Cutline, the now ubiquitous wordpress theme by Chris Pearson made a huge impact on the blogosphere soon after it was released to a hungry, theme devouring public.
Marketed as a quick way to double your visitor count it spread quickly though the wordpress community and soon became one of the more popular free themes around. It’s success was due in part to very clever marketing but also as a result of the themes straight out of the box useability.
Cutline brought, and continues to bring, massive traffic to its creator and its current owner.
As I have said before, traffic is money.
With Chris Pearson’s original work now showing its age there is an opportunity for a keen eyed wordpress theme designer to launch a better Cutline.
Get it right and you’ll probably make a fortune.
And, if you’ve recently designed a wordpress theme and think you’ve got it right leave a comment below. I’ll review the best ones and feature them in a forthcoming post.
It’s just been built: http://diythemes.com/thesis/
Looks very nice.
Thesis isn’t free! When I last checked it was around $80.
I make some money fixing these ‘premium’ themes when the authors charge for support. I’m not banging on anyone, but I haven’t seen to many themes out there worth 80 dollars. That a tank of gas here in SC, and maybe not even that. I tell users to find a theme that looks close to the premium they want and hack it.
its just a question of time and you will see those for free.
cya
Traffic is money! that sums it all up without question.
I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but I have recently designed a WordPress theme (that is what you mean by ‘a wordpress theme’, right? Sorry, I couldn’t resist a bit of annoying pedantry). And you DID say…
Admittedly, there was a catch: one is also required to think that one has got it right. I’m thinking positively. I think there’s a tremendous amount of poop, even when it comes to the ‘featured’ themes on the official directory. I hate to say it, but even the terrific-looking Upstart Blogger themes do happen to have scarily poor code – no wonder you have problems with IE (you should work for Google). I’m confident that http://oldpopularyolk.joshuagoodwin.com/ is a bit less poopy. There are some features still in my sleeves which will enhance ‘the themes straight out of the box useability [sic - sorry, must stop this]‘, but already I am flattered and amazed by the small heap of devourers.
I feel dirty, this self-publicity. Must stop. Sorry if I overdid it a bit.