so if you come

whatever you're coming to the tool with

is where you're going to start from and

you're going to be able to build from

there. But that like when you go to do

revisions and you go to make changes,

that's where things really kind of start

falling apart and and where having a

solid CMS like WordPress as the

foundation for your website is still

absolutely critical. Uh security is a

big one. uh but just overall like

stability and performance are just

massive that these tools just skip over,

right? And and we're also seeing the

costs go up. So, you know, talking

specifically at Brighton SEO there,

there were a ton of vendors that were

offering a lot of SEO enhanced tools.

There was one pretty cool one where uh

you basically gave it your knowledge

base and it would start generating

documentation for you and for the

customer.

And these are very slick uh packages of

what generative AI does. But you know if

you just fire up chat GPT, you can

create prompts, you can create projects,

you can create custom GPTs to do a lot

of this. Um so these services that are

built on top of the generative AI, you

know, I there's some that are really

cool and neat. Personally, I just go

straight into Chad GPT. It's the one

that I like. I like the memory feature

uh because my memory is so terrible at

this point. It it you know maybe it's a

replacement for that. Um what was more

interesting I thought at um both

Brighton SEO and then I was at digital

collegium which is a higher ed focused

conference. Both of them very AI uh

heavy conversations and in both of them

it was talking about how do we use these

tools to enhance our work? How do we use

these tools to work better as teams? And

then from like the SEO perspective is

okay, how does this change the game?

Because people are using uh Chad GPT to

search for things now to get answers for

things. So how do we get our product to

start showing up in those? And the

equation that somebody really succinctly

broke down for me is um generative um

what GEO is uh generative uh engine

optimization or something

>> is basically SEO

plus digital PR

plus social media

>> and and so that's what that's what all

these generative AI tools are are

building from and and I think that's the

important thing to keep in mind is these

aren't thinking machines at this point,

right? They're they're still uh

recreating information that exists out

in the world. And so it's our job as

creators to uh you know build websites

that uh answer questions and have

information readily available, have deep

information. Your about page should not

just say, "We have a great team of of

members and and we do hard work for

you." It should talk about you and who

you are and where you came from and

really set you apart. Um, digital PR,

right? This is where you're getting out

and talking to people and you're trying

to make sure you're crafting a message.

And then social media, right? You're

you're participating in the

conversations either around your brand

or around the market. And then uh the

the AI is kind of hoovering all this up.

Um and so then getting back into your

question about these tools and how these

are being used, it's really this

enhancement.

We're really building on what we're

already doing. Um and so I'd love to

hear what what your take is on on all

that.

>> Yeah. So I I try to listen so I I watch

both sides of the spectrum as like a uh

I don't know like a fan consumer of AI

just like as a spectator I guess is the

better word of of AI and just like being

a technologist. So I watch the stuff

that personally drives me nuts. I don't

know why I do it, but it's like the ones

that are like, I'm making $10,000 a day

because of this AI thing because I want

to cuz I I live that like when WordPress

had its boom, you were seeing those same

types of of I'll call them

opportunities, I guess, but you saw that

same kind of opportunity when AI when uh

when WordPress was growing up. It was

like how to make a million dollars

blogging and then it was how to do this

with membership sites and then here's

how to do this with courses, right? And

we we had like all of these similar

waves. And I want to pay attention to

how people are looking at that as AI cuz

to your point, I mean, God, I remember

as far back as Facebook pages, when

Facebook pages came onto the scene and

Facebook apps, like people were building

little apps and like little page things

to happen and people were profiting off

of these features that eventually

Facebook just said, "Nope, like not

anymore." But they allowed it just like

these tech companies allow APIs to be

open for a certain amount of time until

they hit max capacity or until they can

realize that we've got enough active

users now we can turn that off and then

get them into the platform and monetize

it that way. So I'm want I'm trying to

find that same pattern happening and

like you said a lot of these generative

tools that sit on top of it they're just

going to get swallowed up by what chat

GPT is going to launch anyway. And

again, another point of yours is um it's

not thinking for you. It feels like it

and they're really trying to market it

like it like it's thinking for you, but

it's not. And I really think that this

is just um really just them going after

Google at the end of the day is just

like going after Google search, right?

Because it feels good. It's new

technology. This is hype and a zillion

dollars everywhere about it. and it's a

great way for them to try to go land

grab some of that search stuff um that

Google owns so much of. My last point is

I listen to So that's the lower end I

pay attention to. Then on the higher

end, I I listen to a lot of like

enterprisey pod not a lot, there's only

a few like enterprisey kind of podcasts

that break down what's happening with AI

like at the enterprise level. And it

freaking blows my mind that nobody

even in these big organizations really

have a plan on how to leverage AI

for their organization. It always comes

down to them going, "Well, we just tell

our team to play with it and learn it."

