Comments on: WP.com Marketplace Idea

By: WordPress.com Introduces the Premium Theme Marketplace

WordPress.com Introduces the Premium Theme Marketplace — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:48:56 +0000

[...] launched a premium themes marketplace? Yes, yes they did.Matt Mullenweg brought this idea to light just 4 years ago, and it’s finally a reality.To kick off the launch of the premium marketplace, the Automattic [...]

By: WordPress.com introduces paid themes to their community | WPCandy

WordPress.com introduces paid themes to their community | WPCandy — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:19:28 +0000

[...] at WordPress.com is not a new idea. The discussion started at least as early as 2007 with a proposition by Matt Mullenweg on his blog. Now, a few years later, we see it begin to take shape on WordPress.com. Theme Wrangler [...]

By: The WordPress GPL Timeline | WPCandy

The WordPress GPL Timeline | WPCandy — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:56:51 +0000

[...] http://ma.tt/2007/11/wpcom-marketplace-idea/ [...]

By: Updates-Link-Love-3 | The Nexus

Updates-Link-Love-3 | The Nexus — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 12:24:19 +0000

[...] even the supposed ‘wordpress marketplace‘ as was suggested by Matt earlier will be on some level liable for breaches of [...]

By: jay

jay — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:47:42 +0000

I love the idea of a premium themes marketplace for the WordPress.com community. Can’t wait to get them. Its a great way to have a distinct look and more professional blog on the wp.com platform. Thanks Matt!

By: ole

ole — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:05:05 +0000

I think it’s a great idea and would immediately be in the market for 2-3 themes @ $50. However, being able to find the right theme out of 1000s would need to be addressed – I hate nothing more than browsing through endless themes with no real direction… a nasty way to waste a couple of hours. A great filter and recommendation system would be invaluable and some kind of “lightbox” would be handy too… you know, a place where I can put together a shortlist of themes I like.

By: Joni Mueller

Joni Mueller — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:20:09 +0000

I for one welcome the idea of premium themes, I like the way it’s being handled in that Matt & Co. will have guidelines for designers so that there won’t be the problem of unworkable unusable themes; they will all be designed around one spec (hopefully) and the latest version of WP. Much the same way that “themes” work at CSS Zen Garden is how they will (should) work in Matt’s model (am I correct, Matt?).

And as for support, since Matt will be putting up an author/designer page, I would hope that users of the Premium themes will avail themselves of the designer’s link and ask the designer for help with any problems.

And as a designer, I certainly would want to know if anyone has a problem with my themes (whether they are free or not), as my reputation is at stake either way.

And I don’t think it’s true that most WP.com bloggers are necessarily broke, poor or cheapskates. I think it’s a matter of convenience, and sometimes you just can’t tell what someone will decide to pay for. It may be convenient to be hosted at WP.com and yet have a nice slick design without having to “roll your own.” I have been doing web design for over three years and I just paid someone else to create a design for my personal blog. Why? I was in a design rut at the time, and it’s a bit like cooking. I may be a good cook (I am), but sometimes, it tastes better if someone else does the cooking for a change.

P.S. Sorry to be so longwinded.

By: Of WordPress Themes & Web Security - GigaOM

Of WordPress Themes & Web Security - GigaOM — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:58:21 +0000

[...] approach proposed by Matthew Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress, is a marketplace consisting of certified, GPL-li….”This is no different from malware, and in many ways much worse,” says Mullenweg. [...]

By: Polycom

Polycom — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:19:30 +0000

Matt, as long as free themes don’t go away, a premium site or marketplace for themes is a great idea. I find myself changing themes every quarter. This is because I always find something interesting on some other blog that I want to implement on mines. One day I’ll be happy with my theme, if I have to pay for that, that’s ok. Good luck.

is good

By: Marisa Duma

Marisa Duma — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:13:41 +0000

One reason why people choose free themes is because eventually they’ll have to customize the themes by themselves.
It’s a great idea, and WordPress needs the chance to grow and expand commercially too, but hopefully WordPress facilitates the marketplace to right market target, not just regular bloggers who would –for the love of WordPress!– spend nights grappling with the CSS and PHP files, making the most out of their WordPress blogs.

It’s love that makes loyalty. And love is free, people.

