Source by Webflow, andall the open questions

0:00Janne Parri: Okay, Ollie. So source by Webflow. Could you take a shot at trying to explain what that is and afterwards like telling us what do you think of it?

0:12Ollie McMillan: Cursor for marketers. That's my headline. I think I see it as essentially kind of like an IDE, but specifically for marketing teams, because The way it's being positioned, or at least Webflow's messaging, is very much like getting to the source and focusing on code and how code now can be the source of truth because we now have this agentic layer that makes it much easier for non-technical folk to kind of directly interact with. And so yeah, the way I'm making sense of it in my head is that I'm like, Yeah, it's like an IDE, but for marketing teams, and is able to kind of you know, create customizable abstraction layers of certain, you know, projects and views, that are all kind of in aid of, you know, marketing teams and what they actually need to get done.

0:59Ollie McMillan: So yeah, that's kind of the headline, as it were, with a short summary.

1:03Janne Parri: Nice. And was that something you expected? I know there were these teasers about code as the source of truth and what do you think is this the right direction, is this the right way to do it, and so on.

1:17Ollie McMillan: Yeah, I think part of me was kind of expecting perhaps like a kind of an agentic like desktop version of the current version of Webflow that we have. So that way developers could kind of work faster. and that was kind of like the full extent of what I was expecting. but I think for what was kind of actually announced I think was a smarter move because I don't know if it if Webflow is kind of like soft admitting this themselves, because I know we as developers are all kind of aware of this truth, but I feel like us developers are actually having like more fun building in other environments now because of Agent workflows.

1:56Ollie McMillan: So, you know, I personally really enjoy being in Cursor. Some folks love using Claude Code or Codex. Like, we're having a lot of fun in those environments. And I think if Webflow were to chase that market of like, hey, let's make an agentic environment for developers, I don't think they would win that race. So I think where they're like positioning sources like it's an agentic IDE, but for marketing teams, I think that's a very interesting and potentially like really powerful position to be in.

2:27Ollie McMillan: So It's very interesting.

2:29Janne Parri: Totally, totally. I did a little like livestream and I do not remember how many times I said that. But yeah, I was like you expecting some sort of new version of the old Webflow, but now it feels like okay, there is the old Webflow, old projects, you can import them to source. But now there's this open option to bring in whatever you want in a sense. Actually the landing page says that bring in whatever stack you have or connect whatever ever stack.

3:01Janne Parri: So that is kind of interesting. Do you think that do you think that the old version of Webflow will slowly be a thing in the past and every one of us even those who build relatively simple sites will just be building some sort of like static sites.

3:19Ollie McMillan: I mean to each their own really. I think Webflow is not planning on getting rid of the kind of core Webflow product anytime soon. and I think that's obviously with respect to some folks actually really still enjoying kind of building within that environment. But I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of folks kind of, you know, they tried source out and kind of eventually get a bit hooked on that new approach to working with a code base as a developer and then slowly migrating and I think source is being positioned very much as like a an open platform in the sense that you can be quite modular with the different parts of your tech stack that run your marketing site.

4:02Ollie McMillan: So it makes it a very like accessible gateway drug to migrating into this complete new environment. I personally like really still enjoy building in the core Webflow product like where we are at the moment. there are some, you know, caveats and some bits that you are kinda like, why is this still like this? Or, you know, some of the MCP related stuff, still has some weird quirks and can be quite inefficient compared to, you know, something that is like a genetic first like source. but There's still something to be said for the kind of end product of a marketing site that's inside Webflow and how it provides a very accessible layer for teams to actually jump in and work on the site and not be terrified of it.

4:48Ollie McMillan: 'Cause that's, you know, something that I'm mindful of with source is that it seems very powerful. but I know folks have been, you know, kind of bandying around the whole like, with great power comes great responsibility. It's like, yeah, yeah, source is very powerful by the looks of it. but we've got to make sure it's set up in a way within our clients' organizations that it kind of is set up for success and not for like crazy experiments where the CEO decides to redesign the homepage one afternoon and pushes it live without telling anyone.

5:21Ollie McMillan: Thing. So yeah.

5:22Janne Parri: And they made a big deal out of the governance or user permissions and so on. So maybe no permissions for the CEO. That's always a good idea. Okay. We will definitely talk more about the source, but before we go any further, we have to do little intros. So, you are now listening to Webflow and Friends podcast. My name is Janne Parri, and my guest today is Ollie McMillan. He is a freelance Webflow developer and designer based in Dorset on the south coast of England.

5:55Janne Parri: His bread and butter is creating sharp sites for sharp brands. And Ollie is a Webflow partner. He was a nominee for Webflow Developer of the Year Webflow Award this very year. And Little Birds told me that he has done some interesting work with Webflow itself. But today we're obviously gonna talk about Webflow Conf, all the announcements. I wasn't there in Boston. Ollie was and actually still is as we record this. So Ollie, let's start with a little vibe check.

6:27Janne Parri: Have you been to previous Webflow Confs? And how was the vibe this year?

6:34Ollie McMillan: Yes, I have been to the London Webflow Conf in twenty three and then the London in twenty four. I was in New York last year for twenty five and for Boston 2026. I'd actually say this is in terms of the setup was my favourite because it was all in what one location and you could just kind of tap out for twenty minutes and just like have a nap in your room, which I need that desperately sometimes at these kind of events. So yeah I really kind of enjoyed the environment and Webflow also did a very good job of like decking out the whole space.

7:13Ollie McMillan: There was a nice kind of polish to everything that made you feel sort of like excited to be there.

7:21Janne Parri: What was the like general response to everything that was announced?

7:25Ollie McMillan: I think the general response was positive, but also with some healthy scepticism because for example, source was a big departure from what everyone is used to and also what most folks were expecting or predicting. and so I think folks were, you know, cautiously optimistic about the future because, you know, change is scary and I think it's a very difficult time at the moment to like know what to build or I think Linda actually touched upon this on the keynote, actually saying, you know, like what's worth building?

7:57Ollie McMillan: That's the question now. And I think it very much kind of reflects back at them when they're, you know, asking that question. but yeah, it's you know, the vibes were definitely good, but there were lots of like very kind of sort of philosophical discussions about, you know, the future and what that's gonna look like. Spoiler alert, no one has any idea. So there you go.

8:20Janne Parri: We will speculate. Yeah, That's really I get the same gist from the online like there's people who are actually excited and s cautiously excited but there's a lot of like open questions and about the source. I believe they said it on the stage that this is early days, it's a research preview, things might change like quite drastically before it goes out. And just the open nature of the source by Webflow, the desktop app, that kind of I feel like that left many of us puzzled, like okay you can do all sorts of things, you can connect all sorts of things to it and that it's kind of like a blank canvas like what can it do what can we do and it I believe it was Ilja van Eck who said on some video that it was missing the aha moment for people like okay this is what it is, this is what I can do with that.