>> Well, what the what is that?

>> Like, where where's the guidance here?

Like, and this is I struggle with this

across the board with a lot of the

recommendation is just just go play with

it. Well, if you're a leader in an

organization and you're telling

everybody AI is going to like take away

our jobs, you should at least you're the

leader. you have to be giving me a path

to say I want you to learn it and

experiment fine but here's how I want

you to think about AI in our

organization and um you know like deploy

against that or here's the things that

leadership has come up with as a

learning path and as a u a gateway into

AI because if yeah if it's as

destructive as everyone's painting it

out to be and the leaders are just like

hey go learn it before we lose our jobs

well man we're all going to lose our

jobs here so like that's what drives me

nuts the most I mean I guess it's also a

testament of how fast things are moving

where people can't like really pin down

one thing. Um, so yeah, like that it's

it's it's still such a moving target. I

was I've always been skeptical about it.

About 6 months ago, I was like, "Oh,

damn. This is this is pretty good." I

started to feel really good. And then as

I saw like things slow down a bit on

like what replet bolt cursor uh cursor

code, cloud code, excuse me. um like all

this stuff. I was like, "Ah, I get it."

We were just they were just like, "Hey,

come to come to our platform. We'll give

you everything for free. Here's all this

horsepower." And that's when it

triggered my head like, "Oh, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah. I've seen this before."

Right. I've seen this platform play

before. So, definitely augments.

Um, you know, there's definitely a lot

of like benefits to it, but I, you know,

I don't know anything about Agentic and

like what that's going to do and how

that's going to pan out, but from what I

see right now, I'm like, I think my

job's safe, I think, for a little bit

longer. So, anyway, that's where I'm

that's where I'm at with that stuff. And

it is fun. Uh, and it's great to just

like be on the cutting edge to

>> pay attention to see how this is going

to impact everybody.

>> Yeah. So, so kind of uh keeping on that

thread just for a second. So, there's a

really great podcast I was introduced to

recently, the Artificial Intelligence

Show, and I'm going to forget the names

of the hosts, but they're behind Mecon.

>> Yep. May. Yep.

>> Okay. And one great thing, so they're I

I urge everybody to start listening to

their podcast because they have two

basic formats, right? The first one is

kind of a news show. They're talking

about the latest things happening in AI

and they give a really intelligent

breakdown on that. And then the second

format they've got is a question and

answer show where they've got a course

which I need to get signed up for. Um,

and anytime that people have questions

in that course, they're taking those

questions and they're answering them on

the podcast and they're just they're the

same questions you and I have, right?

It's like, is this going to take my job?

Uh, is this going to lead to the end of

the world? Uh, and then also much more

specific. Um, and recently they had a

great conversation talking about AI

policy inside of the company and um, and

this is and this has prompted me to

start creating a policy for my team

first uh, and and start you know dog

fooding this. And I thought a really

great insight that they put into AI

policy in the company is do not focus on

what not to do, focus on what you can do

and give examples. And I think that's

where people are struggling, especially

the non-initiated people who aren't like

us tinkerers,

um, who are looking at this AI and

they're kind of like, you know, I tried

it once and it gave me some weird

answers, so I don't like it. And it's

like, well, you know, you got to dig a

little deeper. You got to give it you

got to give it more. And and so I think

like helping your your team members like

really, hey, look, here's here's how I'm

using it, right? Like, so I do, you

know, interviews and I take that

transcript and I have it generate a

bunch of stuff for me, right? I have it

generate my YouTube chapters and it just

saves me so much time and does stuff I

would never do, right? Like taking the

time to create YouTube chapters is

usually something I just skip over

because I just don't feel like I have

the time to do that. Um, and with these

tools, right, I can I can generate it.

Are they always perfect and exact?

probably not, but they're at least there

and people can use them to jump around.

Um, and so I think um, you know, for

leaders, even if you're not a huge

advocate for the AI, find somebody in

your company who is, and get them to

start explaining to you how they use it.

Maybe even just do a screen recording of

them using the tool and then show that

to the rest of the team, right? Um, I

think there's so much potential with

these tools outside of the sales pitch

that we're getting, right? The sales

pitch is click the button, pay the fee,

and everything will be happy. And the

reality is it's it's the same thing as a

word processor, right? Just because you

have Google Docs doesn't mean you're

going to be Shakespeare,

>> right?

>> Right. You've got to now write it. And

it's the same thing with AI. Just

because you have AI doesn't mean it's

going to generate WordPress, right? It

you've got to you've got to work with

it. And I thought Adam's um conversation

was really insightful for me, right?

