A New Direction for the New Year: PublishPress and EmbedPress

Throughout 2017, this site ran at PressShack.com.

“PressShack” seemed like a good iname at first. For over a decade, we ran a site called “Joomlashack” and it continues to be a really successful business.

So when starting a WordPress site, why not give it a similar name?

Well, it turns out there are several good reasons why not:

• Because it has the letter “s” three times in a row, making it sound like a snake.
• Because people always misspelled it.
• Because “PressShack” isn't actually the product we sell.
• Because it sounds like a rude word in Brazilian Portuguese.

I was wrong about “PressShack”. So, a few days ago, we retired the PressShack name.

I also took us in the wrong direction by trying to host several products under the PressShack name.

At Joomlashack, we sell 20 different extensions, along with templates and training. At OSTraining, we create training on dozens of different platforms. Those broad-based strategies have enabled us to build strong businesses for 11 and 7 years respectively.

But the same approach didn't work so well in WordPress.

Why didn't it work? Matt Crowell summed things up nicely:

A plugin should have one central purpose, no matter how great or small and never deviate from that purpose no matter how vociferously users may request it to be “enhanced” beyond its core purpose.

The WordPress market is incredibly crowded, and new products can only stand out by being hyper-focused.

So in 2018, our goal is to focus on just two plugins, both with logical names, clear branding, and simple core purposes.

Enter PublishPress and EmbedPress

This website is now running at PublishPress.com. The site hosts the PublishPress plugin and its core purposes is helping WordPress teams do great work.

Some plugins and articles have moved to EmbedPress.com. That site hosts the EmbedPress plugin and its core purpose is improving the embed experience in WordPress.

What does this mean for customers?

Almost nothing yet. If you're a PressShack member, the only difference you'll see is the new brand name: “PublishPress”.

But, over the next few weeks, add-ons updates will start coming from different sites:

• If you use Content Checklist, WooCommerce Checklist, Permissions, or Multiple Authors, those updates will come from PublishPress.com.
• If you use the YouTube, Wistia, Vimeo add-ons, those updates will come from EmbedPress.com.

Everyone who is currently a member will get a subscription to both sites.

Please let us know if you have any question at all: [email protected] and [email protected] are both active emails.

More to come

Thanks for reading through this overview of my mistakes in 2017!

Big plans are already afoot to provide you with some amazing plugins in 2018.

Those big plans start to produce results as early as next week – look out for a major acquisition that will really improve PublishPress!