This episode was the first in a series discussing the commercialization of WordPress. Within this episode, we talked with three commercial theme authors who are in the midst of maintaining a successful business. Joining us on the round table was Jason Schuller of Press75/ThemeGarden.com, Brian Gardner of Studiopress, and Cory Miller of iThemes. Considering the commercial theme market will be red hot this year, this episode gives those new guys or aspiring commercial theme authors plenty of food for thought. Also, Matt Mullenweg made a surprise appearance near the end of the show to ask some questions he had to the members of the panel. Jacob Goldman did a great job asking some meaty questions that were really business focused and I feel that just about anyone who listens to this episode will be able to learn a thing or two about the business of commercial themes.
Smashing Book Contest:
Want to win a copy of the Smashing Book and a chance to participate in our wrap up episode on April 24th? Help us publicize the special WordPress Weekly series on commercialization! Just follow @WPTavern and guest co-host @jakemgold on Twitter, and Tweet a message mentioning us both with a link to the most recent episode. We’ll randomly pick one of our favorite tweets right before the next show.
We’ll be giving a book away for each of the episodes (excluding wrap up). You can participate each week. Each contest starts at 2pm on Saturday with the show’s recording, and ends the following Friday evening. You may participate if you’re outside of the contiguous United States, but will be asked to cover shipping expenses.
If we get over 500 participants in the contest, before the wrap up show, we’ll also give away one copy of Smashing WordPress
Ad Copy:
This episode is also sponsored by EnvironmentsForHumans.com This is an organization that brings together expert speakers on a given topic exploring that topic from different angles. While they recently had a WordPRess Workshop, the next event will be a UX Web Summit on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT). This event will teach people how to improve their websites so that they are more responsive to visitors as well as making this more usable. If you’re interested in this summit, visit UXWebSummit.com
Stories Discussed:
WordPress 3.0 Beta 1 Was Released Friday Evening
Announcements:
Part 2 of this series will take place on April 10th with the Commercial Plugins roundtable features Carl Hancock of Gravityforms, Ronald Huereca of Ajax Edit Comments and Jonathan Davis of the Shopp plugin.
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Next Episode: Saturday, April 10th 2P.M. EST
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Length Of Episode: 2 Hours 12 Minutes
Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode94.mp3
Listen To Episode #94:
That was a great episode, Jacob was very good, I love his inquisitive, hard-driving style, it is a good contrast to your friendly, whimsical style, the two of you make an excellent team.
Was interesting to hear the themers discuss their businesses, wonderful that they are all still well-disposed towards one another. I am a customer of both Brian and Cory, they both offer great value and, as they explained in the show, they do a lot of evangelize WordPress. More importantly, in embracing the GPL, they share the community’s wider vision.
Matt’s appearance was a nice surprise, I hope that will do something to lessen the misinformed FUD that has been floating around the Tavern; for as long as I can remember, Matt has been crystal clear that he wants to see businesses built upon the WordPress platform to thrive.