He's a he's an expert developer and he's

pointing out look, you know, WordPress

and these software platforms are very

complex things, right? it you you know

the idea that you're just going to click

a button and it's going to create this

with its you know decades of history as

to why things were built certain ways um

is is just it's not going to happen

maybe in the future I don't know once

the singularity happens but you know at

that point

>> I hope I own my landscaping company by

then Roger I just want to cut grass at

this point I don't even I don't want to

do any of this anymore

>> um exciting times yeah

>> we'll we'll finish up on the AI stuff.

One of the things, and this is me sort

of um admitting defeat to you, uh if you

recall back at Press Comp, um I forget

who we were talking to, but we were both

sharing our podcasting knowledge and our

like video production knowledge and

stuff like that. And you were a real

proponent for where we're recording

today, which is Riverside. And I was

saying, "Yeah, but like Dcript can do

all this stuff and Dcript this." And

you're like, "Well, you know, Riverside

has this." And I will tell you it's what

we were there in April and we're in

October so six months. Dcript has become

the poster child for too much AI and

they were also backed really early by

open AI. So I kind of feel like this is

like their little laboratory open AI and

now there's a new CEO. She was the

product person. I mean she's great and

she had a lot of great ideas but the

point is is like I think there's too

sometimes these product companies go

just too much in AI. Like I don't like

dscript for example years use it for

years for my podcast editing audio all

the like the little quick AI tools like

removing filler words studio sound all

this stuff like they pioneered that I

would say and it's been and it was great

but then they just went full force into

like AI video editing and AI like avatar

creation and like all this stuff and

it's just like you have forgotten the

podcaster like I just want the tools

to produce audio and video and get it

out to the different channels that I go

to. And now it's just like this

completely different thing. Um, so now

I'm fully on Riverside. So like

Riverside is just doing it all for me.

I'm now a now I'm afraid because you

have probably seen all the new tools and

bells and whistles that Riverside have

put in. Yes, that's nice. It's not as

overly done as Dcript, but man, I'm

thinking to my like they just released

AI audio editing for Riverside. like you

can just type to the thing. Man, I don't

I don't want that, right? I don't want

to prompt my edit. I want to I know what

I'm doing in terms of recording and all

like the automated stuff that happens

afterwards, like those clips and the

transcripts and the and the chapters

that it does. Fantastic. Just leave it

at that. You you've got it. Like that's

what I want. I don't need to talk to a

command line interface to do my to do my

podcast and my YouTube stuff. I don't

need it. So, you know, fully on

Riverside now and I just hope that they

don't become like we're just AI

everything.

>> Yeah. So, quick point on that just to,

you know, uh, keep going. First of all,

uh, I accept your defeat. Um, thank you.

No, it's all good fun. Um, you know,

it's interesting. Riverside is a little

bit guilty. You mentioned, right, they

they've added this chat command. I tried

it, I think, one time and I was like,

no, no, no, no. this is like why why are

you like things are going really well

here? Um, and then they've added this

like they had the cartoon avatar thing

and and I'm just like, no. Like what

we're trying to create here is is real

conversation

>> and I think they should really like

latch on to that, right? Because that's

the next phase. Gary Vee is talking

about how 2026 the big trend is going to

be real life experiences again. So he's

he's like there's going to be people

walking businesses, right? you're going

to be able to go, hey, come come and

meet with me. I'll and walk with me for

20 minutes. Um, and it's already

happening, right? These these services

are already popping up. And I think

we've gone so far into AI. We've gone so

far away from human interaction that

we're we're starting to see people go,

you know what would be nice is is just

to like talk to somebody about like

their day. Um, and so, and I think with

Riverside, with these tools, right, this

what we're doing right now

at some point, I guess like Notebook LM,

right? I I I've started playing with

that. It's it's pretty freaky. Um, it

it's great for like creating a

presentation, but for creating a

conversation like this, it like you

can't replicate this, right? I mean, for

all of our faults and mistakes and

everything, we're we're real two people

talking with each other, sharing our

emotional experiences. Um, I think

Riverside should just latch on to that.

Uh, that there's so much potential

there, but um, yeah, man. You You know,

I'd love to talk about this stuff all

day long, but uh, it's your show. Where

are we going? What where are we talking?

>> Yes. Yeah. So, let's wrap it up. Um,

what's up at Kinsta? Anything new? Any

new uh, announcements on the product

side or anything you want to talk about

on the Kinsta side? I did see uh I won't

spoil it, but I saw an email come in uh

probably to the affiliate group about

Black Friday stuff coming. You obviously

I'm not going to hold you to pitch that

stuff, but uh anything that's new and

exciting that the world should know

about Kinsta.

>> Yeah. So, you know, the most recent

thing that we've rolled out is it's kind

of like a a back to the future

situation.

