Welcome to Open Channels FM. In this special episode, BobWP celebrates eight incredible years since the launch of of our podcast.
BobWP shares some fun stats: 710 episodes, 569 guests, 39 hosts, and a 3.8 million words enough to fill multiple books or take a multi-year walk across Europe. We will leave the other fun numbers for you to tune into.
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Takeaways
- Anniversary Milestone: BobWP highlights that it’s the eighth anniversary since launching “Do the Woo/Open Channels FM” marking eight years of podcasting on January 8th.
- Podcast Stats:
- The show has aired 710 episodes in eight years.
- There have been 569 different guests, with some returning multiple times.
- A total of 39 hosts have contributed to the podcast.
- Fun Data Insights:
- The transcripts total an estimated 3.8 million words.
- That’s enough words to equal 12-13 full-length nonfiction books, or three times the word count in the entire Harry Potter series.
- Typing out all transcripts would take someone almost three years at eight hours per day.
- Audio Content:
- An estimated total of 25,650 minutes (or 1.53 million seconds) of audio has been produced.
- You could listen to the podcast for eight hours a day, and it would take nearly nine years to hear it all.
- It’s possible to play a new episode every hour for half a year without repeats.
- Most Mentioned Words:
- “WordPress” was mentioned 12,700 times.
- “WooCommerce” was mentioned 10,600 times.
- “AI” was mentioned 1,400 times—expected to increase in future episodes.
- Listen Data Missing: BobWP shared that stats on listenership are missing due to website moves and rebranding.
- Looking Ahead: As the show enters its ninth year, listeners can expect continued coverage of WordPress, WooCommerce, and broader topics on open web and open source.
Episode Transcript
BobWP:
Hey Bob, WP and you are here on Open Channels fm. Well, I just wanted to slip in an episode, kind of a short episode, because eight years ago on this date, January 8th, we launched do the Woo with the first episode. Yep, eight years ago. Now. Excuse me, I’m kind of in my second round of this cold flu stuff, so my voice may sound a little bit weird, but hey, I couldn’t let this day slip by. Now I’m not usually one to share numbers because I mean, everybody’s sharing numbers. You know, how many, especially if you’re on YouTube and all that stuff, but I thought this was kind of fun for 8 years to share some numbers.
Now, before I get into this episode, moving into 2026, we’ll be recognizing all our sponsors in each podcast because hey, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them. So if you’re looking to migrate your email and SMS, omnisend.com will handle the heavy lifting for you. GoDaddy is building up their AI called Airo. So make sure and check that out. And lastly, if you are on the verge of taking your shop online, Woo gives you the support, flexibility and scaling that you need to make a successful shop. So thanks to our sponsors for their support.
Now let’s look at some numbers. Since that first episode, we’re here at 710. Over those eight years, we’ve had 569 guests. Some of those have been on more than once, some of them have been on several times. And over the years we’ve had 39 hosts giving their time and talent to bring you these conversations. But let’s get into the fun numbers that yes, ChatGPT helped me with. I uploaded all the transcripts and discovered that we have produced an estimated 3.8 million words. If each word was a step, you would be able to walk from my hometown, Porto in Portugal to Helsinki, Finland. Now, those same words would be an equivalent of 12 to 13 full length non fiction books or more words in the entire Harry Potter series three times over. Now, if you really want to dig in, it would take you nearly three years of eight hours per day to type in all of our transcripts. That’s a lot of typing. And I’m glad they’re already typed out so nobody has to do that. And of course you would not want to take three years of your life.
But we do have the audio too. So if AI looked at those transcripts, they estimated a total of 25,650 minutes of audio, or 1.53 million seconds. What does this mean? It’s enough minutes to listen to our podcast eight hours a day for nearly nine straight years. Now. This is longer than most people spend in meetings across an entire career these days. And with the scary idea that you could play a new episode every hour on the hour for half a year without repeating anything is a lot of listening. Now of course, I don’t expect any of you to do that, but interesting numbers, needless to say.
And lastly, just for the thrills of it, over these episodes, the word WordPress has been mentioned 12,700 times and WooCommerce has been mentioned 10,600 times. Let’s take what’s most popular these days, AI well, so far, 1,400 times. But I figure that’s probably going to grow significantly over this next year.
Now with all this said, kind of just throwing out those numbers for the fun of it. Now with this all said for the fun of it, these numbers have been great to share with you. When we started eight years ago, the plan was not to build a library that would bring all these stats in, but just to have more conversations. So as we enter year nine, there will be all things open web and open source while still bringing you great episodes on WordPress and WooCommerce chatter that you have been used to listening to for the past eight years.
Oh by the way, would have loved to share with you the numbers of listens as well. But it turns out unfortunately we moved our site a couple times, maybe three times, and then we did rebranding. All this stuff. Screwed up those numbers. We lost a lot of them. Now in hindsight, I should have documented those before I did that, but hey, you know, anyway, I’ve given you enough numbers.
So that’s it. Eight years. Looking forward to the ninth year again thanks to OmniSend.com GoDaddy.com and WooCommerce.com for their support and time as we roll into 2026. Until the next time, take care.
