WP Product Talk Making WordPress Weird: Nick Hamze on Building for Fun in WordPress
Join us for Making WordPress Weird: Nick Hamze on Building for Fun in WordPress, as we explore what happens when you stop taking things so seriously and start creating just because it’s fun. Nick Hamze is known for his playful, unconventional approach to building and his relentless push to keep the creative spirit of WordPress alive. From his pro-Wapuu advocacy to his experiments with AI and offbeat product ideas, Nick shows us why weirdness might just be WordPress’s greatest strength.
We’re going live Wednesday, December 11 at Noon ET, with co-hosts Ian Misner and Matt Cromwell, who’ll help unpack how curiosity, experimentation, and a bit of chaos can lead to more meaningful work and maybe even better products.
Follow Up with Nick Hamze
This episode is a follow-up to our earlier conversation with Nick Hamze about building “fun, weird” things in WordPress and the hard truth behind it: shipping is easy now; distribution is not.
Since our original episode in December 2025, WordPress quietly shipped a meaningful change: the Featured Plugins tab inside the Add New Plugins screen is no longer basically static. It’s now rotating every two weeks to spotlight newer plugins with fewer than 10,000 installs.
In this special WP Product Talk follow-up, Nick joins Matt Cromwell and Ian Misner to unpack how the Featured Plugin experiment came together, what the selection criteria looks like, and why this kind of in-dashboard discovery is one of the highest-leverage changes WordPress can make for small plugin makers.
We also dig into:
- Why the old Featured tab needed a reset
- The curation guidelines Nick is using (and why they matter)
- How the first featured plugins saw immediate install spikes (including Ollie Menu Designer)
- What a “fair” and sustainable discovery system could look like next (filters, categories, better browsing)
- How the community can participate without turning it into a popularity contest
Links & Resources
Featured Plugin discussion in WordPress Slack: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C0AJB2960NS
Matt’s thread showing the Ollie Menu Designer download spike: https://x.com/learnwithmattc/status/2028804166747824311
This article at The Repository covers the conversation as well: https://www.therepository.email/the-wordpress-featured-plugins-tab-is-now-rotating-hidden-gems-every-two-weeks