9:23Janne Parri: Would you agree sort of

9:25Ollie McMillan: I think so, because and I think the reason for this is that although Webflow has in recent years very much repositioned itself as like, you know, a marketer first platform, a lot of their core user base is still the designer developers that are actually building these sites for the clients. And a really kind of I at least from my experience, a really like strong telltale sign of that is that all the sessions that were happening at conference I noticed that all of the ones to do with like building and development and all the technical stuff and like anything to do with source as well as a kind of building tool, all of those talks were like completely packed out.

10:05Ollie McMillan: Like there were loads of people like watching those and I think folks online and in person were kind of saying like the builders keynote that came after the main keynote where they were announcing all the kind of quality of life updates and Timothy Ricks obviously coming up on stage, everyone was said like, That was the best one ever like they were saying that was like 'cause it was like speaking to the I guess the core audience as it were that has been using the platform for the longest time. I do agree in the sense that I think it's because where they're like repositioning themselves as like a marketing first platform, the aha moment wasn't there because I think the core user base is still the developer.

10:47Ollie McMillan: So there was no like big developer centric announcement. hence why there's that lack of a aha, as it were. but yeah, that's why I think the builder's keynote was so well received in comparison to the main keynote.

11:01Janne Parri: Yeah. I had to take few hours of my like sleeping time to watch the builders keynote live, but I'm glad that I checked it out. Like it was as you said, it w it was great. But the first keynote, like the main keynote, there was some flashbacks for me, Webflow is like moving even more towards the marketers, the big companies, it was kind of like a little bit disappointing. Obviously there was the source at the end, but again it kind of gave us what we wanted, what we were teased.

11:36Janne Parri: But it left quite a few questions. For example, there were no pricing mentioned for any of the announcements. So let's speculate firstly with the source thing. Do you think that it will be enterprise only? Do you think it will have some sort of cost? do you think that it will have like add-ons or stuff to add?

12:01Ollie McMillan: So this isn't speculation because I did my community duty of making sure I probed as many Webflow employees as possible on everyone's behalf. and the first one with regards to whether it's enterprise only, no. They are making sure that this product can be used for folks on a more kind of self serve capacity. so That's nice to know. But with that in mind, how it's being priced is obviously going to be a big factor there with how accessible it is.

12:32Ollie McMillan: Yeah, so that's nice I th I think with how they're going to price it though, there's two main elements that I can see from what they've shown us that look like potentials and I think the first one would be token usage through using agents and roles as well because you know a big part of source is the you know the team can come in and they can do their thing but with the agents and guardrails that they need to actually get stuff shipped. and that you know, they're really like, you know, honing in on that as it is like a collaborative product that everyone's using rather than just like a tool that the devs use to build stuff.

13:10Ollie McMillan: And so I'm I'm thinking it will probably be something to do with Yeah, agents and roles. And as you said, because the platform is designed to actually plug into any code base, it also s you can, you know, handle hosting elsewhere if you want to and use your own CMS. You don't have to use the Webflow CMS. you know, Webflow can't you know, sort of use a kind of like vendor lock in model there. to like justify the pricing for those services. Like that they're you know, I think Nathan Huening was on the podcast with you recently, right?

13:41Ollie McMillan: Yeah. He mentioned that Utkarsh from Webflow, who's the new CTO, was saying like all these kind of service offerings, he wants them to be a magnet and not a moat. So like something that people actively are like, Yeah, we're gonna go for the Webflow one 'cause it's like the best fit out of the bunch, rather than like, yeah, we Using the Webflow CMS because we're on a Webflow like project and we can't really use anything else easily. Like I'm glad to hear that kind of that's the top down sentiment when it comes to the different surface offer offerings, especially now that Source is basically giving you that platform to pick and choose from what Webflow offers.

14:18Ollie McMillan: Based on what seems to be the best fit. we'll have to wait and see. I'm curious to know how they are actually gonna put a sticker on this, yeah.

14:27Janne Parri: It might as well be that they do not yet know that themselves. Like it's quite early days. And they will probably have all sorts of scenarios in their head. But I'm kind of hoping I'm not sure if this is like wishful thinking, but I'm kind of hoping that the app would be free and it would be free for all workspaces and then you would add those services like the CMS and the hosting and localise and wh whatever you need and those will be the thing that you pay for but now that I think of it might as well be that the app is available for certain workspace levels and it is priced through that and then there would be those add ons.

15:19Janne Parri: That's just my like current idea at this point. Any thoughts?

15:25Ollie McMillan: Watch you. Yeah, it hadn't really occurred to me that the app itself would be like tied to a Webflow accounts workspace plan, as opposed to it just being a completely separate entity that, you know, perhaps you ha you have like a separate set of workspace or role-based kind of pricing for that specific product. I it's interesting that they positioned it as, you know, source by Webflow as a completely separate thing as opposed to Webflow 2.0. So that has I've I noticed I did notice that positioning.

16:00Ollie McMillan: I was like, mm, okay, there's they want to make a very clear distinction between those two platforms and whether that's reflected through how they price it and treat that kind of you know, pricing model as well.

16:11Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah, you're totally right. That's just my bias or my thoughts that i it would work that way. They mentioned work workspace but that might as well mean whatever workspace. Like just a structure. And that is true like if you have totally different hosting and sites you would still benefit from using that and it would be a bit weird if you had to like create a Webflow account and bring in everybody through there.

16:43Janne Parri: So yeah, that might not be a best idea. But that again is like super weird. I'm like trying to wrap it up wrap my head around like the openness. Like what does that like actually mean? Like if I have an old WordPress site Can I load that to source or a VIX site? Like obviously if it runs like from local files, that's quite clean. But what about all the possibilities? What do you think?

17:14Ollie McMillan: Yeah, absolutely. I think the key thing in terms of what source can support is gonna be based on whether you're working with a code base and then I think really it just comes down to what framework was used to build it. And so I know Astro folks are raving about that at the moment because spiritually it's very similar to, you know, how folks are using Webflow, especially with like Webflow components, and having a bit more of a modular way of building.

17:45Ollie McMillan: And Next.js obviously is the other kind of framework there that folks tend to use for building marketing sites. And I believe as well with Web Webflow Cloud, you know, when you set up a an app instance on a site or as its own standalone thing, you know, Webflow is very vocal about like, hey, do you want to use Astro or do you want to use Next.js? Those two frameworks as a starting point. So I would have thought that Source would play very nicely with both of those frameworks, if that's how your Code base has been set up.

18:16Ollie McMillan: The interesting part though that I want to know is if you have all of these different frameworks that can plug into source, is Webflow basically working to make sure that each of those frameworks and how they handle the concept of like components. Are they making sure that the app can essentially visualize those concepts? In the same place in, you know, like for example, the component library, being able to sort of visually preview all the components on your site in the same way that we do in core Webflow.

18:47Ollie McMillan: You know, there might be some slight variations into how different frameworks handle components and component properties and stuff. So be curious to know how they're handling that. If they need to go through sort of like a hey, Astro is officially supported by source and Next.js is officially supported by Source. So they kind of like keep iterating in that, in that sense. 'Cause yeah, there's still very much like a you know, a visual development focus on how source is showing us our code base. it's not just like an agent and some code and a preview window every now and then.

