There’s 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 debate has probably already been covered and I’m kinda off the boil anyway. But what the heck…
I reckon it’s a nice idea. ‘Nice’ in a whole heap of ways.
Nice work (if you can get it): Wp.com have a massive community of users, they’ve worked hard and invested a lot of money into this community – they’re now saying ‘hey, howabout you come and assist the site with good stuff in exchange for $’, now that isn’t exactly a new concept.
Nice GPL: Sweet, more support for people making great GPL themes that the rest of us can use or supply to others through Edublogs etc.
Nice cover: I actually didn’t really agree with the whole removing sponsored themes thing – it was getting a bit ugly but it was a way for talented theme designers to get paid – but this would more than make up for it… and it’s based on quality rather than sheer promotion.
Nice ‘facebook’ nice: Now, when facebook or myspace or whoever opens up APIs then they’re not doing this out of sheer altruism… but I don’t hear people getting all upset over that.
Sure it’ll (further) help turn Automattic into a very successful purchase or IPO, sure wp.com is a serious business (but, you can’t deny the blatantly obvious benefits of this to all WP users!) and sure we all love a conspiracy theory or several – me more than most ;) – but I reckon this is damn nice idea… extend it to upgrades too!