Are Free WordPress Themes Dead?

Alex Denning over at WPShout brings up an interesting point in his post titled Free WordPress Themes? Forget it. It’s Over. Basically, he argues that free WordPress themes aren’t getting the love and attention they used to, mostly due to commercial themes taking all the spotlight.

So do I think free WordPress themes dead? No, not necessarily. I’ll tell you what kind of themes are dead though, at least as dead as themes can get. Old, stale, and boring blog themes. Themes like this are a dime a dozen. The sheer quantity of these themes do make it hard for a “diamond in the rough” theme to stand out.

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Elegant Themes Releases New Theme Options Page

Elegant Themes, one of my favorite commercial WordPress theme clubs, have just announced they’ve released a new theme options page dubbed ePanel. Nick has been hard at work on this for quite a while now because he wanted a streamlined version of his theme options page to use on all of his themes.

ePanel

Read on to find out more about ePanel…

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Just Interviewed on WPTavern

In case you don’t follow me on Twitter and/or missed my tweet, I was interviewed on WPTavern yesterday, a well known WordPress community site run by Jeff Chandler. If you ever wanted to know…

  • How long I’ve been a part of the WordPress community
  • The process of releasing a theme on Theme Lab
  • Some of the lessons I can share when dealing with outside collaboration
  • What my daily routine consists of
  • With ThemeLab being responsible for over 90 themes, how much freelance work I have managed to undertake
  • Why I’ve decided to work with WordPress rather than other software
  • Some of the pains and tribulations of being a WordPress theme developer

…then be sure to check out the interview at WPTavern.