Automattic’s CEO, Toni Schneider, on ScobleShow

by on October 16, 2006

You might have heard of Wordpress or Akismet (Wordpress is the software/service that hosts my blog here, and Akismet is the service that blocks all sorts of comment spam). They are both produced by Automattic. Recently I sat down with Automattic’s CEO, Toni Schneider, for a 45:33 interview for ScobleShow.

We talk about everything from the future of blogging, to spam detection, to other fun things. If you’re interested in Wordpress, you won’t want to miss this one.

  • Man, I really wish you would publish in a format that Windows Media Center can view. Nothing like watching 'casts on HDTV through my XBOX 360 :(
  • Rob: I'm working on it. My new big-ass Mac just arrived today, so we'll play around with other formats and see what we can make happen.
  • Wordpress is ... Wonderful! Tell them they are more appreciated than they can imagine.
  • Todd
    Robert,

    What about an audio only feed? Or am I just missing it?
  • Todd: sorry, no audio only feed yet. Hopefully coming soon.
  • Very good interview. Keep up the good work!

    On a side note, I really enjoy reading all of the links on your Google Reader shared items. It is really the killer feature of Google Reader in my opinion.
  • Good interview.

    I have an issue I'd like to communicate to Toni! It has to do with one small problem I'm having and plans to bring remote hosted wordpress to the same stability level as wordpress.com
  • Wow - Todd wants audio only and that's all I get after I run the .MOV files through file conversion (with several different apps). Maybe I could send Todd the files I get after conversion!

    I haven't found a single application that can change these .MOV Quicktime files to something watchable (and listen-able) on Media Center. Whine.

    Would be best if I could find a command line app that would just convert any .MOV files in a folder to something Media Center finds useful. Errr - more useful, I meant.

    Any tips, readers?
  • David: I'm all ears! Please ping me at toni@schneidersf.com.
  • I so wanted to watch this, but can't because it's in Quicktime. The cybercafe where I browse from has every darn player except Quicktime (which owner says gives a lot of trouble...don't know what he means).

    After you also begin providing the videos in other formats, would you mind putting everything. Till then, even a transcript will do. But, nothing beats video. Audio??
  • Robert and Toni - great interview! Some useful insights into what Atomattic is doing.

    You guys spoke a bit about Akismet - and the importance of marking comments as spam so that we can all help each other deal with comment spam. I have a suggestion that might help - I would find it really useful, when "bulk moderating" comments, to have a one-click solution for marking a comment as spam. Right now, we have "Edit" and "Delete" options, from the bulk editing page; but no "Mark As Spam" option.

    Personally, I find the number one reason (in fact, the only reason) for deleting comments is to delete spam that Akismet has missed. And it's a pain to have to go into editing individual comments and mark them as spam (Akismet does a great job, but on my blog, several spam messages are missed every day and end up being posted in the comments). If I'm too busy to check the blog for a few days, keeping up with comment spam isn't as easy as I think it could be.

    Anyway thanks again to Automattic for Wordpress - it's my favourite blogging software by far.
  • Simon,

    I added the one-click "mark as spam" feature to WordPress in March or so. It is already live on WordPress.com and will be coming in WordPress 2.1 for DIY WP users!
  • Many thanks for the heads up Mark! I'm looking forward to WordPress 2.1. And I'll take note to check out the latest and greatest features on wordpress.com!
  • Toni - You need to do a better job at listening based on the reply I received from you so far.
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