19:22Ollie McMillan: It's very much like, hey, here's a kind of designer view, so to speak, that we're semi familiar with, you know, core workflow. So that's the instrument is that translation for different frameworks inside the app.

19:35Janne Parri: And they ca they kind of promised a view or a space for everybody, like the developers and the designers and well the visual designer was in the demo and that would be super weird if Webflow didn't include that. because that's a strong thing that they already are known for. And I was also thinking about the components. How would those like handle I didn't get so far because I did not have experience of how the components work in different frameworks but that's again something that Webflow has had and has put a lot of effort into with the old so to speak old platform all the component props and those things and the new updates too.

20:24Janne Parri: So I kind of wish that the same level of polish would be there for the source. Obviously it depends on many factors and but do you think that they will like have to prioritize different features when they bring this out or are they trying to get all out at the same time?

20:51Ollie McMillan: Would have thought they're probably gonna focus on the core features. if you look at the timeline of the current Webflow platform and what they were prioritizing and in what order. I think that might act as a good kind of guideline as to what they're prioritizing with when they're building source. I Going back to when we were saying about the aha moment for developers, I think once we get a look at source with regards to the visual development interface, like the style panel and also how we handle interactions, for example.

21:23Ollie McMillan: I think that will be the kind of aha moment for us, I think, as the builders, so to speak. it's one of those things, isn't it, where you have to like decide whether something should have a piece of UI for controlling it or customizing it versus would this be in a prompt? but I would argue for some of the very like design centric decisions like animation, having a GSAP timeline like we have in the core Webflow would be a very, very like worthy addition inside source.

21:57Ollie McMillan: So then that way when we come in after the agent's you know shown as a kind of proof of concept, we have the visual tools and the very kind of human centric user interface there to dial that in and get it, you know, up to production ready standard. I was on a mic with someone from Webflow, Stefan, who was asking me about this. And I said that there's a certain element of emotion and feel that comes from how we implement motion on the page. And for us to surface those controls so we can fine-tune and as I said, like dial it in, so to speak, based on that feeling.

22:35Ollie McMillan: I think that's gonna be really crucial. And I'm quietly confident about that because that's What Webflow is focusing on, because I did speak to Timothy Ricks and he is going to be working on Source, which is very cool. and the sentiment from the Webflow team is that they do want to make sure that the visual development side of the interface inside source is, you know, they want it to be parity or better than what is in current workflow. So, you know, they do I think they are very aware that's what they want, but with respect to the fact that sometimes there are certain pieces of UI that might not necessarily deserve the real estate that they currently have.

23:15Ollie McMillan: 'cause it's just with what w we can you know, prompt into existence versus what we want to, you know, tweak and build ourselves. Like that where that kind of like lands on the spectrum for certain tasks is like constantly changing. and there's also the factor of like what is your preference when it comes to working. Some people find it incredibly boring using agents. I know I do. but I also appreciate the efficiency gain and the convenience with, you know, getting some of the more kind of simple stuff out of the door with it. but I still want to have a creative hand in the more kind of nuanced and more tricky and fiddly problems that we come across.

23:51Ollie McMillan: When we're doing our work. so yeah, lots of various variables to confair to with certainty right now, but there are a few kind of tidbits that hook give me hope

24:01Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, totally. but that has been the question for what would I say, like year or two, how much control and what kind of control you want, if the other end is just prompting and the other end is like writing maybe writing manual code or having some sort of slider. And then as they demoed they kind of want to add all sorts of like generated at least graphics, why not like UIs? What if like you could spin up a quick UI if you need it?

24:37Janne Parri: That's maybe kind of a possibility too, and doesn't make this question any easier.

24:42Ollie McMillan: It was in the keynote where they showed like a little contextual like slider control pop up that came up for someone within their agent chat to sort of tweak a value on something visually. that idea of contextual user interface that just kind of pops up generatively based on what the task at hand is, I find very interesting. and it does remind me of Nate Parrott who works at Anthropic. He basically built Clawed Design. so he's a very smart cookie. there's a really interesting podcast.

25:13Ollie McMillan: I'll try and share a link with you at some point where he shows that his workflow he tends to, you know, ask an agent to produce variations of things and then also produce, you know, a kind of one-time sort of UI panel for being able to give him control over tweaking things and refining things himself and I find that super interesting. So there's a future where the style panel itself is not necessarily this constant and fixed thing. It could be something that pops up contextually and also could change how the UI represents the parameters that can be changed based on the person who's using it and their preferences.

25:52Ollie McMillan: Like you might be someone who prefers to use drop down menus or number values or sliders or anything like that. Like there's this other element to it that's gets very heady and a bit kind of crazy to think about. yeah, we're kind of we're getting to like minority report territory where we're gonna like building websites with our hands in front of holograms and stuff, which would be w overkill, you know, but it does kind of feel like that sometimes when you think about it too much.

26:20Janne Parri: We need to proceed to all the other stuff, but do you have any closing thoughts on this source thing? Do you think that it will be great? And also maybe when do you think that like people actually can start using it or at least get into a beta since it's n research preview right now.

26:43Ollie McMillan: Yeah. my prediction is that folks will probably get their hands on it in like early next year at least as a beta. And for folks in the research preview, I think that's probably starting quite soon. Because I know Webflow is very keen for, you know, a handful of folks to in the community to really help shape the product, which, you know, I think as much as the Webflow community can sometimes, you know, have a very sort of like not turbulent relationship, but like mixed feelings towards Webflow with how directions have changed and focus has shifted and s and stuff.

27:16Ollie McMillan: I still think Webflow does care about its community. and I think Source is a good example of that where they want to make sure that product actually does service the developers who are gonna be using it. in spite of the fact that, you know, agents are doing a lot of the heavy lifting now. So but that's not like a you know, that's not Webflow's fault. That's just the landscape of where we are with our industry. And I think we just kind of have to kind of ride that wave and just support each other and make sure that we all kind of can succeed in this like very, very fast moving landscape.

27:49Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. I'm with you. Like Webflow still wants to listen to the actual users. I have been part of a few beta programs and I have seen how they handle it. So it is definitely still happening and obviously they have to balance it with the business side and so on. but yeah, since we're talking a bit about community, let's move on to the Timothy Ricks's news and how he ended up working for Webflow. Firstly, what do you think that means for the whole community and the sentiment and the talking points that have been flooding the LinkedIns and whatnot?

28:31Ollie McMillan: Gosh, yes. that was the real announcement, right? I was very fortunate, like I said, to be able to speak to Timothy during the conference. And I did joke, I was like, we've got our sleeper agent inside. And he burst out laughing. But I think what it does mean is that it that Webflow will listen. to him and by extension listen to us because Tim has such a strong understanding of what our needs are as the developers and designers that use Webflow to build sites for our clients that I feel like a lot of that spirit is gonna carry through to future iterations of the existing project pro product and also source.

