Wordpress.com Gets An Official Theme Team
Wordpress.com is one of the leading free and hosted blogging platforms on the net. It’s one of the easiest ways to get started blogging. But as with any hosted blogging solution, there are a few drawbacks, one of which is the limited number of templates or themes available.
Wordpress.com has perhaps gone farther than some competing platforms with new theme releases like Inuit, a theme offering drop down menus, a clean and classic look, and some other pretty features. The Wordpress.com scenery may be changing very soon with today’s announcement by Ian Stewart of Wordpress.com’s official Theme Team.
Apparently, some talented and creative people who care deeply about the Wordpress.com brand are committing their energy to providing some new and better themes with increased flexibility. Ian made six commitments in his post, but the last two are especially noteworthy…
5. We will teach WordPress developers to become the best theme developers in the world. If you’re a WordPress theme developer—commercial or 100% free—we want to help you be the best.
6. We will ensure all our improvements make it back to the open source community.
This is encouraging if you realize it means the Theme Team will not only benefit Wordpress.com users, but the entire Wordpress-loving community across the net. What is already one of the best and most flexible blogging platforms for designers and developers may be about to get a whole lot better.
In addition to serving as Editor of Fuel Your Blogging, Brandon is also a Pastor at Saddleback Church and Online Community Coordinator for Pastors.com. He’s also a web designer, blogger, and church communications consultant. Catch him on his own blog or on Twitter.
I wonder how this will change the premium theme market.
That’s a good question. The point of premium themes is that they go beyond the norm. Hopefully this will simply up the ante even more and demand even higher quality. We’ll see.
This is a very good thing!
Agreed!
totally! so excited to see where blogging goes in the next few years!
I just watched the old documentary about the birth of the web, “triumph of the nerds: 2.0.1″ in which one of the figures says (back in 1996), “I think we’re in the roaring 20’s of the web,” implying that we’re just getting a taste of it … looking at it nearly 15 years later, I think he hit the nail on the head.
You’re right. I often say that the internet is in its adolescence. Things are growing, but still a bit awkward. Who knows what the future of blogging will hold?
Brandon, as you know I’m an avid supporter of WordPress.com and I really pleased that they will be focusing on creating themes. I was going to change my theme but with so many new themes coming out, I think I’ll wait a few weeks to see what the team comes up with. Thanks for sharing this!
@Ileane
I think your wait will pay off. :)
I think this is a great sign that blogging in general continues to grow. I look forward to what the future has in store for blogging in general. Sorry I can’t visit more often Brandon I think you’re doing an amazing job here.
Thanks Brian – glad you stop by when you can!
Brandon, you’re everywhere! (OK, I stole that line from a friend I’ve known for a few years but she didn’t know I was a blogger. She suddenly found me on four blogs this week. Hah!)
I look forward to the new version, as always, but it mostly seems to be catching up to Thesis right now!
Your social bookmarking bar is awesome!
Alison, I try to be. :)
I’m afraid I’m not a big Thesis fan myself. It’s great straight out of the box for bloggers, but I don’t think it lives up to it’s reputation for developers. In fact, the new default theme in Wordpress 3.0 will compete with Thesis as a good framework for developers.
Hem… I really wonder how this situation will change the theme market.
Dana, I’m not sure it will change it at all at first. Most of the guys on the team have been releasing themes already – they’ll just be doing it under the hosted version of Wordpress which never accepted premium themes anyway. Time will tell.