{"id":14087,"date":"2009-05-05T18:58:24","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T02:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ma.tt\/?p=14087"},"modified":"2012-12-25T13:37:46","modified_gmt":"2012-12-25T21:37:46","slug":"how-p2-changed-automattic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2009\/05\/how-p2-changed-automattic\/","title":{"rendered":"How P2 Changed Automattic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven&#8217;t heard of P2 yet, check out this quick video:<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"src\" value=\"https:\/\/v.wordpress.com\/YYNW9iSj\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/>https:\/\/videopress.com\/v\/YYNW9iSj<\/object><\/p>\n<p>Almost everyone at <a href=\"http:\/\/automattic.com\/\">Automattic<\/a> is a blogger, but for the first couple of years of the company we didn&#8217;t blog much internally. Everything happened over IRC, Skype, and email. (In that order.) Eventually we started a blog that worked like a traditional blog did with long posts and comments, but everyone forgot to visit it until I wrote a quick script on cron job that would email everybody summaries of new posts and comments.<\/p>\n<p>There was a disconnect we couldn&#8217;t reconcile: even though our internal blogs didn&#8217;t work out most of the company was active on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/\">Twitter<\/a> every day. (WordPress users are some of the most passionate adopters of micro-blogging.)<\/p>\n<p>We found a solution in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.blog.wordpress.com\/2008\/01\/28\/introducing-prologue\/\">Prologue<\/a> which added a posting box to the home page and gave it a Twitter-like feel. Now Automattic had a pulse, a place where the incredible amount of activity was chronicled and captured. It was low-friction and hassle-free, we all started using it more.<\/p>\n<p>But there was still a problem, Prologue was great for status updates but terribly awkward for conversation. P2 solves all this by <strong>moving the conversation inline on the homepage<\/strong>. Conversations can be fully threaded using 2.7&#8217;s new comment features. Finally the blog started to get so busy we made it real time so you can just leave the page open and new stuff will come in. (It&#8217;s hard to describe, so watch the video above.) Seemingly simple changes have increased engagement many-fold: our main P2 now has over 4,700 posts in it with 1,100 of those in the past 60 days.<\/p>\n<p>It completely transformed how Automattic works internally and I think is one of the most valuable things we&#8217;ve adopted in the past year. I&#8217;m on the road a lot, and sometimes my only connection is checking the mobile-optimized P2 on my iPhone.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m excited about P2 partly because blogs provide an incredibly robust infrastructure on which to build more advanced apps and this is a good example of that. I&#8217;d love to see more themes that transform what WordPress can do top-to-bottom.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/themes\/p2\">You can get P2 for your WordPress.org blog here<\/a>, and it&#8217;s available for all of WordPress.com too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven&#8217;t heard of P2 yet, check out this quick video: https:\/\/videopress.com\/v\/YYNW9iSj Almost everyone at Automattic is a blogger, but for the first couple of years of the company we didn&#8217;t blog much internally. Everything happened over IRC, Skype, and email. (In that order.) Eventually we started a blog that worked like a traditional &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2009\/05\/how-p2-changed-automattic\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How P2 Changed Automattic<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"fullscreen","default_image_id":54207,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[120,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automattic","category-essays"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2009\/05\/how-p2-changed-automattic\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"How P2 Changed Automattic","url":"http:\/\/ma.tt\/2009\/05\/how-p2-changed-automattic\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/ma.tt\/2009\/05\/how-p2-changed-automattic\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":""},"articleSection":"Automattic","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt"}],"creator":["Matt"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Matt Mullenweg","logo":"http:\/\/ma.tt\/files\/2021\/05\/Photo-on-2020-10-28-at-2.05-PM-1.jpg"},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2009-05-06T02:58:24Z","datePublished":"2009-05-06T02:58:24Z","dateModified":"2012-12-25T21:37:46Z"},"rendered":"<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"wp-parsely-metadata\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"headline\":\"How P2 Changed Automattic\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/ma.tt\\\/2009\\\/05\\\/how-p2-changed-automattic\\\/\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/ma.tt\\\/2009\\\/05\\\/how-p2-changed-automattic\\\/\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"url\":\"\"},\"articleSection\":\"Automattic\",\"author\":[{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Matt\"}],\"creator\":[\"Matt\"],\"publisher\":{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"name\":\"Matt Mullenweg\",\"logo\":\"http:\\\/\\\/ma.tt\\\/files\\\/2021\\\/05\\\/Photo-on-2020-10-28-at-2.05-PM-1.jpg\"},\"keywords\":[],\"dateCreated\":\"2009-05-06T02:58:24Z\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-05-06T02:58:24Z\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-12-25T21:37:46Z\"}<\/script>","tracker_url":"https:\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/ma.tt\/p.js"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oB3-3Fd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":111191,"url":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2024\/02\/old-emails\/","url_meta":{"origin":14087,"position":0},"title":"Old