Wordpress To Host Premium Themes Marketplace
November 1, 2007 | By Tony Hung | Filed Under Blog News, Features
The year 2007 might be known for many things, but for the Wordpress community, it might be known for one additional thing: the rise in popularity of premium themes. Premium themes are themes which are usually of a high standard of quality, but since you’re paying something for them, it means that they aren’t available to everyone; more than that, paying for the theme usually gets you later upgrades if any should could out, and support when you’re installing them.
At a Wordpress Conference in Argentina, its been revealed that Wordpress will soon be releasing a Wordpress Premium Theme Marketplace, which will allow Wordpress Designers to promote their premium themes through a common site — which is in turn promoted throughout the Wordpress-o-sphere.
This is something that I’m sure all Wordpress Designers will want to keep in mind as the reported revenue share will be –gulp — 50% of the gross revenue per premium Wordpress Design. For new designers, this will be an excellent opportunity for free exposure, but for more experienced designers who have made a substantial name for themselves, it may be something they’ll want to mull over; 50% is a lot to hand over, but on the other hand the kind of exposure that you might get through such a marketplace is something that is hard to put a dollar figure on, particularly if it does well (as I’m sure you’ll be able to sort through “most popular” themes).
One issue that still remains to be seen if the premium themes marketplace is strictly for Wordpress.com hosted blogs, or, whether or not you’ll be able to download themes for independently hosted blogs. More on all of this as details come from the horse’s mouth in the upcoming days and weeks, I’m sure.
Update: In fact, the Themes Marketplace is only for blogs hosted at Wordpress.com; because they will be forced to be GPL-licensed, they will be “free to .org users”. More details at Matt’s site, but I’m reading this to mean that .org users will be able to download these themes gratis. Which, he acknowledges could encourage people to leap to a self-hosted site. If anyone else can figure out these economics let me know.
[tip: the inimitable Marshall @ Read/Write/Web]
About the author: Tony Hung is the editor of the BlogHerald. He is also a physician finishing his last year of residency in General Internal Medicine, and blogs at Deep Jive Interests , where he rants, occasionally, on new media topics.
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Interesting…especially when you see designers like Brian Gardner already doing this off his own back very successfully. Also, larger entities like Template Monster taking far less of a commission.
50% is a lot — but I suspect that many will still pay the commission. A case of a large part of a small pie, or small part of a very, very, very large pie. And to flog a metaphor, to some designers I’m sure the thought of such a tasty pie is tempting to pass up.
There are other aspects to this as well that harken to the general poo-pooing that Matt has done earlier in the year in the name of open source and whoops … here he is hosting premium themes, standing to make buckets (and buckets, and buckets) of cash.
But I suspect we’ll hear other voices on that matter quite soon about it. :)
Ha! Yeah- I thought that I’d let someone else pick up on that little irony…:-)
Sounds to good to believe this. An official announcement might help.
[...] it has been announced that Automattic will create a WordPress Theme Marketplace. I have to admit, that I am not happy about this idea, at [...]
Sounds like an awesome idea to put all the premium themes in one place. I won’t have to scour anymore to see all the themes.
[...] Original post by Tony Hung [...]
[...] The Blog Herald has some news up about an announcement made at WordCamp Argentina. Even more interesting than the announcement was the commentary from David Peralty. I already commented on it, and would encourage you to head over and check it out as well. [...]
[...] can read more about the WordPress Premium Theme Marketplace at Blog Herald, as well as my concerns and opinions on the whole [...]
Wow, 50 per cent is crazy. Plain and simple. I can’t see to many good designers signing up.
I’ll be curious to see if this takes form, and what the time frame would be. I’m guessing that they will still be selective on which themes make it into the marketplace. I’m not sure about charging .com users, but making it free to .org users? Maybe I’m reading Matt’s post wrong, but that’s how I interpret what he’s saying.
Guess I’ll have to put my thinking cap on shall I decide to be a part of this, because my Revolution themes can’t be included.
[...] Matt from Automattic the creator of WordPress blogging platform made an announcement at the WordCamp Argentina that WordPress will soon have a Themes marketplace to sell premium WordPress themes, how [...]
[...] from Automattic the creator of WordPress blogging platform made an announcement at the WordCamp Argentina that WordPress will soon have a Themes marketplace to sell premium WordPress themes, how sweet. All [...]
[...] Tony Hung points out that this should be a great way for upcoming designers to reach a big audience, and I agree - it sure is. But for people like me, who’s used to charge quite a bit more, it isn’t exactly a no-brainer, right? [...]
[...] announced the new WordPress.com Theme Marketplace. Some sites unfairly jumped the gun before Matt posted details of the Marketplace on his blog. I love the [...]
Meanwhile, even Moveable Type is letting you run your own theme viewer: http://www.movabletype.org/documentation/developer/plugins/style-repositories.html
50/50 is too much. Why have 1 centralized place for the best premium themes and lose half of your time? Independent designers can still work together to make sufficient wp themes. Anyway I think its bullcrap, wordpress is supposed to be one of the best open source tools out there. Now their tryin to steal half our money.
You just inspired me to buy a new domain: http://www.buywpthemes.com. I tell you what, ill split profit 25/75 :)
[...] company, through WordPress Marketplace, will get a 50% percentage cut from Wordpress theme sales. I was more than right after all in my original post: Matt had and Matt has financial interest in [...]
[...] I first read the post about the WordPress Theme Marketplace, I didn’t know it was for WordPress.com. That doesn’t change the validity of many of my [...]
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Netter Blog. Falls Ihr einen neuen kostenlosen Webkatalog haben wollt, schaut mal rein.
[...] Among the proposals under consideration, and I stress that, since this is not a done deal but an idea, is the selling of Premium WordPress Themes to WordPress.com bloggers. In Matt’s post, he comes up with a 50-50 split as an example, which has outraged many, and created a lot of speculation and false accusations. [...]
maybe http://wpremix.com/home/ will be one of them?
I may be late to the debate, but I gave it some thought and decided that our company should participate.
We do closed, proprietary themes for people who want custom designs, but we also now do GPL themes to give to the wider audience. Given that WordPress.com could take these GPL themes and do what they like with them anyway, it’s quite nice to be able to get money for them in return for giving WordPress.com first rights.
So what Matt’s doing, so far as I can see, is arranging a method by which GPL designers can potentially profit more significantly from their themes than currently. I can’t see why he’s getting so much flack for the plan. Non-GPL designers… well, you benefit from a GPL product (WordPress) anyway, so just continue as you are - you’re hardly losing!