29:14Ollie McMillan: Yeah, I think there's certainly a sentiment of worry where people are like, we you know, really hope that, you know, where he's now part of the company that he's not just gonna get like lost in the machinery of it. you know, because it's a big company now. and you know, ideas and execution can sometimes kind of get lost in the larger picture of what an organization's North Star is or what its goals are each quarter kind of thing. So that's and that's a valid worry because it has happened in the past with other, you know, organizations that have hired like, you know, big names and then yeah, it doesn't really materialize to anything.

29:53Ollie McMillan: That we were really hoping for. But I in Timothy's case I think they're super aware of it and I think Timothy's super aware of it as well. and I think they're kinda gonna really show that by just, you know, getting Here. their heads down and working their arse off for the next like six months at least until the beta comes out for source and we see some cool updates with the existing Webflow as well. So

30:18Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. I'm with you. I think that it's kind of this more like this confidence booster. Like Timothy was a bit critical of Webflow before this announcement and it's cool that they have taken him in and now I'm hoping that Timothy is like keeping them accountable and having some actual like say to matters and doing great things in there. Yeah it was an interesting dance in the in LinkedIn when he announced that he's not going to continue his what is it like community.

30:53Janne Parri: The community he has a no new role but I didn't see that one coming although I read the post and so on. Did you?

31:02Ollie McMillan: Yeah, I saw like a comment, someone had made a comment in Slack about it and I was like, What email? Where is this email? Like talking about Timothy Ricks's shutting something down and I and then yeah, caught wind of it on LinkedIn. and then not obviously I think then from that point people were starting to have their suspicions of like, has he got did Webflow hire him? And then there was this hilarious you know, analogy from a few folks where they were saying that when Timothy came out on stage during the Builders Keynote, it was like Kevin Feige announcing like Robert Downey Jr.'s come back.

31:39Ollie McMillan: Which that made me laugh for a good two minutes. I was like that's I like that. yeah, so yeah we'll have to wait and see with that one but I am hopeful that there is a chance for, you know, some really like positive change from that decision. And it's not just like a big company saying, like, we need to, you know, hire this person to stop them from, you know, being too critical. I think it genuinely is because they were like, We hear you and, you know, obviously Timothy being the man that he is, was like, I think I can actually do a lot more for the platform by being on the inside rather than just being, you know, a vocal user on the outside.

32:24Ollie McMillan: So that's gonna be really interesting. So yeah.

32:27Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. And every time I like talk with folks from Webflow I get this sense that they do really want to be the best platform, best choice for whatever thing they are serving. And it is just like a big, big ship and everybody in the company knows what is at stake and they are wanting to stay in the game. But then obviously smaller platforms which do not have any debt move more nimbly and so on.

32:58Janne Parri: So yeah that's probably the thing that is happening on the internet. And maybe like actual clients do not like even notice that but it's all obviously important for us like the builders the developers and so on.

33:13Ollie McMillan: Yeah, it's a good point actually because everything feels very because it's our industry and this is how we make a living, right? it all feels very seismic and very exciting and nerve wracking and cause for a lot of debate. whereas when it comes to our clients, they don't care. Like they're just like cool. Well we can use an app. Okay, I'll download it. this is cool. You know, i maybe with the smaller clients, maybe with enterprise organizations they're probably like paying a bit more attention to this, because to, you know, adopt a platform within a large company requires a lot of processes and resource.

33:50Ollie McMillan: So yeah, but like when it comes to like as like independence or agencies servicing a lot of the kind of self serve smaller companies. they're probably aware of these updates but they're not like you know, they're not that fussed. As long as it makes, you know, it makes it easier for them to run the website as part of their business. Then that's it really. yeah. It's good to take a step back and like a broader perspective. Do you Yeah, always worth asking your grandmother about what she thinks about Webflow and that will help calm your nerves.

34:18Janne Parri: But I'm still hoping that all the announced stuff, especially the source, comes sooner than later. Like I believe Webflow was kind of forced to tease out the whole code as the source of truth because of everything happening on the internet and social media. again I'm not sure if that is what's happening with Actual clients obviously if someone changes platforms it's a big thing but there will still be plenty of people who do not change platforms and they are not posting about that.

34:52Janne Parri: So do you think that Webflow is moving like fastly enough?

34:56Ollie McMillan: No. I want all of this stuff to have happened yesterday. and I'm pretty sure everyone is kinda like feeling the same thing. But that doesn't mean to say that when it does arrive, I am super happy that it is there and I can s finally start using it. I honestly think like I know we had the like earlier this year we obviously had some of the there was like the layoffs within the company and I think one of the reasons that they had like publicly kind of made a justification for it was to kind of strip out a lot of hierarchy so decisions could be made quicker and ideas could be shipped faster.

35:31Ollie McMillan: And I really want to see that in action and I think I felt like we saw that quite a fair bit, like with the lead up to conference. Like we finally had multi reference items updated so we could rearrange them. and we also had like quite a few component slot updates like slot restrictions and I feel like that the gears are turning a bit faster when it comes to shipping updates now and my hope as well that with the announcement of source that there is a kind of faster a faster pace and a sense of urgency about it.

36:04Ollie McMillan: But yeah Webflow, I know that they kind of want to make sure that when they ship something it's like absolutely airtight and it's fine. but you know, I f I feel like people can ship stuff so quickly nowadays, So Webflow. Go faster. That's my I yeah, anyway.

36:22Janne Parri: Yeah yeah. And I believe they said something about that the AI has been like increasing their pace as well when it comes to like doing those updates. there was some sort of mention about that. And I'm hoping that the layoffs was just what you said like lowering the hierarchy Not just like investors saying that okay, you need to be lean in this AI era

36:51Ollie McMillan: Yeah, I think it's interesting 'cause I did speak to some of the product team at Webflow and, you know, they were saying that, you know, to make changes to the existing platform you know, it's fifteen years old now, pretty much. And it is like a mix of different frameworks and it's all kind of stitched together. so if you want to make a change to something like that, Trying to maybe use an agent to do that sometimes can be really risky because the code base is so large, and it's a mix of different kind of code bases or frameworks and things like all stitched together that you know, an agent might not be able to kind of like fully past that.

37:28Ollie McMillan: And get all the context it needs to like make a change for you. Whereas something like Source that's being built today from the ground up, and it's probably has been built, you know, with agents like alongside the engineering team to help execute some stuff so it's faster. That the process of like developing something like that now is gonna be a lot quicker I don't know if you've ever found this, but like I've found that it with when I'm using an agent, I find it's much quicker to make something from scratch with the agent than. on the ground floor with you than for the agent to take a look at something that already exists that's quite complex and has nuances.

38:04Ollie McMillan: And it's like an amalgam of different approaches over a period of time because it's been handed through various developers and stuff like I find it's much harder for an agent to do a good job with something that already exists in that sense than something that's net new. So I can see why the product team are like, Yeah, you know, we wanna ship all these like great updates and sometimes but sometimes it's like we have to be careful, we have to tread carefully because this is a you know, this product is quite large on the back end and we wanna obviously make sure that we don't just like delete a line of code and replace it with something else and then hit go and then it breaks the CMS.

