NOTE: Version 4.0 has been delayed for several reason, including some major changes. We will keep you posted.
So over the last few months I have been talking and teasing you about our big next version of Do the Woo. Version 4.0
My goal was to have quite a bit in place by March 1, which was yesterday, but we are still working on a lot of things. But, I am going to go that soft launch route. Officially, Do the Woo 4.0 starts today. A lot of this is around the bend or behind the scenes. And each piece will be announced as we roll it out. But I wanted to share with you more details on what you can expect moving forward while I approach my own personal deadline of moving to Porto, Portugal on March 25th.
The podcast
There are several new things coming down the road with the podcast.
New hosts
By this I mean “added” new hosts. All the great voices you have heard, Abha, Ronald, Robbie, Robert, Zach, Carl, Jonathan, Brad and Kathy are still here and going strong. But we will be added around 6 more hosts for regular monthly shows.
Guest hosts
This is a two-part piece. I will be having some guest hosts that will fill in here and there as well as help with some special shows. Secondly, as I mentioned in an earlier WooBits, I am now having guest hosts come on with me for one-time conversations. I will be announcing this very soon on the site here and will have a sign up for interested guest hosts.
Added episodes
In the past few months, we have been posting shows on Tuesday and Thursday (with a few exceptions). Also, WooBits has been published most Fridays. Moving forward there will be an additional show on Wednesday. This will include special episodes, some of which will be audio or video. In any case, the audio will end up in the Do the Woo feed. What new things will you find? Expect:
- An AMA Woo meetup with special guests from Woo agencies answering questions.
- Live streams of panels and other discussions
- Cooking with Woo, a fun new idea you will be hearing more about
- And of course, some odds and ends fillers
Who knows, there may even be an occasional Monday show as well if needed.
The community
As you have seen or heard in the past, we also talk a lot about WordPress as naturally Woo sits on top of it and as a Woo builder you need to know. So it’s obvious that Woo will always be here, but with slices of WordPress.
One of the bigger elements of DTW 4.0 is giving back to the community. Announcements of this will come more as they transpire, but we will be putting back a certain amount of our sponsors monies directly back into the community. This is something we are taking the time and making sure we do right. In the near future we hope to be helping some underrepresented contributors and those that do not have the resources to travel to the upcoming flagship WordCamps so they can have that amazing experience.
Of course, as we continue over the next months I will still be making my efforts to have conversations, and help people connect with each other within this ecosystem.
And I will be keeping my eyes and ears open for new ideas of how we can support both WooCommerce and WordPress builders.
The website
Oh, and there is that technical part. Or at least I should say the part that I will be having someone help me with. A bit of redesign, still using the existing brand and design that was done before.
First, there is some work to do on the homepage which you will likely notice when that happens. And a few tweaks to some other pages.
DTW Story Profiles
This is a bigger endeavor that we will be doing. We have had a lot of amazing guests on the podcast. So as we build this community, I thought it would be cool to have profiles of our guests on the site. My first impression was some kind of directory. But that wasn’t really what I was looking for. After some long thought on what would be fun, informative and unique, I came up with the idea of Woo Builder Story Profiles. In a nutshell, we will be creating profiles of all our podcast guests that will tell their story. It will highlight the show they were on, but also give them the opportunity to share other links to podcast appearances, videos and posts on other sites where they have shared their story. As you can guess, this is a huge effort and something we hope to start very soon.
So that is the official, unofficial soft launch of 4.0. And I’m sure there are a few things I am forgetting. But nevertheless, we really want you to be part of this growing community. How can you do that?
- Subscribe to our new weekly newsletter that I will be starting sometime here in March.
- Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcatcher.
- Let us know if you want to be a guest and tell your Woo story.
- Watch for your chance to be a guest host on WooBits.
And of course, if you are interested in anything I have talked about, or would like your company to be a sponsor at either the Pod Friend or Community Friend level, just reach out to me on the site.
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