RSS-based podcasts are built-in and not going anywhere. Here's why. As long as there are lots of good podcasts available for listening to via RSS on phones, every competitive 'caster is going to want to be there, because their competitors are. And as long as I can get a good selection of interesting stuff to listen to on my phone, there's no reason look elsewhere. And as far as I know I can't listen to a YouTube "podcast" in my car or when walking. One more thing, please stop using death metaphors re RSS. Learn how framing works. A few nasty people in the early 00s did a number on RSS and started putting that awful word next to RSS. It was a way of earning points from the people who ran Twitter and tech conferences like SXSW, basically asshole-like people who wanted to close the door on the open web. And now here we are 2.5 decades later and people are still doing it. You should self-censor on that one, those people are long-gone, probably doing stuff with crypto or nuzzling up to oligarchs, and you're keeping their asshole-ness alive. That's pretty fucked up. #I wanted to design a Google Form, and thought to ask ChatGPT for instructions from a spec I wrote. Then I thought to ask Gemini, which is Google's chatbot, wondering if they would just do the work for me instead of providing instructions. I would have laughed out loud if they did, but alas, just instructions. Eventually they will do that for you. #
- Scott Hanson has been working on the Baseline theme and it's ready for people to try out. #
- An important caveat. This theme was designed to be the beginning theme for WordLand-authored WordPress sites. #
- The goal is to get the minimal features for a nice blog-oriented site running in WordPress. #
- It's open source, so you can start with Baseline and add all the features you want.#
- And Scott has said he'd be happy to work with others to make it so that it would be great for presenting non-WordLand-authored writing. #
- As the developer of WordLand, I wanted to go back to the beginning and take fresh a approach to the way blogs implement various features in 2025. It's been a long time since we took a fresh look, and lots has happened since. The market has grown by orders of magnitude, and new user interfaces have become widely used, especially with social media apps. WordLand itself has been heavily influenced by Facebook and Twitter, for example, even though blogging predates both. So of course the presentation of the blog has opportunities to evolve as well.#
- The bottom-line -- if you already have a WordPress theme you're happy with, then stick with it, no need to use Baseline. But if you're starting a fresh site, using WordLand as your editor, and you value simplicity, then I recommend trying it, and if you like it, keep using it.#
- BTW, I have it installed on daveverse.org, and I'm a happy camper. So we have one endorsement. It's a good start. 😄#
- PS: If you have comments or questions, here's a good place to post them. #