38:42Ollie McMillan: Like, you know. So, you know, they do tread carefully. At least that was my understanding.

38:47Janne Parri: Obviously it must be so like the technical debt is a real thing even I understand that as I'm not like a full blown d developer. But yeah. again, towards another announcements there were these marketing oriented features, there were releases, assets and campaigns. So do you think that with these all add-ons or new products, Webflow is more like an advertising platform than a website platform?

39:19Ollie McMillan: Yeah. I mean it's you know it's all very much an aid of like, hey, we're here for the marketers, right? Because campaigns is essentially you know, for performance marketing. and I'm glad that is like a separate offshoot mini product rather than something that's bolted onto the existing Webflow like site building tool. because the nature and requirements of performance marketing and the speed at which they move as well, like is a kind of different kettle of fish. So I think the fact that it you can see by the kind of preview they gave you of the campaign UI, it's like very it's like a very stripped back version of Webflow.

39:54Ollie McMillan: That tries to keep things super simple. So

39:57Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, you're talking about the like landing page generator.

40:01Ollie McMillan: Yes, yeah, yeah. and it kind of having the kind of key things there like, you know, it can add you can add your assets to it, the basic building blocks of your design system so it looks on brand and then also, you know, connect this page to this form, you know, 'cause that's essentially you know, we, most websites are just I want your credit card or I want your email address, right? So that's the goal there with like performance marketing campaigns. and I feel like it takes all those boxes. And I also think it's maybe perhaps like a little like gateway drug for marketing teams to ship stuff with Webflow without actually going like f you know, f fully into like the main product.

40:40Ollie McMillan: Pricing's gonna be interesting. I don't know how that will be priced, whether it's just pr priced in the same way that sites are, just like, you know, bandwidth and features. I would have thought maybe it's just like a bandwidth thing, because the feature set I would have thought for all campaigns would be basically the same. You don't need a CMS, in that respect. So, yeah, that's an interesting one. Assets I'm like not sure about. I think I need to see that in bit a bit more of a deep dive. But something that I do appreciate about assets though is that the way that those assets are being generated in at least with some of them is that they are actually being rendered in HTML and CSS rather than like like within a canvas element.

41:22Ollie McMillan: At least that was from someone who told me about it at Web. I can't remember who it was, but it was that was quite important because at least that it means that the way the content and the styles kinda like behave. are kinda like true to the final output. I don't know if that obviously applies to things like you know, images and you know, graphics and stuff like that, but it was just worth like knowing like how they were approaching that from a kind of technical perspective. I'm not that fussed about personally me as a developer being able to edit a video inside Webflow.

41:55Ollie McMillan: I watched Ilja's reaction to conf and he mentioned that Dennis joked about you know next year you know, Uber by Webflow or something like that, or yeah, they're gonna just come out with random stuff and it's like a kinda like spray and pray thing where they just like try their hand at loads of different things and see what they can kind of scoop up. but assets are part of, you know, a marketing team's workflow and, you know, that's how they're positioning themselves going forward. So it does make sense for them to at least experiment with something and I will give that to them.

42:32Ollie McMillan: But it's as with everything, it's just a case of like the proof is in the product. You just gotta use it. And if it's worth your time, then hats off to them. But if not, then it I guess it will just kinda be like Webflow logic or Webflow memberships, you know, it'd be like another experiment that was like promising in concept, but in practice it kind of will just kinda like peter away over time, maybe. But we'll see. We'll see. Releases though. yeah. Mm-hmm.

42:55Janne Parri: Before we go to the releases, some thoughts about mainly about the assets. I kind of heard that we could exp expect something like that because of the video Vidoso thing, but I didn't imagine that it would be so like separate and it would be like mini Canva plus some video editor so I had the same feelings like that okay this is not helpful for me but I'm like wondering will the marketers be excited about this?

43:28Janne Parri: Are they gonna actually use this? Is there some features that make it better than using let's say Canva or something like that? Will it actually sync through whatever platforms like if you do an asset your let's say campaign image in assets I would imagine that would sync with campaigns. Will it be in your like Webflow project the core Webflow project and could it somehow like fix the thing that when you put an image into CMS field that it would show up in the asset manager.

44:06Janne Parri: Those were like my questions. Did you get any sense on those or questions from Webflow folks?

44:12Ollie McMillan: Yeah, so I think One of the issues that assets will hopefully address, and I kinda heard this as a bit of an inside scoop, is it will address the disparity between assets being handled in the CMS and the assets that we see in like the assets panel and how they kind of are like solid and separate. and I think some folks are who are familiar with the whole like export import CSV workflow with the CMS, you can grab the URL of an asset in the asset panel and paste it in a CSV and then use them that way but I don't want to keep having to hit the export import button that's really annoying so yeah there is I think it was very much an issue that they wanted to troubleshoot with this new assets panel but I think the keynote obviously was focusing on like how this is going to be useful for marketers and so the real headline features there were like, you know, updating content within an asset and then, you know, saving it and it will update wherever that asset is referenced, you know, on your site, rather than having to go and upload a new PDF from your Figma export or whatever.

45:17Ollie McMillan: So that is actually a really useful feature. because I know some developers probably not like to admit that sometimes they actually have to update content for some of their clients much to their sugaring 'cause they know it can only take two seconds whereas like Yeah, yeah, yeah. we need

45:32Janne Parri: I've been there. I can admit.

45:34Ollie McMillan: To change the title of our white paper and we you know and you I'll just I'll do it. It'll only take two minutes. but yeah like that's it's like nice to know that even though it's being advertised as a marketing a marketers feature it will probably actually be really useful for us as developers if even though we don't really wanna be updating content periodically for our clients. so

45:58Janne Parri: Now I'm wondering you said that it renders like HTML, there are all those apps that generate like PDFs, like PDF makers with APIs, like you feed some data and it creates a PDF from a template. Could that be one use case? If It would I would actually maybe have some use for that.

46:24Ollie McMillan: Yeah, I think with regards to you know working with these assets by rendering them in HTML and CSS, I think that was more in reference to the fact that like when you perhaps are producing assets that ref reference to your design system on your website, you know, how font spacing and how text wraps, for example, within HTML, behaves very differently to how text renders inside something canvas-based like Figma. Because y you know when you're working in a design in Figma and there is just ever s like an ever so slight disparity be between how spacing is handled between Figma and when you're building in Webflow and you're like, okay, I'm gonna have to actually tweak these values just ever so slightly in Webflow to get it like, you know, optically stabilized, so to speak.

47:07Ollie McMillan: Look like what we have in Figma, even though the values are different. So I think it's nice to know that it would be potentially using you know, HTML CSS to so we're kind of operating within the truthful confines of, you know, how our design system is represented in Webflow rather than you know, a canvas based thing like Figma again. But I all I will just say is I will caveat and just say that I'm incredibly tired and I might be completely hallucinating this. Maybe someone's talking about this but it wasn't to do with assets, it was to do about something else.