Emails","author":"Matt","date":"February 3, 2024","format":"aside","excerpt":"I just replied to an email from 2018. I am tragically, comically, behind on email. Because Automattic doesn't use email, we use P2, it's never been a priority for me. But I have been sloppy, careless, and derelict in my duty of answering emails. Apologies to you all. You're going\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Asides&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Asides","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/category\/asides\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":150444,"url":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2025\/11\/creed-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":14087,"position":1},"title":"Creed Update","author":"Matt","date":"November 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This week, the Automattic Creed received its first-ever update, which I'll describe as a minor point upgrade. This is the sentence before and after. I am in a marathon, not a sprint, and no matter how far away the goal is, the only way to get there is by putting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Asides&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Asides","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/category\/asides\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":150355,"url":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2025\/10\/counter-claims\/","url_meta":{"origin":14087,"position":2},"title":"Automattic 20 &amp; Counter-claims","author":"Matt","date":"October 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a bit of Automattic lore, but although I founded the company in June 2005, CNET asked me to stay on for a few more months to finish out some projects, which I did. Our HR systems have me as the second employee, after Donncha O Caoimh (still at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Automattic&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Automattic","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/category\/automattic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ma.tt\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_0435-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&quality=89&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ma.tt\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_0435-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&quality=89&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ma.tt\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_0435-scaled.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&quality=89&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ma.tt\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_0435-scaled.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&quality=89&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ma.tt\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_0435-scaled.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&quality=89&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ma.tt\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_0435-scaled.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":111211,"url":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2024\/02\/thoughts-on-tech-employment\/","url_meta":{"origin":14087,"position":3},"title":"Thoughts on Tech Employment","author":"Matt","date":"February 7, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The Washington Post writes The U.S. economy is booming. So why are tech companies laying off workers? This article has some good data, but I think misses the point with sub-heads like \"Shine has come off the tech industry.\" Really? How is that reflected in their stock prices? I think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Automattic&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Automattic","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/category\/automattic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":127517,"url":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2024\/10\/alignment\/","url_meta":{"origin":14087,"position":4},"title":"Automattic Alignment","author":"Matt","date":"October 3, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Winston Churchill said, \"Never let a good crisis go to waste.\" Since I last blogged here, WP Engine filed a meritless lawsuit and Automattic responded, and there's been a hurricane of public activity and press. Inside of Automattic, there's been a parallel debate and process. Silver Lake and WP Engine's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Automattic&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Automattic","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/category\/automattic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":140810,"url":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2025\/03\/aos\/","url_meta":{"origin":14087,"position":5},"title":"Automattic Operating System","author":"Matt","date":"March 21, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I was interviewed by Inc magazine for almost two hours where we covered a lot of great topics for entrepreneurs but almost none of it made it into the weird hit piece they published, however since both the journalist and I had recording of the interview I've decided to adapt\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Automattic&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Automattic","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/category\/automattic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14087"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42083,"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14087\/revisions\/42083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}