-Regular blogger-

By: Muslim Rahman

Muslim Rahman — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:06:30 +0000

Hi Matt,
I agree about you say:

I think people use WordPress.com mostly because of the easy of use, not because they can’t afford to pay anything.

Its really

By: Steffan Antonas

Steffan Antonas — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:07:41 +0000

I agree with Brian Gardner’s Comment -

“My suggestion is to offer the theme on your marketplace, allow designers to do the same on their sites and then point all support questions to the url of the designer’s theme, so we can deal with all of the support. – Brian”

A distributed system is definitely the way to go. Not only will the support be distributed, but designers get increased exposure too – and playing to designers’ wants and needs is key to the success of the market place – focusing on increasing incentives for designers will only result in a wider variety of themes and increased popularity of the Theme Marketplace.

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:30:02 +0000

Granted Quite an fascinating idea.

By: twigged.net » The best things in life are free

twigged.net » The best things in life are free — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:51:36 +0000

[...] all the recent talk of WordPress theme marketplaces and before that the surge of ‘premium theme’ sales [...]

By: Jauhari

Jauhari — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:28:49 +0000

This is interesting idea Matt I really appreciate it

By: Michael from Pro Blog Design

Michael from Pro Blog Design — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:24:31 +0000

Fair enough Matt. I suppose what it will come down to then is the size of the .org customer base, in comparison with the .com one.

By: David McKendrick

David McKendrick — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:59:41 +0000

@Michael,

I think that’s one of the points, is it’s essentially a way of convincing users to produce ‘better’ themes for .org (not that there aren’t a lot of exceptional ones in there already, though) & at the same time allow them to get some good ol’ coin.

Quite frankly, it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved I can’t wait to see it solidify & launch.

By: incorporated subversion - education, media, community » Blog Archive » Theme marketplace = A nice idea

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:26:39 +0000

[...] so much being written about the proposed wp.com theme marketplace that coming back from a few days offline (not even a working mobile!) any contribution to the [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 03:15:05 +0000

Michael, as a designer you can choose to promote the GPL version or not. However I think people will make so much from the theme marketplace that the .org side will be like a rounding error or not worth the trouble to set up a custom billing system, police piracy, do support, etc.

By: wp-fun » Blog Archive » Wordpress.com Theme Marketplace

wp-fun » Blog Archive » Wordpress.com Theme Marketplace — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:02:20 +0000

[...] The WordPress.com Theme Marketplace seems to be stirring up a lot of opinions and I’m not different. At first I thought it sounded like a really interesting prospect, but now I’ve read a lot of other opinions I can see how it really is a mixed bag. So what are the pros and cons? [...]

By: Michael from Pro Blog Design

Michael from Pro Blog Design — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:47:55 +0000

“Michael, are you familiar with how WordPress.com works? You can’t add arbitrary themes to it.”

Matt, I don’t think you understood what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say was about the enforced GPL license.

Because of that, I think the people this will appeal most to aren’t “premium” designers, but the designers who already add free to the WP.org directory. Once they’ve uploaded a regular theme there, then there would be no reason not to add it to the WP.com marketplace as well.

For designers looking to earn serious money, why would they want to release the theme for free?

By: WordPress.com Marketplace and The Theme Debate « Lorelle on WordPress

WordPress.com Marketplace and The Theme Debate « Lorelle on WordPress — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:10:08 +0000

[...] Marketplace and The Theme Debate Last week, Matt Mullenweg made public his idea on creating a WordPress.com Marketplace to add more options to WordPress.com bloggers for a fee, especially meeting the demands of so many [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:06:39 +0000

Oscar, part of what we’re developing is a system for automatically detecting things like that. Also part of our quality control for incoming themes is to make sure they use the correct API functions rather than direct database queries or other things that may be insecure or likely to break in the future. It’s in your interest to keep a theme updated though, so you can keep selling it to new users and the cost of updating is much, much lower than creating.

By: Oscar

Oscar — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:05:13 +0000

What would happen if tomorrow you remove a wp function I used in a marketplace theme ? Am I obligated to upgrade the theme ? What happens if I dont want to do that upgrade ?

By: Gunluk Gazeteler

Gunluk Gazeteler — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:07:16 +0000

Good news to template designers like me D