47:38Ollie McMillan: So I will just caveat that I'm like, I th I think I was told this, but it may have been in relation to something else 'cause I had way too much coffee that particular day of the conference. So please don't take my word as like verbatim or gossip or whatever. but it but I that's how I would make sense of it if someone was explaining to me like, yeah, building assets but using HTML and CSS to do it. Like that's how I'd be like, that's brilliant. That's way that way when it's rendered and it's like, you know, turned into an asset, how it handles spacing and colour, etcetera would be like bit more in line with what we're seeing on the website. So anyway.

48:14Janne Parri: Yeah, and one thing that I was thinking it might be obvious but I didn't get a confirmation. there were these side panel items in the source app that had the campaigns, the assets. So I was thinking that are those just like the representation of those new products within the source? or do they happen to be items that happen to have the same name.

48:40Ollie McMillan: I don't know actually. That's a good question. I think we're gonna have to wait and see with that. But I would have thought because of how Source has access to your code base and your design system and can agents can move like very quickly between those contexts. I would have thought that they're more kind of like a an abstraction layer of the site's code base for that specific purpose. You know, for example, like with campaigns producing like loads of multiple variations of a single landing page to see which one performs better.

49:11Ollie McMillan: Assets though I think will probably be like a yeah, this is being pulled through the web from your like Webflow account because you're using it for asset storage. I don't know about asset generation though. That would be one that would just kind of reveal itself in due course. But Yeah, I would have thought that they were building the campaigns builder inside, you know, Core Webflow or the online platform like that. So folks who don't use source can still access a campaigns solution without having to download the app.

49:42Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, but there was this promise that the source would have like a workspace or view or whatever it was for everybody including marketers. So I don't know. I don't know.

49:55Ollie McMillan: Yeah. It's like the catchphrase from everyone is I don't know. So

49:59Janne Parri: Yeah, there w there are so many open things that we just have to wait and see. But okay, yeah, that one thing was the releases. Was that a enterprise only feature?

50:12Ollie McMillan: I believe so, because it very much ties into the spirit of page branching, which I it shouldn't be an enterprise feature. I f I feel like e everyone would love to have page branching and in terms of like being able to utilize that feature outside of Webflow in other environments is like simple and it's free. So page branching in particular, that's a stickler for me. I'm like, we need that on the self-service plans. So in the same spirit with releases, I hope that down the line it becomes a feature that can be accessed by, you know, anyone on a premium plan or whatever.

50:49Ollie McMillan: But it is a cool I'm glad that we're seeing that Kind of concept. come into Webflow because I the thing immediately that I thought of was like, ooh, goodbye site freeze. We don't ever have to worry about like freezing sites for rebrands anymore because we can just work within a release branch and update the site there. So that would be super handy because I don't know if any folks have ever gone through a rebrand on a large website, but whenever you branch pages or whatever, you can't change variable values.

51:21Ollie McMillan: So, you know, if releases allows you to essentially make a full carbon copy of the site that you can work on completely siloed and make those global style changes within that release, that would be great. that's the one where I'm like aside from like product releases or announcements where there's loads of material that needs to go out all at the same time, like rebrands would be an amazing way to utilize something like that, at least for you know enterprise, but it would be nice if it can trickle down.

51:50Janne Parri: That is true, and I believe you're not the only one who has been waiting for the at least the ba page branching because I feel like that has been a enterprise feature for quite long now. and everybody would benefit from that. So I don't know. Maybe next year, maybe in between. Hopefully. I believe Nathan also said it some in some episode that we did that. He would definitely see that one in the self service plans.

52:21Janne Parri: But yeah, for some reason it is not yet there.

52:25Ollie McMillan: Is it like he hopes it will be or he's like pushing for it?

52:29Janne Parri: Yeah, he hopes. He hopes. And I don't know, maybe he's also pushing towards that. I don't know. Maybe Timothy Ricks can push it to the self service plans. Yeah. Yeah.

52:38Ollie McMillan: We'll put a word in with our s with our sleeper agent.

52:42Janne Parri: Okay, were there any other things announced? Well, yeah, AEO features. Again, enterprise things. do you remember what were the what were they about?

52:54Ollie McMillan: With the AEO stuff I think because it is very much positioned towards the enterprise client base, the key takeaway that I got from that was that it feels more like a more like full end to end solution than it did when it was initially released as a beta. Because I have seen it during the beta within an enterprise environment and it was great but it was very like limited. And I think the same sentiment could have could be said for like when analyze was initially released as well as also Optimize.

53:25Ollie McMillan: They had a very strong kind of offering there, but when you compare them to other solutions outside of the Webflow ecosystem, system the feature set still felt like it had a way to go. but with AEO in particular I can't at least from my perspective I'm not super like focused on SEO or AEO or optimize in terms of my day-to-day work but from what I got from it seemed very much like a very full feature set.

53:55Ollie McMillan: With what it was trying to do. I really I and also the fact that it had suggestions on how to essentially improve how you're showing up for certain like queries. and then also showing you stats for the different like top line LLMs like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, that would that was good. I'm not super duper interested in it, but I can see the value in it and I don't I honestly don't know if beyond enterprise organizations, like if smaller companies are like super worried about it, like I think they are able to show up in AI search but without the need of having something like Webflow AEO to do so.

54:35Ollie McMillan: But I can't speak for, you know, companies that are using Webflow AEO and how much of a positive impact that is actually having for them. So yeah, well I'll have to keep an eye on that particular enterprise client that I mentioned and see whether the AEO sort of part of their project is, you know, actually kind of providing some ROI there.

54:56Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. Now I remember in the past there were these like audit suggestions like in a mini inbox that you should do all these things, add alt text and schema and so on. But now I'm not sure if it's like the Webflow AEO or is it like within the Optimize add on they are starting to suggest like content updates and switches and also like generating let's say blog posts automatically what you can obviously check out before like laun launching or publishing the blog post.

55:31Janne Parri: So in a way I would be excited if I had that feature even with a smaller client but then again I could just do some sort of automation to do the same thing. And one thing that always puzzles me with the AEO stuff is like where does the data come from? Like how reliable it is when the bar says that okay you have been showing in let's say fifty percent of these like questions like how do you get the d data?

56:07Janne Parri: So yeah. Any thoughts?

56:09Ollie McMillan: Yeah, I mean to be completely candid. I didn't have that much focus or that many thoughts on AEO. I understand that it's kind of like a necessary I don't want to say necessary evil, but it's it's something that we all have to think about now. and I appreciate that Webflow is trying to provide a solution there to like, you know, help us succeed in that arena. but Yeah, beyond like the recommendations of like things that you could do to show up better in AI responses, I was like, okay, so you're gonna generate blog posts for me and come up with con content and generate alt tags for images and stuff.

56:48Ollie McMillan: Is that coming out of my like Webflow AI credits because y you know, you sneeze and you use up the credits within five minutes. So like so I'm like, okay, I think you know, that particular feature, it's like, okay, it's probably another reason why it's an enterprise feature because the AI credits that come with that to kind of power some of its features, can only really be justified financially by those like larger entities. So you know, but that having said that though, like the things that Webflow AEO is like suggesting and coming up with, like you can look at that as inspiration, I guess, as a smaller client that perhaps has a more stringent bottom line.