We've we've returned to bandwidth

pricing as an option

um because uh as a lot of listeners are

probably aware of bot traffic has gotten

out of control at this point. It's just

crazy. And so, you know, one of the cool

inventions in the last 10 plus years of

the hosting world is this uh visits,

selling hosting on visits because people

can understand visits, right? It's like,

oh, if I get a,000 visits to my site, if

I get 3% of that to convert, yay, I can

make money. Um, the the problem is this

bot traffic is eating up visits. And so,

we've come out with bandwidth pricing

for people that want to choose that. And

that basically absolves this o overage

issue that was happening with the the

bots on the visits. So if anybody out

there is getting frustrated with their

visits or anything, uh come and give us

a talk. Uh you know, if you're with

Kinsta, talk with us. U if you're not

with Kinsta, come and talk with us. Um

so it's, you know, it's not

revolutionary in any way. Like the whole

time this has been being rolled out, I'm

like, "Oh, this this reminds me of 15

years ago when it was all about

bandwidth." Um the the issue, you know,

that that comes up is again people don't

understand what bandwidth means and so

we have to do a little bit of education

around that. But uh but that's been uh

interesting coming out. We do have a

Black Friday sale coming up. Uh I don't

know the details of it yet, so I can't

mess up and and let that slip yet, but

everybody should keep their eyes open.

Um it's going to be a good one. Um and

we've got some fun marketing coming with

it. I'm not going to uh spoil anything,

but there's some fun marketing that

we're coming out with for it. Uh and and

what you know what else? We're you know

the the the plug-in auto update tool

that we came out with last year, we've

continued to refine and I think

especially for agencies, you know, this

is something to use to augment your

existing maintenance program. It's not

necessarily a replacement, although for,

you know, in end users of websites out

there, maybe it is. But I think from an

agency perspective, having the plug-in

updates be somewhat automated. It's got

the visual regression testing to catch

any errors now frees up time for you to

work on other things in the maintenance

package, right? And and you know,

working with the customer, maybe

reviewing existing content to make sure

it's uh generative AI ready and things

of that nature. Uh so so you know we're

really working to make sure that

agencies and endusers of their websites

can really stay focused on the WordPress

side of things. Um and and we've got the

rest of it taken care of for you. Uh uh

I'm I'm probably blanking on some other

stuff, so my um my marketing manager is

going to get upset with me, but um you

know, I think in general, our focus is

always on support. Um and really making

sure that when you have a question about

your hosting, we've always got somebody

here to to answer it for you. Uh and and

you know, and we're always happy to talk

to you about your website in general. Um

even if you know, it's out of our scope

of support. Uh you know, I'm heading up

our partnership program. Oh yeah, let me

mention that. uh we've relaunched our

agency partner program and so now we're

focused not just on agencies that have a

large plan with us but agencies that

refer clients to us. Now we're

partnering with you and you know I've

been doing this for over a year but now

it's really official. Um and we really

want to work with our agency partners to

help them grow their business, deliver

more value to their customers. Um and so

that's done through co-arketing

activities and you know all types of fun

things. So, reach out uh reach out to me

if you got questions about the agency

partner program. Love to work with you.

Um and that's really it. I've got

Cloudfest US is coming up. I'm actually

going to go to Word Camp uh San Jose in

Costa Rica uh just before Cloudfest. So,

I'll be there. My Spanish is Mual. So,

uh have some have some sympathy for me,

but I will have teammates with me who do

speak Spanish. So, that'll be great. And

then at the beginning of December, I'll

be at Digital Summit Dallas. And I

highly recommend people go and attend

that. U very focused on marketers and

really helping you think about the next

step, next progression in your career.

They'll be a lot about AI, I'm sure, but

really about thinking strategically,

hey, how do I get my teams to start

using AI more? So, I would love to see

you at any of those events. And of

course, Matt, it'll be great to see you

in Miami. I

>> think one of the great things about

Kinsta saving agency time so they they

can focus on other things will be going

for walks with their clients, right?

Hey, hey, client, just let's just go for

a walk because like everything else is

happening. Just talk to me about your

business, which I've actually said is

the key uh to uh to the services

business. Uh Roger, thanks for hanging

out today. Everybody go to kinsta.com,

check out what they have to offer.

Fantastic sponsors of the WP Minute.

When you take the course uh WordPress

hosting decoded at thewpmin.com/courses,

you'll see their logo alongside of all

the lessons because they help us do all

of this great work for you, the

WordPress professional. Roger, anywhere

you want to point them to your social

media so they can ping you when they see

you at an event.

>> Yeah, come to LinkedIn. I love being on

LinkedIn. Come say hi there. Leave some

comments on my posts. You're my best

friend forever if you leave me a

comment.

vertical video man. That's the That's

the name we say.

>> You know, I've turned it away from that.

I've turned it away from that.

>> Yes, I did. I did. I did notice that.

You

>> They're not prioritizing it as much.

>> Fantastic stuff. Uh, everybody else,

thanks for listening and we'll see you

in the next episode.