With a growing number of innovations centered around WordPress, the community has begun to immerse itself in the broader realm of mainstream technology. WordPress businesses are starting to compete, and find their place, among other popular technology — and WordPress, as an ecosystem, is evolving.
One illustration of this can be seen in AppPresser’s recent nomination as one of the 6 About to Break at MacWorld/iWorld. To understand how AppPresser — and WordPress more broadly — fit into this scene, I reached out to the co-founder of AppPresser, Scott Bolinger, to share his experience.
Macworld/iWorld is an annual, Apple-dedicated trade show. Each year, Apple enthusiasts from all over the world gravitate to the event to show their allegiance. It’s the ultimate event for those who use, build, and love Apple. So how does AppPresser fit into this equation? Well, quite simply, AppPresser enables users to build iOS and Android apps using WordPress.
A while back, the folks at AppPresser heard about the 6 About to Break competition and applied. They were very excited to hear that AppPresser was selected as a finalist. Bolinger said,
It’s not a venue that normally hears much about WordPress, so we were excited to interact with a different crowd than you would see at a WordCamp.
AppPresser’s co-founders, Bolinger and Brian Messenlehner, presented their WordPress-specific app builder in front of a live audience and panel of judges. With judges from Cult of Mac, Quake Labs, SF New Tech, and more, Bolinger described the experience:
It was nerve-wracking and exciting, and Brian and I nailed it. We talked about WordPress being the most popular CMS in the world, leveraging plugins such as WooCommerce in an app, and fast hosting such as WPEngine to increase performance.
Bolinger and Messenlehner highlighted strengths of other WordPress businesses, and WordPress more broadly — all while illustrating their own strengths. This emphasizes the importance of community in WordPress businesses. The general reaction was very positive though Bollinger said,
Many people were not WordPress users, so obviously they weren’t interested. The people familiar with WordPress were really excited, and even some people who didn’t use WordPress still thought our product was innovative.
Bolinger and Messenlehner were thrilled to spread the word about WordPress to a different audience. It’s good for WordPress innovators to get out of the WordPress bubble, Bolinger indicated.
AppPresser’s position as a finalist in a competition at Macworld/iWorld definitely speaks to the potential of WordPress’s evolution. It represents a space that the WordPress community is beginning to enter — a space among the average iPhone users and non-developer technology lovers. The future of WordPress innovation is boundless, and it will be interesting to see how it’ll fit into the broader realm of technology.
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