57:29Ollie McMillan: And use that to help generate content outside of the platform and inf and use that to inform your own AEO strategy that not isn't necessarily like within Webflow AEO. And if that helps you succeed and grow as a business and then you, you know, end up becoming, you know, an enterprise level kind of presence within Webflow, then yeah, I guess you can use AEO. But like, you know, I think I there's some cool ideas there within the product that you could use as inspiration for your own AEO strategy without necessarily having to think like, it's either this or nothing.

58:02Ollie McMillan: So that's something that you know I'm I'm kind of looking at for some of my like smaller NGO, like non profits that I jam with on a semi-regular basis. So

58:14Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. You can definitely do a lot before you actually need a tool like that. And as it has been before, like Webflow has done a big thing out of this AEO thing and for a reason. It's on every marketer's mind. But then again, the features they are not like special. They are good features but They exist outside of Webflow in other platforms. Like all the analytic things, like there are good old SEO tools that will have the new features for the LLMs.

58:49Janne Parri: So yeah, kind of the same thing that is not new. It's obviously handy if it's in within the same platform and if you get the cycle. Maybe that could be like the differentiating thing that It's an actual cycle like the optimize add-on, like does some automatic changes, measures do they work, and does some new changes and tests and so on. You could almost like automate the whole optimization thing.

59:20Janne Parri: That gets some of us excited, but no not all of us.

59:25Ollie McMillan: Yeah, no. I yeah. I got that five from conference. so yeah, I'm not wrong.

59:31Janne Parri: Yeah. Okay, what about MCP two point one? Does that get you excited?

59:36Ollie McMillan: Yeah, in theory I wanna stress test it with using IX three, or interactions with GSAP, as it's affectionately called. I find with MCP generally I tend to use it more for leaning on using like for CMS updates. Because I think the way that the agent has to navigate through that structured data inside the CMS is much easier for it than the designer skill. and probably because you're having to ask the agent to go and have a look at this UI and understand that abstraction layer and then take your request and you know, pass it through that abstraction layer to then produce the end result, which would be like a section or, you know, a you know, a button or whatever, or a whole page.

1:00:20Ollie McMillan: So I've I have found it the original one I found it like super inefficient and a bit clunky. but MCP two point though that came out just prior, like that I found much more useful for building kind of finicky section level components. But yeah, two point one, that's the headline feature is interactions. So I'm really curious to know. and this is this kind of harks back to what I was saying with Source, like you know, we could lean on agents to do the bulk work to get us like sixty percent or seventy percent of the way there, but then like us having the controls as humans to then fine-tune and finesse and get it to a production ready standard that like you know, looks and feels good to a human.

1:01:02Ollie McMillan: That's where, you know, this kind of empathy. MCP 2.1 workflow could be really handy. you know, describing the interaction just give you a kind of starting point with your IX3 timeline and then fine-tuning those values and durations and stuff like that for the various tweens that you've got going on there. so it actually feels super buttery smooth and supports the message that you're trying to kind of.

1:01:26Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. thorough testing of the MCP is on my to do list too. It's been a while since I have properly tested. I'm like now like thinking since there are those agent instructions. I was wondering if you did a thorough instruction document and maybe gave all the components like a good intro or info and then asked the LLM to use just those components. It could whip up a page quite easily, hopefully.

1:02:00Janne Parri: At least I would think so. That would be a one use case. And if you had like few good interactions there I'm wondering if it could like just add some like attributes to use those. Well I would imagine if it's a let's say a text field within a component, that should be like possible like a data attribute thing.

1:02:25Ollie McMillan: Yeah, I think so. I lean on a attributes for targeting things for animations all the time. I feel like that's a nice way to keep the scoping of them completely separate from, you know, the CSS selectors that you're using for styling, for example. yeah, I think for GSAP in particular, one thing I'm curious about is just how that's gonna translate with source. because I think some folks have may have noticed that sometimes when you're using the IX3 panel to produce an interaction, there are some limitations within the UI to achieve certain interactions in mind and then it's better to just use a snippet of custom code and make sure the necessary plug in that you need is turned on.

1:03:09Ollie McMillan: And, you know, I think the folks at Use Zap and Webflow are completely happy with and encourage that workflow because they appreciate like you know it's very efficient. but yeah, when it comes to using agents I don't think agents really have like a very good understanding of motion. Like They can create pale imitations of very amazing l looking animations and interactions, but that's because they've scraped a data set of someone else's work to produce a kind of estimated like you know, output of what should be there.

1:03:45Ollie McMillan: There's no element of like human feel. Like that's the thing I find really kind of with the animation and interaction on like AI is quite good at setting up the kind of structure and the bones of it, but in terms of like making sure it actually like has an impact and helps tell a story, that's the bit that I'm still finding like I'm I'm in the driver's seat for that. And I want to be as well. As a human that's trying to communicate, mm you know, a story or a feeling through motion. I feel like it's my responsibility to do that. It's not the agents. So

1:04:15Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. Totally. But if that's like the one thing you have to do after the agent does its thing, that's like quite cute level to start with. Like okay, this motion curve is not j quite right. Let's fix it or try something else. But yeah, maybe someday. Maybe there is a skill, maybe someday it will get better. And we do not even need to do that, just like give some vibes as vibe coding gets his name, like okay, make this dynamic or something like that.

1:04:52Ollie McMillan: Interested in the instructions and the agent skills. I'm working with an agency at the moment to kind of create like skills packs for a specific framework that we build in sometimes. and w you know it's for a decent project where they're gonna be leaning on the kind of modular component system that comes with that framework. So it's Mast by the way. I just wanna like shout out 'cause Mast is my so we're gonna be building out with that, but yeah, making sure that there's some skills there so the agent fully understands like how to use those components and have like more context there.

1:05:25Ollie McMillan: So it's kind of it's an interesting question. I feel like I wish you'd had asked me it maybe in like a two months time so I can tell you like it is, but I'll I'll let you know when it comes to kind of the more page building like aspect of using MCP.

1:05:40Janne Parri: Yeah, it sometimes feels like our job is just writing up instructions for LLMs and these things like rules how you should use what and when you should do something and when you should not do something and of course we use LMs for That too. There was the meme about generating the agent's instructions. yeah, it was the Yo dawg, like the Xzibit like thing. I felt like her to that was my like youth watching the Pimp My Ride.

1:06:13Janne Parri: That was great.

1:06:15Ollie McMillan: Yeah. That was funny.

1:06:17Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. Have we gone through every announcement? I believe we have quite well. There were some tiny but mighty updates probably.

1:06:27Ollie McMillan: Yeah, it was all the announcements from the builders keynote where they were kind of announcing all the kind of like quality of life updates. they were quite interesting. I'd be curious to know if there were any that kind of stood out to you, as a longtime user of Webflow, if there was anything where you were like, Finally like

1:06:47Janne Parri: Yeah, the component stuff was like cool and I was waiting for those like default component within a component slot that's super handy and I believe it was announced a bit earlier but like the restrictions for the component slots those were handy. There were something else, but I gotta admit like Timothy Ricks kind of stole the show. So yeah it

1:07:13Ollie McMillan: Components enrich That was a big one for me. being able to have components enrich text, I think, is gonna save

1:07:20Janne Parri: Yeah, obviously. Yeah.

