Matt Mullenweg Joins the Gillmor Gang to Discuss Calypso

Last week Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and co-creator of WordPress, joined Robert Scoble, John Borthwick, and Steve Gillmor to discuss Calypso on an episode of the Gillmor Gang. The video was recorded Tuesday, November 24 and published over the weekend.

Mullenweg offers a hands-on tour of the new reader, notifications, and editor and explains WordPress.com’s new architecture for audience members who are not development-oriented. He also explains how the desktop client and browser version were developed simultaneously so that WordPress.com can continue to iterate just as quickly as it has in the past, with developers committing new code 140+ times per day.

If you can’t get enough of WordPress vs. Medium comparisons, then this episode is for you. When asked if he sees Medium as a competitor to WordPress, Mullenweg replied, “In some ways we compete with every place that people publish online, even Twitter or Facebook, but in day to day, that competition doesn’t really drive product decisions and for most people what we provide is pretty distinct from what these other platforms have.”

Later in the episode Mullenweg is asked, “What are the holes still left unfilled in publishing?”

“Publishing is still so mediocre,” he replied. “Some of the best stuff Medium did is around their editor. I think the whole writing/collaboration experience can be significantly better than it is today.”

Mullenweg elaborates on the differences between WordPress.com and Medium’s user base and his vision for where Automattic will take Calypso in the future. Unfortunately, we can’t embed the episode here, but you can check it out on TechCrunch.