1:07:22Ollie McMillan: So many HTML embeds that I've got peppered throughout multiple client sites that I'm like, finally I can deprecate those. and my clients as well are gonna be super happy about that because it just allows them to move faster but also add some more you know, custom elements in the in their

1:07:41Janne Parri: Yeah, just like a button in a rich text field, like within a block. Like simple button. Well yeah, it is it was not like impossible with the old system, but that should have been easier, way easier a long time ago. So yeah, I'm excited about that too.

1:07:58Ollie McMillan: Something that I actually just on a an addendum to that, like I think they were demoing it as in like, you know, a block of rich text, then you can add like a component in line, so say like a kind of subscribe CTA that you might have in like a blog post or something like that. But I was looking at it and thinking, this is interesting 'cause it allows us maybe perhaps a modular way of assigning you know, a very large CTA the at the bottom of a page or something where perhaps you just have a section with a rich text element and then you bind that to the CMS and then you use a rich text field to then pull in the component that you want in that particular section.

1:08:36Ollie McMillan: So there's a way I mean it might be a bit clunky. It's like you know in the sense that you're using a rich text field to grab a component from your component library, as opposed to say having a native like component drop-down option in the CMS. But that was like one other way I was thinking of using it outside of, you know, inline CTAs that you would see in a long form article, so to speak.

1:09:02Janne Parri: That is true. That's that would be quite handy because it would be compatible with all the future components you would do. You wouldn't need to do like any if statements or anything like that. So yeah, that would be quite handy.

1:09:16Ollie McMillan: Yeah. Also you have overrides of those component props, for that component local to the CMS item as well. So that's another big win for that feature coming out. so it's not like a kind of one and done, it's this component with this content and that's it. Those overrides are there and they s they surface in the same way that a component would across any part of your site. So that I'm really Yeah, I'm really G'd up to try that out actually. Yeah, yeah.

1:09:44Janne Parri: Okay, I gotta let you go at some point to your plane leaves some sometime in the near future. but to wrap it up, was this a good Webflow Conf wa was this something that you expected? maybe on scale of from one to ten, how would you rate the Webflow Conf of twenty six?

1:10:06Ollie McMillan: I would rate it as like a solid eight, I think. I'm rating it high because everything that was announced for the most part was really promising. but the reason why it's not any higher is because a lot of the things that were announced aren't here yet, so we can't really for sure say how these things are gonna land or how Webflow's gonna stick the landing with these promises that they've made. but the little quality of life updates that have come out or coming out soon are like very welcome. and I think from a community perspective I'm like super happy that Timothy is there.

1:10:41Ollie McMillan: And also just from having my like opportunity to have conversations with folks on the Webflow team. Like yeah, we see the front facing kind of C-suite talking about features and you know posting on LinkedIn and various other things. But like the boots on the ground folks are actually building and working on the tool and you know, they really do care. it was great to finally meet them in person and have all of us virtual folks all kind of in a real room together. so that was the real highlight really catching up with folks and whale watching I went whale watching I have I haven't shut up about it.

1:11:18Ollie McMillan: Everyone's really annoyed that I keep going on about the whales, but yeah, hashtag whale. Yeah.

1:11:25Janne Parri: Yeah, I didn't know that was an option like for Boston, but cool, totally,

1:11:31Ollie McMillan: Yeah. That's great.

1:11:32Janne Parri: Totally cool. And yeah, I have some serious FOMO now that I have like met so many people with throughout this podcast, my LinkedIn feed was just full of like Webflow Conf posts like everybody like getting ready, getting to the city and so on. So yeah, I had a lot of FOMO. But yeah, I did the stream thing and there was a little like ace watch party so that was a good relief to like being able to talk about those things right after the keynote so yeah.

1:12:05Ollie McMillan: Absolutely. I'm glad. I'm glad that folks who are watching remotely were able to kinda like band together a bit. and share some discourse there. 'Cause yeah, I know we all have opinions. So it's good to allow them to air.

1:12:19Janne Parri: Yeah, totally, totally. Okay, there is one more weird thing at the end, but before that, like if someone wants to check you out, follow you, maybe message you, where should they go?

1:12:31Ollie McMillan: Gosh. I'm fairly active on both LinkedIn and Twitter. So that's fine. I mean my website as well, Ollie McMillan dot co dot UK. but that's just mainly just kinda like my work. But if you wanna just chat about stuff, find me on socials there, and Yeah, happily talk until you're fed up with me about Webflow stuff. Yeah.

1:12:52Janne Parri: Ha ha. Beautiful, beautiful. And I will obviously put all the relevant links in the description. But yeah.

1:12:58Ollie McMillan: Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

1:13:00Janne Parri: Ollie, do you have any ideas what might the last section be about?

1:13:05Ollie McMillan: No, you've got me there.

1:13:07Janne Parri: Haha beautiful, beautiful. This is the thing at the deep end, so to speak, that I do with all the guests. And it is this weird little Finnish section. Nathan actually came up with a good name for this. It is Finnish line because I will give you a line of Finnish, like a saying or a metaphor or something like that. I will translate that to English and your job is to guess what. what it is about, like what it what does that mean? So Ollie, are you ready for your saying?

1:13:38Ollie McMillan: No. We'll try.

1:13:40Janne Parri: I'll give it to you anyway. So okay, this is quite straightforward. Sometimes super weird and there's no chance of getting this, but I believe there is a chance for you. So firstly in Finnish it is toimi kuinan vessa. And in English it is works like a train toilet. So what does it mean? if I say that okay that thing works like a train toilet.

1:14:09Ollie McMillan: I'm assuming it's It's not built for its purpose. A Finnish train toilet's like really bad, like notoriously bad. That's my guess.

1:14:18Janne Parri: That's a good guess. That's a good guess. but it is actually almost like the opposite. Like it works flawlessly. Like there's no issues.

1:14:26Ollie McMillan: Was it because they did like they like properly like it's like a vacuum like on a plane or something? Like

1:14:34Janne Parri: Actually I believe this refers to like super old school train toilets where it was just like a hole So it was just like gravity pulling it pulling everything down on the ground.

1:14:45Ollie McMillan: I see. I see it's like super simple, not over engineered, it just does the job very simply. Yeah. okay, I get it. okay. Interesting. Is me thinking that all Finnish trains are terrible, dear.

1:14:58Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah, I believe nowadays Finnish trains are quite clean, quite good. obviously not the best toilet experience like in general, but manageable. Manageable, let's say. Yeah. Okay. thanks Ollie for being a guest. We did this qu

1:15:14Ollie McMillan: Thanks very much.

1:15:15Janne Parri: In quite short notice. And happy flight for you and for all the listeners and watchers. We'll see you in the next one. Bye.

1:15:23Ollie McMillan: Bye.